Los Trancos Open Space Preserve

Los Trancos Open Space Preserve covers about 274 acres at roughly 2,000 feet in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Palo Alto, and the San Andreas Fault runs right through it. That makes it one of the best places in the Bay Area to see earthquake geology up close: the easy 1.5-mile San Andreas Fault Trail, set up in 1977 with help from Foothill College geology professor Tim Hall and his students, is a self-guided interpretive walk that shows how the fault has shaped the landscape. A longer 2.5-mile trail passes seven points of interest through grassland, chaparral, and mixed evergreen forest, climbing about 500 feet and taking one to three hours.

The air here smells of bay leaves, grass, and damp woods, and the preserve alternates between grassy knolls, oak woodland, and cool shaded forest. On clear days you can pick out San Francisco's skyline and Mount Diablo across the bay. The land was once part of a 13,300-acre ranch and later belonged to Louis Oneal, a San Jose attorney and state senator who raised horses; a planned subdivision was stopped after a study showed how costly city services in the foothills would be, and Midpen bought most of the property in 1976.

Dogs and bikes are not allowed; horses are allowed on designated trails. The entrance is on Page Mill Road, 7 miles west of I-280 and 1.5 miles east of Skyline Boulevard, with 23 spaces plus one accessible space; restrooms and more parking are across the road at Monte Bello.