Bear Mountain Peak

I went for a 6 hour punishing run in Henry Coe State Park on Saturday. My loop took me from the headquarters out to Bear Mountain Peak and back. Any trip from Coe Headquarters is inevitably tough because of its geographic location. You start out at 2650 ft and have to drop down to 1100 ft to get anywhere. Thus you always have a 1500 ft climb waiting for you at the end.

Last fall a huge wildfire burnt up 70% of the park. The section I was planning to travel to today only reopened a couple weeks ago. Many of the roads in this area had been lost because of the overgrown conditions and I would not have bothered to try and get to them in the past. With the fire I had the opportunity to use these old roads and not have it be a miserable bushwhacking lost-fest.



I brought my camera and got some nice pictures to share. The roads near the headquarters are well maintained. My destination is shown: Bear Mountain. The park is very green at this time of the year. For the other 9 months, it is brown and dry.



Much of my route followed the bed of Coyote Creek. The canyon was very pretty and the creek was running cool and clear. Getting my feet wet was unavoidable.



Bear Mountain, shown here, was completely toasted by the fire. Nothing survived and no grass has grown in yet. Just a few weeds and some shoots from the root-crowns of the chamise. Prior to the fire this area was impenetrable brush.



Near the peak the burn was not as severe. I found a large patch of Shooting Stars by creek bed below the peak.

Coming back from the peak was a brutal rolling slog along a ridge top followed by a steep descent to canyon. The sun went down and I spent a couple hours of the return trip in the dark, including that 1500 ft climb that was waiting for me.