From my house in San Jose, it's about 25 miles to Coyote Hills and it took me about
2 hours to reach them at a leisurely pace. I took the
Guadalupe River Trail past the 
San Jose Airport,
followed by a series of bike paths on commericial streets through San Jose, Milpitas,
Fremont and Newark. There is a good deal of 
construction in North San Jose, a
testament to the robust economy in Silicon Valley. I rode past the new
Seagate building
along I880 - what used to be the Solyndra Fab 2 building when it was commissioned shortly
before Solyndra went bankrupt in the consolidation of the Solar panel industry. Solyndra
made national news for months because it had taken some $535 million of federal money
down with it in 2011. Though lawsuits are still pending, so far no one has faced criminal
charges or paid civil penalties.
When I reached 
the park
shortly before noon, I found the place fairly quiet. A few school
groups were taking tours through the wetlands or eating lunch at one of the picnic areas,
but the 
Visitor Center was closed on Tuesday and I saw only a few others out
on the trails. The hills are mostly 
grass slopes with some
trees scattered about and more heavily found on the north sides and in gullies.
Park maps are readily available at several locations, but they aren't all that necessary
as the hills are somewhat small and easy to navigate around. Of the two summits I visited
in the park, 
Red Hill is really just 
a benchmark off to the side
facing the SF Bay, with perhaps 15ft of prominence. 
The highpoint is
Red Hill Top, just under 300ft in height, about a quarter mile to the northeast of the
other, with its own benchmark (the benchmark was actually missing, but I found one of the
reference marks). 
Picnic tables are sprinkled around the hills
offering wonderful lunch spots when the wind isn't blowing. The weather today was quite
mild, no wind and hazy marine conditions - it was difficult to tell 
the horizon
from the sky and the water, not the best day for photos.
About a mile north is Turk Island, a mere 116ft in height, found on the other side of
the Coyote Hills Slough. Trails connect the two areas, but the nice pavement gives way
to about three miles of gravel pathway along the north side of the slough - a bit rough
on the road bike. Visitors aren't exactly welcome on 
Turk Island as the area
is part of a wildlife sanctuary - various shorebirds with long legs and beaks probing
the mud in the shallow waters for snacks. The summit of Turk Island has a small
rock outcrop with its own 
benchmark. All
of the summits provide fine views across the Bay and the surrounding communities, though
today the visibility was particularly poor.
The return was uneventful until I got a screw in the front tire when passing one of the
construction sites. The wood screw had been meant to hold a piece of plywood or sheetrock
in place, but somehow found its way to the street and my tire. Drats. Luckily I was
prepared with a spare tube and it proved only a 
minor inconvenience. I was
back home just as the family was returning from their various schools, overall a nice
way to spend the day...