Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve is managed by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in Santa Clara County, California. It's approximately 17,000 acres (69 km2) in area. The park features the Sierra Azul range's peaks of Mount Umunhum, Mount Thayer, and El Sombroso (with El Sombroso being the only publicly accessible peak) Trails connect from Lexington Reservoir on the western edge of the park, to Hicks Road on the eastern edge.
Parts of Sierra Azul are not yet open to the public, but many sections are, and these include miles of trails, old roads (some paved, some not), a manmade lake, Cherry Springs Lake, and other amenities. The terrain varies from wooded creek canyons to chaparral hills with views to open meadows.
Famous quotes containing the words open, space and/or preserve:
“Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—
which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.”
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
“When my body leaves me
I’m lonesome for it.
but body
goes away to I don’t know where
and it’s lonesome to drift
above the space it
fills when it’s here.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“But the impressions which the morning makes vanish with its dews, and not even the most “persevering mortal” can preserve the memory of its freshness to midday.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)