Stevens Canyon Road (Santa Clara County)

[Max Rockatansky]

This was another gem that I found recently while traveling through Santa Clara County:

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCZ7Ps

The summary I just drafted on Gribblenation:

"Stevens Canyon Road is an approximately 7-mile rural highway located partially in the city of Cupertino and in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Stevens Canyon Road begins at McCellan Road in Cupertino and follows the course of Stevens Creek into the San Andreas Fault Rift Zone to a dead-end terminus at the Stevens Canyon Trail.

Stevens Canyon Road was once continuous with Stevens Creek Road.  Both corridors were named after Elijah Stephens who was once of the leaders of the 1844 Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party expedition.  The Stevens Canyon Road corridor has been in use since the 1870s as it was the fastest way from West Side (now Cupertino) to Saratoga Gap (California State Route 9).  Stevens Creek County Park was plotted along the corridor in 1924 as the first Santa Clara County Park.  In 1935 a portion of the northern end of the roadway would be realigned to make way for the Stevens Creek Reservoir."

The segment of Stevens Canyon Road atop the San Andreas Fault is quite sublime.  I'll eventually need to come back and try the Stevens Canyon trail past Redwood Gulch Road:

0 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

1 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

Interestingly signage from I-280 seems to indicate that Santa Clara County has County Route G5 south of the freeway.  I found no additional reassurance shields south of I-280 on Foothill Boulevard or Stevens Canyon Road.  It would actually make for a decent extension south of the Foothill Expressway to CA 9:

IMG_4913 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr