Waterfall, Rainbow, and Clouds, 12/26/12, Santa Teresa County Park

I started here at the Hidden Springs Trailhead. It was pretty wet. The trail to the right goes up to Coyote Peak. I took the trail to the left.

This is the start of the Hidden Springs Trail going north. It was wet in places, requiring stepping carefully around the puddles. I could hear the falls in Laurel Canyon. As I climbed up the trail, I could see the waterfall in Laurel Canyon, which is below Coyote Peak. However, because of trees blocking the view of the falls, there are only a few places where it can be seen.

Along the trail is a large blue oak tree. In the distance, looking through the branches is a waterfall, falling into Laurel Canyon.

Shooting through the branches of the blue oak tree, I could see the waterfall tumbling down the steep canyon in several steps.

As I was taking pictures, it started to rain. Then I noticed a rainbow briefly appeared over the Santa Teresa Golf Course and the Ohlone Trail. The end of the rainbow was right over the Laurel Canyon Nature Trail. The little creek below was fed by the waterfall.

Looking north along the Hidden Springs Trail. In the distance is Edenvale.

As seen from the Hidden Springs Trail is the new, but unoccupied police station. HGST's disk drive facility is on the left. Along the based of the hills is the Edenvale Technology Park. On top of the hills are the luxury homes of the Silver Creek area.

Seen from the Hidden Springs Trail is Kaiser San Jose Medical Center on the left and the HGST site on the right.

Downtown San Jose as seen from the Hidden Springs Trail.

Returning on the Hidden Springs Trail, in the distance on the left is Coyote Peak. Deer are grazing on the hillside on the right.

This is a closer view of the grazing deer, with the waterfall in the background.

Closeup of the deer.

I went back to the Pueblo Are. This is a seasonal creek above the Pueblo Area, with Rocky Ridge and the Pueblo Trail in the background.

This is the little creek flowing down into the Pueblo Area. Normally, it's dry.

Here are the horseshoe pits and the group picnic site in the Pueblo Area.

I went down to the last parking lot at the end of the Pueblo Area and took pictures along the Mine Trail. I used the 20X zoom in my compact camera to take the 2 pictures below:

Deer on the hill above the Mine Trail.

Mt. Umunhum

High Dynamic Range Pictures

It was nearing sunset. The cloud formations looked promising. I thought I could get some nice sunset pictures, so I grabbed my DSLR and tripod. I set the camera to auto-bracket and burst mode, in aperture priority mode. It took 3 pictures in rapid succession at different shutter speeds, 1 EV apart. That wasn't enough latitude to capture the whole range of light, so I manually tweaked the exposure several EV's higher and lower. The clouds were moving quickly, so I had to act fast. Later I combined the pictures with Photomatix and tweaked the final shots in Photoshop Elements. Each shot below is a composite of 3-4 pictures.

Stone water trough for horses, at the start of the Mine Trail, with the sun setting behind Mt. Umunhum.

Mine Trail below the Pueblo Area.

Pueblo Area, looking north.

The old corral at the Pueblo Area.

View of the Pueblo Area and Coyote Peak from the parking lot on Bernal Road. The Muriel Wright center is on the left.

Another view from the same area a little later, with Bernal Road on the left.

Another view a little later from a slightly different angle.

This is the start of the Mine Trail below the Bernal Road parking lot. The hill in the distance is part of Rancho San Vicente. Behind it is Mt. Loma Prieta in the Sierra Azul Range.