Just got back from a little jaunt in southern Henry Coe, entering from Bell Station. What an amazing park this is - rugged Mediterranean scrub forest in the Diablo Range, and huge. The tarantulas won't be out for another couple months. The Bell Station/Dowdy Ranch access only opened 2 years ago and there was still nobody there. Get in there before the CA State parks are closed on Labor Day.
It's worth pointing out that the state has tried to put a bullet train through Coe - specifically through Orestimba Wilderness, which is (so far as I know) only one of two wilderness areas on the coast, and certainly the closest to the Bay Area. I voted for the bullet train in the last election (Measure 1A in Nov '08) but it doesn't have to go through Coe. I don't know much about the status of this route and would love for readers to comment and let me know where it is, since I know there was already a good bit of resistance to previous plans.
Friday Folies
1 hour ago
4 comments:
How long of a drive is it to that entrance?I haven't been to Henry Coe in a while. Should probably give my map a little more use. I camped in or near Orestimba a few years ago. Each Spring Coe has a lottery for campsights in a remote region of the park, that they open to car camping only one weekend a year. You enter via the SE corner of the park & drive quite a ways north. I didn't think the area itself was anything special. It seems like a lot of so-called Wilderness area are just areas the eco-nazis are able to get declared off-limits to development, due to very few people using the area. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it being biologically/culturally/aesthetically interesting.
First, I think you're right that there's nothing special about that part of the park, although we weren't really in Orestimba. That said I'm glad there are set-asides like that. Second, sounds like you and I took the same entrance, Bell Station (to Dowdy Ranch Visitor Center). I can't say I'm that motivated to camp, though a 1-way weekend hike from the east side to the west side of the park might be interesting.
Looking at the map it appears we entered the park via Kaiser-Aetna Rd and camped off Orestimba Creek Rd withing a couple miles as the crow flies from Mississippi Lake. I remember the names of a couple of the trails, as well as hiking to Mississippi Lake. The entrance was not a normal/developed entrance to the park, at least at that time.
There is a visitor center at Dowdy Ranch (7 miles in from Bell Station) but it only opened I think in spring 07.
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