Henry W. Coe State Park
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Trip Reports Page Three
Backpacking with a Hammock on a Wet Weekend
Joe Martinez: February 20-22, 2004

This was only my second backpacking trip ever.  My first was last month, with my 4-year-old son, so we took it very slow and easy that trip.  This was my first solo trip, and so definitely the most aggressive.  I was really looking forward to the trip, and kept watching the weather forecast, which seemed to get worse as the trip grew closer.  The evening before the trip, the forecast called for light showers Friday and Saturday, and rain Sunday.  I had looked forward to this trip for a while, and if I didn't make these dates, it would be at least another month before I could try again, so I decided to go anyway. I was prepared with a change of clothes, a waterproof shell, and an umbrella.


Day 1

I reached the Coe Park headquarters at around 10:00am.  It was raining when I arrived.  Ranger Barry Breckling had just locked up the visitor center and was leaving as I was walking up, so he went back and opened it up so I could register.  He assured me that the creeks should be pretty passable, and there shouldn't be enough rain over the weekend to make them dangerous.

I took the Monument Trail up to the intersection with Hobbs Road.  About an hour into the hike, the rain stopped, so I put the umbrella away and ate the deli sandwich that I bought for lunch as I hiked.  I took Hobbs Road all the way to the intersection of Little Fork Coyote Creek near Frog Lake, and stayed on Hobbs Road all the way up and over Middle Ridge, down to the intersection of the Middle Fork of Coyote Creek.  I then backtracked a bit to the trail to Upper Camp.  [Image at right shows the small waterfall at Upper Camp.] From there, I followed the creek to my first night's destination, Mexican Flat.  I decided to just follow the creek to Mexican Flat, rather than take the alternate route of going up the hill and following the bench, because the creek was so beautiful.

Mexican Flat has no signs designating it as such.  The only way that I knew for sure that I had reached it was that I saw the outhouse in the background.  Now, I had to cross the creek.  This wasn't as easy as I'd hoped.  Everywhere I tried to rock hop across, I'd get about 2/3 of the way across, then realize that I'd never make the final hop to the other bank.  Finally, on my last attempt, I went for it, lost my balance, and both feet went under water.  My boots filled with water, and my socks were soaked.  Oh well.  At least I was across.  It was now about 3:30pm.  I found the flat area that I assumed was meant to be the actual camp site.  The area was covered with ladybugs!  They must have been nesting there.  A little while after putting my pack down against a tree, there were several ladybugs crawling on it.

I was traveling with a Hennessey Hammock, instead of a tent, at the recommendation of several folks on a backpacking mailing list that I'm on.  I'm a side sleeper, and even with pads, my hip bottoms out and gets sore, making it difficult to get a good night's sleep.  I slept well in the hammock during my trial run in my back yard, so I decided to use it for this trip.  It has a built-in rain fly.  I got the hammock set up, got out of my wet boots and socks, and relaxed in the hammock for a couple hours.  I had dinner, wrote in my journal for a while, then went to bed early.  I wanted to get up nice and early because I had a long hike ahead of me.


Day 2
I woke up on my own at 6:00am, and it was raining, so I went back to sleep.  My alarm went off at 7:00am, and it was still raining, so I went back to sleep again.  I woke up at 9:00am, and the rain had stopped, so I got up.  I ate breakfast, dried everything off, and packed up.  All this took a while, and it was about 11:20 when I finally hoisted my pack and started walking.  So much for an early start.  I was in my only dry pair of socks now (I lined my boots with plastic bags to keep them from getting my socks wet), and I didn't want to get them wet crossing the creek again.  I had brought several large black garbage bags with me, so I wrapped each leg in a bag, and just waded across.  Worked like a charm.

I walked back down to the intersection of Hobbs Road and the creek, and crossed to the east side again, which was easier, due to large boulders that I could use to climb across.  I now started my hike up the "Short Cut" to the top of Blue Ridge.  [Image at right shows view from the Short Cut toward Middle Ridge.]  Man is that a tough hike!  I reached the top at about 1:15, and sat on the convenient bench at the top overlooking Booze Lake and ate my lunch, after which, I continued south along Blue Ridge Road.  The views from the top of Blue Ridge were very nice, but it was also very windy, which made it pretty chilly.  At one point, a pickup truck passed me, which I assume was from the nearby gun club, as the driver was wearing camouflage.  It showered on and off most of the day.

