These pictures are from a trip to Henry Coe State Park ~15 miles South of San Jose, CA. The group consisted of me, Rion, Don, and John. You couldn’t ask for a better group of guys. Among us were a Vietnam Vet and a retired police officer; great stories around the “camp fire” (no open fires allowed). We got to the park around 9:30am on Saturday and headed out to our home for the night, a camp at Los Cruzeros. The hike out was beautiful as the fog lifted just as we were starting out. It was still clearly visible retreating over nearby hills. The day turned out sunny and warm. The flowers, which Rion called out by name, were numerous and in full color. The trail immediately lost elevation from park HQ then followed a ridgeline for several miles. We then lost more elevation, dropping into a valley. After a brief stop for lunch near China Hole at the bottom of the valley, we forded a couple of creeks; the same creek twice actually, and headed up a long road out of the valley. The crest of the road opened on to some wide open fields of grass waving in the wind. If you ignore the surrounding terrain, it looked a little like young Kansas wheat fields. A short descent along the road brought us to our home for the night, a flat area just a few meters from a small stream. We passed the rest of the day, throwing a Frisbee Don had brought along, resting, wading, and exploring the immediate area. Supper that night was a rare treat for a backpacking trip. Rion had carried ingredients for a homemade meal, no dehydrated food for us. The dish consisted of hamburger, tomatoes, onion, green pepper, and fresh herbs over bow tie pasta. It was quite good, and plenty to go around. As night approached, we were anticipating some prime star-gazing. We were in store for a dark night, since the moon was only one night old. The night started out great, we spotted the easy target (Big Dipper, Orion, Polaris, etc..), but slowly the fog crept in and dimmed the stars. The next morning found the fog still hanging around. We ate a quick breakfast, cleaned up camp and headed toward the Narrows. Our options for returning to HQ were: return the way we came, take a fire road, or hike through a sharp valley cut by a small creek. We didn’t even consider hiking back the way we had come (where’s the adventure in that?) and the fire road would add 4-5 miles onto our journey, so we settled on the Narrows. The hike proved to be fairly easy, but during the frequent rock to rock jumps to cross the creek half the party ended up standing in water. The hike after the Narrows was mostly a gradual uphill (with some not too gradual) to the park HQ.
Overall, we didn’t too many people during the hike, and we had lots of space and privacy at the camp. All of the recent rains made for pretty green hills and lots of pretty flowers. A few weeks and things will look very different, I think we hit the perfect weekend.
