Hiking Henry Coe State Park…

So last week Ksenya said she was thinking about doing this 20+ mile hike with a hiking group from Stanford. Without any hesitation I said “I’m game!”….which is why I’m now stuck on my couch with busted hips and a bum knee. 😉

For real, the hike was absolutely awesome. The trip was organized by a guy named “V” who works for Genentech and is a total junkie for hiking and adventure. He’s done several trips to the arctic and believes no one should enter the Canadian wilderness unless they have the navigation and survival skills to enter and exit without the usage of trail markers. He was definitely hardcore. He was also really funny and an excellent guide.

So the plan for the hike was to meet at Henry Coe State Park in Morgan Hill at 9:30am and if all went well, we’d wrap up our 20+ mile hike around 6pm. I left Livermore at 7:30 to pick up Ksenya and with very little traffic, we reached park headquarters a little after 9. We met up with a total of 24 people from Stanford, Genentech, University of San Francisco and other general hike aficionados. At 9:43 we left park headquarters and started our breakneck speed hike/jog for the first couple of miles including a rather steep descent before we started the killer climb, Sizer trail.

In the picture above “V” gives us the rundown of what we’re about to embark on. Sizer trail, 1,500 ft elevation gain over 1.5 miles. I had no idea what that meant until we started at the base and it literally looked like a ladder climb to the top.

Finally after a grueling 1.5 mile trek straight uphill, we arrived at the summit. We stopped for a bit to have lunch and took some pictures. A year ago there were terrible fires that swept through the park and burned a large portion of the mountains you see behind us. We walked through a number of these scorched areas and it was haunting and beautiful at the same time. An amazing number of wildflowers have grown from the ashes.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take many pictures on this trip because of the lightning speed pace we kept up. I knew I wouldn’t be able to capture the beauty of the park anyway so I just tried to focus on remembering everything that I saw. Beautiful pink and magenta paintbrush flowers, edelweiss, purple wild lilies, yellow mules ear and dainty lacey white flowers covered every inch of the hills we hiked. It was amazing.

Because our group was so large, there were a number of places where we needed to stop and wait for everyone to catch up. The last place we met as a group to rest for about 5 minutes was at the bottom of the mountain and about 6 miles away from park headquarters. Here Matt, Rachel and Ksenya chat and grab a bite to eat before we head back to our starting point.

Finally, after a long day of hiking, great conversation and amazing vistas we arrived back at park headquarters. We took a group photo, not sure when that will be posted and several people took turns taking pictures of “V”s GPS unit with the trip stats. Here’s the proof:

All in all it was a fantastic trip. I wasn’t excited about the tick that bit me on the neck (didn’t find it till I got home) but other than that I can only say great things about the experience. I hope to continue to do more hikes with this group. It was a lot of fun. =)

Oh, and I found several bones including the jawbone of an animal… I opted to settle with taking a picture of it rather than risk getting my socks and shoes wet to get it. That made Ksenya happier since she did not share my fascination with animal bones. 😉