Los Trancos Creek
| Los Trancos Creek | |
| Los Stancos Creek, Los Staneos Creek, Stancos Creek, Strancos Creek |
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| stream | |
 Los Trancos Creek just upstream from Piers Lane Bridge with perennial pools at end July 2011.
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| Name origin: Spanish language | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| State | California |
| Region | Northwestern Santa Clara County and southeastern San Mateo County |
| Tributaries | |
| - right | Buckeye Creek (East Fork Los Trancos Creek) |
| City | Portola Valley, Menlo Park, Stanford University |
| Source | |
| - location | Los Trancos Open Space Preserve on the northwest slope of Monte Bello Ridge |
| - elevation | 2,080 ft (634 m) |
| - coordinates | 37°24′26″N 122°14′15″W / 37.40722°N 122.23750°W |
| Mouth | San Francisquito Creek |
| - location | West edge of Stanford University below Interstate 280 |
| - elevation | 164 ft (50 m) |
| - coordinates | 37°24′50″N 122°11′30″W / 37.41389°N 122.19167°WCoordinates: 37°24′50″N 122°11′30″W / 37.41389°N 122.19167°W |
Los Trancos Creek (meaning "barriers" or "cattle guards" from the Spanish "Las Trancas") is a creek that flows northerly from Monte Bello Ridge on the northeast slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains to its confluence with San Francisquito Creek at Stanford University in California, United States of America. The creek forms the boundary between northwestern Santa Clara County and southeastern San Mateo County.
Los Trancos Creek drains an area of about seven square miles and consists of about 6.6 miles (10.6 km) of channel. Its headwaters are protected by the Los Trancos Open Space Preserve just northwest of Page Mill Road. The next watershed to the west is Corte Madera Creek, another tributary of San Francisquito Creek. The confluence of Los Trancos Creek with San Francisquito Creek occurs just below Piers Lane Road (between Interstate 280 and the Stanford Golf Course) in a small residential island of land belonging to Menlo Park within Stanford's lands.
In 1929 Stanford installed a diversion dam on Los Trancos Creek to its Felt Lake water storage reservoir. The dam, located just below the intersection of Arastradero and Alpine Roads, blocked access of anadromous Steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) to over 3 miles (4.8 km) of pristine upstream spawning grounds. In 2009, Stanford University completed construction of a new fish screen and ladder as the previous fish ladder was an "Alaska Steep Pass" designed for much higher flows. The upper watershed is wholly protected within the Los Trancos Open Space Preserve just northwest of Page Mill Road and east of Skyline Boulevard. Spawning steelhead in Los Trancos Creek below the Felt Lake diversion dam vary from zero in drought years to several hundreds in wetter years and occurs from February to April. Steelhead spend two years in freshwater before heading to the Bay and field studies in the Stanford portion of Los Trancos Creek have found hundreds of young trout ranging from ~140 per mile to nearly 600 per mile.
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Wikipedia