INCH Hike: The HP Way #2

33. The HP Way #2 (09/13/25)

Hikers (6): Hong, Mihail, Peter M, Qi, Steve, Susan S
Distance: 13 miles
Rating: 3 difficulty, 8 beauty
Park info: Grant Ranch County Park near San Jose

Write-up by Steve -- Pictures by Susan S, Hong and Steve

The Nature Conservancy bought up a bunch of land adjacent to Grant Park, so figured it was time to leverage that ambiguity to reach a minor peak known as San Felipe Hills South. We'd long ago done the more prominent northern peak of this range.

On the way there, a view of Mount Hamilton from an atypical angle

If this particular peak were your life's goal, it could be done in a shorter route, but we love a loop and started from Twin Gates with a longer route through Grant and Nature Conservancy property to enjoy new trail. It worked out well although with many stops. We were going much slower than expected, so I made an audible to shorten the hike. This mostly involved spending more time on the "main road" and hopping a fence before Divide Springs, which is still private property.

Chill summit buck who endured many, many pictures. Truly, he could give a "buck" and hung out for a good 15 minutes

Others at the summit, Qi taking pictures of that buck in the background

Mihail at the highest point

After enjoying the summit, and its chill buck, we were surprised to encounter some hunters back on Nature Conservancy property. It was an amicable conversation but they asserted priority of killing things on such property which I had nothing to contest (nor care about in this situation) but was sort of curious to the Nature Conservancy's end goal. Land use is definitely a complicated topic.

Mt Isabel with a majority of the route exposed

From there, it was mostly downhill until the dramatic part where it's uphill. . .but we all survived successfully.

Right near the end of the hike, we considered trespassing. However, Peter M fell down, so we turned back.