Henry Coe State Park November 2, 2013

[Skyline35]

Start, Hunting Hollow, 8:30am, 37º with a breeze, brrrrrr. Happily the day quickly changed into a beautiful Fall day. I rode the awesome Anza Trail » Jackson Trail » Elderberry Spring Trail » Rock Tower Trail » Domino Pond Trail » Cattle Duster Trail » Coit Springs Trail » Cross Canyon Trail » Kelly Cabin Canyon Trail » Kelly Lake sequence of single-track trails. 8.3 miles, 2,350 footies including ~2.5 miles of streambed trails. So great!

Then I went from Kelly Lake to Coit Lake (2 fishermen) to Hoover Airstrip which is the "Gateway to WhiteTank/Rose Dam Trails". What It Was Like Out There™



White Tank Spring Trail



On to Pacheco Camp where I found the 2013 Henry Coe Adventure Trex campsite:







It's always fun to talk with endurance athletes...they're exhausted and excited at the same time. The two I spoke with (at 2pm) had been up since 10pm Friday roaming the Coe countryside looking for checkpoints on a moonless night with only map & compass and now they had a required 8 hour rest period. Their starting point was Dowdy Ranch.

The EMS guy stationed there said that organizer, Vladimir, was having a bad weekend. On Friday his car broke-down. For Saturday he rented a SUV which he had now driven off the side of the road.

I left Pacheco Camp to do a Phoneline/Ridge trail figure-8, maybe even extending it to Laural Trail (that would be tight on time). I soon crossed paths with Meí’s buddy, MarkTheTrailHunter and we chatted for a bit. He had a sweet new XXL Tallboy. I wondered if I should have gotten a Tallboy instead of the Blur?

After that I zipped down Phoneline, “zipped” until I dropped a chain at that first very-off-camber switchback. :-(  Also began to notice that the front brake wasn’t sounding happy.

As I looped back around on Coit Road, I came upon the scene of Vladimir’s accident. He had gotten a tow truck out there (!) and the driver was attempting to winch the SUV back up to the road. Well the SUV was really stuck and was dragging the tow truck off the road. The tow truck driver was saying a larger truck was required:





I had to go so I don't know if the SUV is still there—see, I didn’t have a light with me and I was watching the clock to be sure to return before dark (~6pm sunset). I nixed the Laural Trail plan and descended Ridge Trail. When passing through Pacheco Camp for the second time, I gave a report to the EMS guy and showed him my photos in my camera. He already had some in his phone. The incident must have happened early in the day.

On another note, I was very happy to see that a new counter and sink have been attached to the Pacheco Camp shower building:



There was something similar up until a couple years ago. Very helpful when filtering water there.



On the long climb to Crest, I passed about a dozen Adventure Trex participants…always gave some encouragement.

Tule Pond:





It looked like I had time to maybe get over to Middle Steer Ridge for a final descent but at the Tule Pond stop I saw that my front brakes were worn-out. Grizzly could be done mostly with rear brake so there I went:





Finish, 5:30 pm, back at Hunting Hollow under a beautiful skyscape:




Start at Hunting Hollow » Gilroy Hot Springs Road » Coyote Creek entrance » Coit Road » Anza Trail » Jackson Trail » Elderberry Spring Trail » Rock Tower Trail » Domino Pond Trail » Cattle Duster Trail » Coit Springs Trail » Cross Canyon Trail » Kelly Cabin Canyon Trail » Coit Road » Coit Lake Perimeter Trail » Coit Dam Road » Willow Ridge Road » White Tank Spring Road » White Tank Spring Trail » Rose Dam Trail » Pacheco Creek Trail » Pacheco Camp » Coit Road » Pacheco Ridge Road » Phoneline Trail » Coit Road » Pacheco Ridge Road » Ridge Trail » Pacheco Creek Trail » Pacheco Camp » Coit Road » Live Oak Spring Trail (lower) » Wagon Road » Deer Logic Trail » Grizzly Gulch Trail » Coit Road » Coyote Creek gate » Gilroy Hot Springs Road » Hunting Hollow. 35.24 / 6:09 / 9:06 / 5,856'


Gilroy:




Cordoza Ridge:


a

[mynameismud]

You have a way with a camera

[mudworm]

Poor Vladimir! Good he was not injured. And doesn't look like the SUV was badly damaged either.

So, you ran into MarkTheTrailHunter... He made a comment on my blog post. I really have no idea who he was, though now I know he's some guy on an XXL Tallboy! Wonder if the Geo cache box on the top Crest Trail would be there permanently. Might try to look for it next time if I can remember.

Beautiful photos as always, Charlie. Beautiful Coe as always.

[Skyline35]

Hi Meí,

I thought you might have dialogued with Mark on Garmin Connect. He once told me that MarkTheTrailHunter was his user id there. I tried to find his ride but I think one needs log-in to do a Garmin Connect search.

The geocache has been there for years. An easy to spot ammo box in a rock pile near the radio tower. Reading the journal is a nice way of extending your stopped-time stats :-)  I scanned my flicker photos and linked in a few below...


I set out the journals in this pic:





Chris with Paul writing in the journal:

[mudworm]

Hi Charlie, No... it's not helping.   I never thought Garmin Connect was a social platform. Didn't even know a way to interact with anybody there.

Sheesh, guess that geocache box was not teeny tiny. And a radio tower??? I don't think I've ridden there! Okay, I admit I tend to get tunnel visioned while riding. Mr. Mud told me that at Moab, we rode by a big sign before a techie rocky section over a cliff that said "Walk your Bike. N people died here." I never saw the sign.

[Skyline35]

This might make you feel better about your tunnel vision...Mark rode right past that off-the-road-SUV without seeing it 2 minutes before we met. That was, of course, before the tow truck arrived.