I did another long brisk cruise today, mostly to the north. I took the Coyote Creek Trail to the first flood, then worked around it on Monterey Highway. I knew there was another flood north of Blossom Hill Rd, so left the trail and worked my way over to Hellyer Ave, which got me to Hellyer Park. I wanted to check out the velodrome, but ran into yet another flood right before it. I’m signed up for an event “HPV fun day” there on May 21st. I hope either the floods go down by then or we can come up with an alternate solution, as the only other access to the velodrome is via an alternate pedestrian-only entrance with no parking. I had the sad duty of informing the organizers of the event about the situation.
I retraced my steps on Hellyer Ave and the trail as far as Metcalf Ave, then took Monterey Highway home because I was running a bit late. Monterey Highway is a four-lane road with fast traffic, but it has a wide bike lane so is still pretty pleasant to ride next to.
Some interesting rock formations in the foothills East of Hellyer Ave.
Inside Hellyer Park. Yet another place Coyote Creek floods the road. The white in the distance beyond the orange barrier is the concrete wall at the top of Hellyer Velodrome
This is looking out on Coyote “Creek” from the bridge on Metcalf Road (towards the pedestrian bridge on the trail). The “Creek” looks more like a river this year. Anderson Dam is still about 40% full from all the rain we got earlier this year. The water is continuously gushing out of the outlet pipe at the bottom, but it will take many more weeks until the dam is empty, which it needs to be so work can proceed on the next stage of the seismic retrofit.