How Far the Trail Behind Almaden Lake Really Goes

Most people who park at Almaden Lake Park walk the loop around the water, let the dog off leash near the swim beach, and turn back before the trail leaves the manicured part of the park. That's a fine walk. It's also maybe a third of what's actually there.

The paved path that starts at the lake's southeast gate doesn't stop at the picnic tables. It's the Los Alamitos Creek Trail, a joint project of the City of San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley Water District, and it runs south along the creek for about 4.7 miles before it hits McKean Road. From there, a short stretch of city streets connects you to the Mockingbird Hill entrance of Almaden Quicksilver County Park, which has 37 miles of trails, a mining museum, and the stone ruins of a former mining town. Almaden Lake to English Camp, without a car, is a route that exists right now and that most residents who live within walking distance have never followed to the end.

What the paved trail actually covers

The Los Alamitos Creek Trail begins at Almaden Lake, crosses a bridge near the lake's southeast gate, and follows the creek south. It's flat, fully paved, and about six feet wide the whole way, which is why it draws such a mixed crowd: dog walkers, joggers, parents with strollers, and a steady stream of equestrians, since Almaden Valley still has working horse properties tucked behind some of its newer subdivisions. There's even a trailside paracourse for anyone who wants to turn the walk into a workout.

The trail parallels Camden Avenue for a stretch, crosses it at a signaled pedestrian crossing, and continues along the creek's west bank past Queenswood Way and under the Almaden Expressway bridge. It ends near the intersection of McKean Road and Harry Road. Along the way it passes Pfeiffer Park, and restrooms are available at Greystone Park near Camden Avenue and Mt. Carmel Drive, which makes a natural turnaround point if the full distance isn't the goal.

At Camden Avenue, a second option branches off: the Calero Creek Trail, a straighter paved path running alongside Camden Avenue toward Harry Road, mostly used by cyclists connecting toward Calero County Park. Locals coming from the Almaden Lake side sometimes call the whole thing one continuous trail, but it's really two separate paved corridors that happen to share a crossing.

The part most people never reach

Here's the piece that changes what the trail means. From the McKean Road terminus, if you head southwest past Almaden Road and up Mockingbird Hill Lane, you land at the Mockingbird entrance to Almaden Quicksilver County Park. It's a short stretch on city streets, not signed as trail, which is probably why so few people make the connection on foot. Cyclists do it more often, using the creek trail as what one longtime local trail guide calls an expressway to the park.

Once you're inside Quicksilver, the character of the walk changes completely. The paved creek trail is flat and shaded; the park is 37 miles of hiking trails, including 30 miles open to horses and nearly 17 miles of bike trail, climbing into oak woodland and grassy ridgeline with views back over the valley and, on clear days, out to the Santa Cruz Mountains. This was once the site of what's described as the world's second-largest quicksilver mine, and the park still shows it. The park's Casa Grande building houses a mining museum with exhibits on the people who worked and lived in the mining settlements, and the Hacienda entrance itself displays outdoor mining equipment, including relics from the New Almaden and Guadalupe mines. Further into the park, the ruins of English Camp, a former mining town, sit along the Mine Hill Trail.

If you're mapping the whole thing out, here's roughly what each entry point gets you.

The Virl Norton Trail is worth calling out on its own, since it's part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, the long-planned corridor meant to eventually ring the entire Bay Area. Walking it from the Mockingbird entrance means you're on a small piece of a trail system that, in theory, connects to ridgelines dozens of miles away.

A few things that change the walk depending on the season

None of this is a groomed park path once you're past the creek trail. A few details from people who hike it regularly are worth knowing before you go. The New Almaden Trail, one of the routes reachable from Mockingbird, gets ticks in the grassy sections after the creek crossing near that entrance, enough that regular hikers recommend long pants and a tick check afterward. Water is limited once you're inside Quicksilver. Potable water is only available at the Hacienda and Mockingbird entrances themselves, not along the interior trails, so anything past those points means carrying what you need. Wildlife sightings are common and unremarkable to locals but worth a mention for anyone new to the area: deer, wild turkey, and coyote all turn up regularly along both the creek trail and the park's interior paths.

The creek trail side has its own rhythm. Birders who walk it regularly report the stretch between Almaden Lake and the Camden Avenue bridge as the busiest and birdiest, with oak titmouse, Bewick's wren, and white-breasted nuthatch as reliable sightings in the trailside oaks and sycamores. Fall brings a real shift in the light along this stretch, since the creek corridor's old sycamores color and drop before most of the surrounding neighborhood does.

Why this matters right now

Almaden Lake Park itself is getting a moment this fall. The Water Lantern Festival returns to the park on November 15, 2026, with gates opening at 2 p.m., lantern decorating starting around 4:30 p.m., and the lantern launch between 5 and 6 p.m. It's become something of a fixture at the lake over the past several years, and it's a good example of how the park functions as both the neighborhood's everyday trailhead and its occasional event space. If you're planning to be at the lake that weekend anyway, it's worth remembering that the same gate you're walking through to get a lantern kit is the same gate that, if you kept walking south instead of turning toward the festival grounds, would eventually put you in front of mining ruins that date back to the 1840s.

That's really the point of laying all this out. The Los Alamitos Creek Trail gets treated like a neighborhood amenity, something you use for twenty minutes before dinner. It's also the on-ramp to one of the larger and more historically distinct county parks in the South Bay, reachable without ever getting in a car. Most people who live here know one end of that trail intimately and have never seen the other.

A route to actually try

If you want to test this without committing to the full nine-mile round trip, a few options work depending on time and ambition:

1. Short version: Almaden Lake to the Camden Avenue bridge and back, about 3 miles round trip, flat and shaded most of the way.
2. Half-day version: Almaden Lake to the McKean Road terminus and back, roughly 9 to 10 miles round trip, doable on foot for a fit walker or an easy bike ride.
3. Full version: Almaden Lake to McKean Road, then the street connector to the Mockingbird entrance, with a loop on the Hacienda and Virl Norton Trails before heading back. Plan for the better part of a day, carry your own water past the entrance, and expect a real climb once you're inside the park.

However far you take it, the walk says something true about this part of San Jose: the quiet, paved parts of the neighborhood and the rougher, older parts of its history sit closer together than the daily routine usually reveals.

If you're weighing a move within Almaden Valley or just want a neighbor's read on how a specific block relates to the trail system, Aaron Derbacher knows this stretch of San Jose block by block. Let's Connect.