Checking out the Middle Road on the Grizzly Flat North Trail

Short stop on a bike ride to check out an old road I saw near the middle of the Grizzly Flat / North Trail in Upper Stevens Creek County Park. Wanted to see where it went and if it may have connected down to the end of the 1897 road at the end of Stevens Creek Branch D.

This road doesn't appear on any maps. It looks like it may been constructed around the same time as the Grizzly Flat road. Grizzly Flat North Road first appears on the 1961 USGS topo map.

There appear to be at least 3 roads that come together at the bottom of the Branch D canyon. 2 of them seem to be quite old based on their minimal construction. Then this road seems more modern in terms of wider radius turns and that it joins up to an existing road. But then the question is, what was this built road for? Were the 2 older roads in the canyon still in use when this road was built? If not, then why did this road go down to the same area that the 2 old roads seem to meet up in? Maybe this road was abandoned when the county acquired this land for the county park in 1965.

This road is worth of a return visit when I have some more time and also some leg covering in case it gets more overgrown as it descends. As is, I only had on my cycling shorts and luckily the upper 200 yds. I travelled was quite passable. Hopefully can make it to the bottom and see if there's any sign of these old roads connecting as it appears on the hill shade map.

About the USGS HTMC:
https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past

View/download maps on the TopoView site:
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/

I used the 1897 Palo Alto quadrangle or the 1900 historical topo as listed in GaiaG:
https://www.gaiagps.com/

More to come...
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