Henry Coe SP Ride

Went for a ride in Henry Coe SP on Saturday. Nice day, but very dry. That is unusual for this time of year.

18 Miles, much of it singletrack. 3500ft of climbing. Henry Coe is all hills. I grabbed some pictures along the way to share.



I started from the remote south entrance to the park. This is a nicer place to ride than the main entrance because it starts off low and ends with a downhill. The only problem is that all of the trails up are very steep. I usually take the Lyman-Wilson Ridge trail up, which is the most direct but also one of the steepest routes.



About half way up is an incredibly steep section of trail I have heared called the Lyman-Wilson Wall. The picture fails to capture how steep it really is. It gets steeper towards the top, with deep ruts in the steepest section. I didn't have my compass with a clinometer to measure the steepest part, but it is easily over 25% grade. I made it up without walking, but I did rest at the bottom to take the photo.



I made a turn about 500ft from the top to follow a nice single track around and up the mountain instead of straight up. I've never tried to ride the straight up way. There are many ridge roads like this in the park that are scary steep to ride down and pretty much unthinkable to ride up.



Wilson Peak is 1900ft above the parking lot. Here is the final section of road to the top.



And the view back towards the Bay Area. There is a nice, rarely used singletrack that drops off the back of the peak. That took me down into another canyon from which I climbed back out of and up to the top of the next ridge over.



The final descent back to the car is a 1500ft drop over two miles on the Jackson trail. It is a nice singletrack with many switchbacks. This is one of the preferred ways to get up the hill, but I think it is just too nice of a downhill waste. Preferred or not, I didn't see anybody on it. Come to think of it, I didn't see any other bikers on the whole ride. Just a couple of hikers at Wilson Peak. It is a lonely place.