This was more or less a bust as far as plans went. I was hoping to visit the
newest Lakeview Addition at Henry Coe State Park in the Diablo Range, tagging
a handful of LoJ summits along the way. The area had been shown on park maps
for a few years as "Closed" and "No Access", but I had noticed on the latest
version a trail is shown going up from Madrone Soda Springs, marked as
"obscure". My problems started when I noticed the
GPSr had failed to load the route information as I had expected in the morning
before I left San Jose, and didn't notice until I had reached the park, an
hour's drive away. I figured I knew where to find the trails I was
looking for and headed off on the Corral Trail, towards Manzanita Point. The
start of the hike was in the clouds and a bit chilly, dew on the tall grasses
lining the trail half-soaking my pants along the way. I passed by the small
pond found near the campsites at Manzanita Point, then descended the Madrone
Soda Springs Trail about 800ft to the creek in the narrow canyon below where
things started to go awry. Not exactly sure which way to turn to find the trail
up to Cardoza Ridge in the Lakeview Addition, I turned left and followed the
trail towards China Hole for about 2/3mi until I was fairly certain it was not
to be found in that direction. The poison oak is thick in this canyon and along
the trail and one needs to watch carefully to keep from brushing up against the
stuff. Back at Madrone Soda Springs, I examined various use trail around the
campsites found there, but could not find any sort of continuation along the
road/trail depicted on the topo and park maps. Every fork seemed to dissolve
into
thick brush, usually heavy with poison oak. Had anyone even used this relatively
new "trail", I wondered? I was not about to bushwhack my way up, so I decided
to punt early and either get better information or find another way. On my
way back up out of the canyon the skies began to clear some, providing some
nice lighting for the flowers, hillsides and surrounding ridges. I stopped off
at the summit of Manzanita Point to salvage some sort of minor victory for
the nine miles of hiking. Despite the disappointment, it was still way
better than sitting at home. Time well spent, I figured...
AlphaRoaming.com comments
on 09/24/17:
I've climbed up from Madrone Soda Springs, to Nesbit Ridge, a few years ago (prior to the 2013 Coe map showing "closed". It was legal on the 2006 map). Head upstream, with the creek on your right, thru the thorns and ticks. After a few hundred feet, there are pink ribbons, heading up a steep slope, on your leftNaniwadekar comments
on 09/24/17:
Last month (August 2017, that is), I headed upstream. Took the steep slope on the left over 30-40 feet uphill (if I remember correct), came to a clearing, but there was no obvious trail to follow, and no ribbons. I lost the elevation and tried to proceed closer along the stream but there was too much brush along that direction.
After 10 minutes of thrashing around I went back to the main Mile Trail, full of poison oak, and proceeded to China Hole.