About 2/3 of the way down the road, I heard a gurgling sound.  I looked at the end of my drinking tube of my Platypus and noticed that the bite valve had fallen off.  I backtracked and found it about 50 feet back, but unfortunately, my water had all leaked out.  Fortunately, I had drank my fill not too long before, so I wasn't thirsty.  I figured I could refill at Los Cruzeros when I got there.

I stayed on Blue Ridge Road until I hit Jackass Trail, and started down it.  At this point, my legs were beat.  It was after 4:00 now, and would be getting dark soon.  I had registered for Lost Spring Camp for this night, but I was so tired, that I was seriously considering just camping at Los Cruzeros instead.  I figured that it was unlikely that any of the three camp sites there would be taken in this weather.  I decided to assess the situation when I got there.  Jackass Trail is very nice, compared to the ranch roads that I'd been hiking on most of the trip.  It's a narrow trail that goes through a lot of big manzanitas.  When I finally arrived at Los Cruzeros, there was a group at the first camp site.  I only found one other site, and it had a camp shovel stuck in a log that was there.  I thought that might mean that someone was saving it, so I figured the "right" thing was to press on to Lost Spring, as I had said I would.

I filled up my Platypus bladder in the creek.  However, it was getting dark fast, so I didn't purify or drink it there, despite the fact that I was pretty thirsty now.  When I finally arrived at Lost Spring Camp, I purified the water that I had collected, made Gatorade out of the whole two liters, and drank about half of it all at once.  By the time I got the hammock pitched, it was pretty dark.  Since the Lost Spring Camp is still a little bit of a hike from the spring itself, I had to hike back to the spring in the twilight to collect water for dinner.  The spring wasn't flowing, but the trough was full to the top, so I got my water.  I cooked and ate dinner, wrote in my journal, and went to sleep.


Day 3

I woke up around 7:45am, and it was raining.  One side of the rain fly had come loose during the night, and some rain had leaked into the hammock.  Since it was supposed to rain most of the day, I figured I couldn't afford to try and wait it out, so I packed everything up wet (not very fun).  I hadn't yet decided which way to go back.  Option 1 was to go back to Los Cruzeros and take The Narrows to China Hole.  Option 2 was to continue on Lost Spring Trail to the bottom of China Hole Trail, and take that to China Hole.  In either case, I would take the upper part of China Hole Trail to Manzanita Point and back to headquarters.  I ended up choosing Option B.  Option A was shorter, and involved no real "ups and downs", but I was worried that the creek might be too high to follow this time of year, so I took the safer route.  I started out at 9:20am.  As luck would have it, it stopped raining again about 5 minutes after I left camp, and never rained again the rest of the day.  Oh well.  Looks like I could have waited out the rain and packed up camp dry, but at least I had decent weather for the hike back.

China Hole was gorgeous.  Definitely the prettiest part of the park that I have seen so far.  I'll have to camp there on my next trip.

The rest of the hike back was uneventful.  I ate lunch at one of the group camp sites at Manzanita Point on the way back, and made my final trek back to headquarters via Manzanita Point Road, the Forest Trail, and Corral Trail.  I reached headquarters at 1:45pm, and was glad to sit down in my car.


Lessons for next time

1) Hold out for better weather.  The trip would have been less stressful without the rain and extra precautions.

2) Don't be so ambitious next time.  That second day hike was just too long.  I would have liked to have gotten to camp earlier and been able to enjoy the area (maybe spend some time at Los Cruzeros) before it got dark.  The hike was really hard on my legs as well.

Although there were some frustrations during the trip, it was a great learning experience, and overall, I had a pretty good time.  I can't wait until my next trip (hopefully in the spring), where I can put my improved skills to use and hopefully enjoy some better weather and a more relaxed schedule.


— Joe Martinez, San Jose, California

Text and images copyright © by Joseph Martinez

Minor editing by Lee Dittmann



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