Lovers Leap
Pacheco Peak P1K CC

Nov 6, 2008

With: Steve Sywyk

Etymology
Story Photos / Slideshow Map Profile

For years I have driven SR152 over Pacheco Pass and the Diablo Range and have come to memorize almost the entire stretch of road. There is only one interesting rock formation along the whole route, a short but dramatic outcrop of rock a few miles east of Casa de Fruta. It always catches my attention and countless times I kept reminding myself to come out and climb it. Because most of the land on either side of the road is private property (as is most of the Diablo Range), it was not a trival matter. Recently I looked up on the topo maps to find it had a name - Lovers Leap - and I studied google maps for to familiarize myself with the dirt roads and buildings located nearby. I made the proposal to Steve via email that we might go and climb it that very night, and when I got home around 6:30p there was a message on the machine that he was good to go. So in about an hour I ate dinner, packed a knapsack, printed out a map from TOPO! and entered a set of coordinates in the GPS. This was a much easier outing than our last one to Mt. Johnson and we wouldn't need to even turn the GPS on. But it was nice to have it, "just in case."

The half moon was a few hours past the azimuth when we pulled over to the side of SR152 around 9:20p. It was another 20 minutes before we had our boots and gaiters on and were ready to go. I was a bit nervous the whole time we sat there, waiting for a state trooper to stop by and ask if he could help us out. Thankfully he never showed up.

We had seen lights from what looked like homes NW of the peak, but our route was from the NE side and we saw no lights at all where we parked about more than a mile east of the lights. We hopped a barbed-wire fence alongside the road and climbed down a small incline on the other side. I was much relieved to be out of sight of the road by then. We would be able to see lights from the highway nearly the entire outing, but once we got away from the road there was little danger of being spotted.

The first rains of the season had fallen the previous week, bringing water to Pacheco Creek which had been dry these past three months. Cows grazing in the area had trampled the streambed to a pulpy, muddy mess, and it was a non-trivial exercise to find a place to cross. The brush that grew thickly on either side of the creek had us ducking and crawling from one spot to the next until we found a place with rocks that we could cross over on. Once this was done and we had navigated the thicket on the other side of the creek, things got easier.

We immediately found the dirt road I had spied on Google maps. We followed this west a short ways, then took the left branch where it forked. This led us up a steep hillside (we imagined the difficultly even a 4WD vehicle would have on the road) that brought us to the saddle on the south side of Lovers Leap, the whole effort taking only about 20 minutes since leaving the car.

Our first effort would be to scale Lovers Leap, some 200-300ft above us to the north, and it would not be easy. I had thought this back side might be an easy effort in comparison to the cliffs that surround the summit on the other three sides, but now that we were looking at it by the light of the moon it seemed our chances of reaching the summit were far from assured. But as luck would have it, we found it both engaging and challenging. Once across the grassy saddle, we ducked under some low trees and almost immediately came across a steep slope of rock, grass, and brush. There was evidence that others had been up this way before - the crushed beer can and old snack wrappers, for example - which proved to be something of a use trail to get us through the thicker patches of brush. There was some rock scrambling up to class 3, but with little exposure and decent holds it was more enjoyable than scary, even by headlamp. In fact it probably would have seemed far more mundane in daylight, but the shadows and noises of the night scene made it seem all the more exciting.

We found our way to the uppermost reaches of the pinnacle where we found a collection of large, knobby blocks poking above the surrounding brush. We found no register, though admittedly we didn't look all that hard among the many cracks and crevices to be found. Red and white lights from the cars and trucks plying SR152 stretched out in the inky blackness below, showing us the meandering route taken by the road along Pacheco Creek as it makes its way up to the pass some five miles to the east. There were some lights from Casa de Fruta visible, but mostly just the moon shining down us from the west.

