Huddart park is one of the hidden gems in the SF bay area. The park is nestled in the hills overlooking the Crystal springs reservoir. The park is accessible from the famed Kings mountain road which is very popular with cyclists. If you drive to the park in the early part of the day, you can see cyclists agonizing their way up this steep mountain road.
We decided to do a early morning hike starting at the park. The park charges a $6 entry fee to park at the park, so make sure you have the cash in hand. However when we got there around 6.30am we realized that the park gates don't open until 8am. We drove up along the Kings mountain road towards Skyline looking for a place to park. The road is very narrow, so this is more difficult than it sounds. Finally a couple of miles up the road we found a pullout area with parking spaces that we could park in. From there we used the Archery fire road and then Dean trail to get to the original trail we wanted to hike, the scenic Crystal Springs trail. Dean trail was a really beautiful trail with waterfalls and picnic benches, would love to come back and hike this trail in the future. The goal was to do a full loop with the Crystal springs trail and Lonely trail through the Phleger estate. However I had to finish up by 11am, so we quickly decided this was not going to happen and we were only going to hike a part of the Crystal Springs trail and then double back.
The trail is a beautiful trail surrounded by old growth Douglas Fir and Coastal Redwoods. You can also see strands of Madrona trees with their beautiful colored burnt orange barks along the trail. Due to the recent rain everything was verdant and beautiful! The tree barks were all covered in bright green moss. The trail was a little slippery due to all the water, but it was manageable. I did see some fog lower down the hill, but none where we were hiking, I would love to come back and shoot this setting with some fog.
Huddart park is also one of the best places to shoot the beautiful Pacific Madrone trees, you can see old growth really large Pacific Madrone trees and you can also big clumps of these trees growing together.
There were very few hikers/runners on the trails until around 9am after which it started to get a bit crowded. We took a wrong turn on the Archery fire road on the way back and needed to hike up the hill again, which was quite strenuous.
Overall this is one of the best locations for winter photography in the South bay and I look forward to visiting this park again.