David and I went to Henry Coe for an overnight this weekend. We went in the Hunting Hollow entrance and headed toward Vasquez Peak. We thought it would be a quiet area of the park, and we only saw two people all weekend (other than a few mountain bikers close to the trailhead). It was a perfect time to be in the park - water was available, flowers were still in bloom, and the weather was sunny and warm but not to that miserably hot stage yet. More info and pictures after the jump.
On saturday the only ‘wildlife’ we managed to see was cattle (and we heard a few turkeys, gobble gobble), but today we saw some deer, a teeny tiny rattlesnake, frogs, and several lizards.
We camped just beyond Velasquez Peak right on top of the ridge. The one problem with the current park conditions is the grass growth - it’s shoulder high in many places, and since we took some less travelled trails we had to route find our way through the pokey stuff for a while. Finding a campsite was next to impossible. We found an area that looked like hogs had done some work flattening the grass and set up camp. It was a spot with great views and we had a warm comfortable night. Well, Dave was having some crazy allergies thanks to the grass, but it was still a nice weekend of good hiking and gear testing.
Pictures here:
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Tags: backpacking, henry coe, rattlesnake, wildflowers
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