Black Mountain – the hike to nowhere

I have hiked the P&E trail many times 10 – 15 years back when I used to live in Cupertino and the park was literally my backyard. However, I have never gone past the P&E bench at the Cayote trail turnoff. This is the first time going up to the summit of Black Mountain. I have seen several of peers in the Running app log runs to Black Mountain in 2hrs. So it was a bit humbling to slow walk it to the summit in 3hrs. I call it the trail to nowhere, as the trail ends what seems to be a summit but has no special views. I had an early start at 7AM (given I had a 1hr drive from East Bay to the trail head). The parking lot was full even at 7AM, so had to find street parking a mile away. The closest lot to the trail head has been turned into Carpool lot, so if you are hiking as a group, get there in one car. The trail has lots of people the first couple of miles but thins out the upper half (guess most turn around half-way). The weather was not very warm to begin with and trail has decent shade all through. The last on the Black Mountain trail was very exposed, however there was a cool breeze blowing and was a pleasant walk up to the summit. As mentioned there was nothing to see or do at the summit, so had a quick turnaround. Not a remarkable trail overall, but has decent elevation gain and 12 – 13 miles is a good training hike.