After retracing our steps back down to the saddle, we found our road again and began following it up the south-trending ridge towards our next, higher destination of Pacheco Peak. The road was quite steep in places, but easily managed by moonlight with our headlamps off. We climbed upwards of 1,000ft in maybe 40 minutes before we got our first view of the peak about a mile away still. Our road ended on a small knoll, followed by some rather easy cross-country for ten or fifteen minutes until we came across a more far better dirt road that circles around the peak before climbing to its summit.

The weather tonight was surprisingly mild, cool but not cold as I had expected. The cool breeze was fine for hiking uphill in only tshirts, but we did add another layer when returning downhill. No hats or gloves were needed, but we did find leather gloves particularly useful when scaling up and down Lovers Leap.

Pacheco's summit is home to an air traffic beacon as well as a microwave relay tower, explaining the excellent conditions we found the road in. Where it starts climbing up to the peak the road becomes paved as it wraps around the east and south side of the peak. Reaching the gated top enclosure around 11:40p, we stopped at the sounds of crackling and buzzing coming from inside the tower complex - the sounds of a good deal of energy being sent off the transmission antennae. Looking around, we spotted some large boulders outside the fenced area that constituted the high ground of the summit. We climbed what we judged to be the tallest of these, but in the dark and partially surrounded by trees it was hard to be sure. Little matter, we still claimed the summit as climbed.

The views were actually better than we might have guessed. We could see the lights of the Central Valley stretched out in a broad swath to the east, more concentrated pockets of light representing Hollister and Gilroy to the west. Even better, we could see the moon reflecting off the waters of Monterey Bay even further west, with some distant lights of the towns surrounding the bay also visible. Not bad for a peak only reaching to 2,770ft.

We returned by much the same route we had taken up, deviating only in the upper cross-country portion where we fumbled a bit before finding our way back to the original dirt road. It was almost 1a before we found our way back to the car, and shortly before 2a when we got home to San Jose. A most worthwhile outing, we both agreed, and one I would heartily recommend for those looking for something a bit different from the usual scramble.


Anonymous comments on 03/04/11:
That is private property in case other people decide they want to go there.
Anonymous comments on 09/19/14:
As owner of the property, I will prosicute anybody that I find on this Private Ranch. Including you, Steve Sywyk. We dont call the sheriffs out here. We handle it ourselves. Get the hint!
Anonymous comments on 09/19/14:
Bob! Stop trespassing, it is just not cool!
Anonymous comments on 09/19/14:
Bob, there needs to be 1 person to trespass or no one will ever be the one person to climb all peaks. You must be the 1 exception to the rule. For people to not open a peak to you for 1 day in there life of existence is pathetic........May the force be with you -- carry on and our spirits are with you!!
Anonymous comments on 09/25/16:
You're claiming to have climbed Hollenbeck's Rock at night? In t-shirts?Seriously? And you found a crushed beer can and snack wrappers at 10:00 o'clock P.M.? And you could see Casa de Fruta from up there too?
I've been up there, during the day and I call B.S. It's only around 1100 ft high and it's extremely tough to hike during the day - much less by the light of the moon. The only thing I think you've done is to get poor old Anonymous all roused up. He thinks he's going to shoot somebody - what a sap.

comments on 10/10/16:
I got tired at looking at that guy's last comment... you all have a nice day.
Anonymous comments on 10/13/16:
Yours wasn't much better to look at -- Solved!
comments on 10/13/16:
smile
Anonymous comments on 07/31/17:
i own the old Caltrain yard by the fire station ya it's in y all's best interest to stay off private land but I am sure if u get a hold off the Land owners and ask face to face like a man u might get to climb are hike are pick flowers what ever u city people do
Kirk D formerly of Sparks comments on 07/31/17:
" . . . climb 'are' hike 'are' pick flowers" Don't you mean 'and' instead of 'are' ? Hmmm . . . Since Anonymous is so fond of Run-on sentences, may I recommend the book "Martin Marten" by Brian Doyle. A lovely story . . .
Anonymous comments on 08/01/17:
Are - as like them lights is "on are off" silly dam hillary lovin book worm LBTG what ever the F queer as snails libtards.
Kirk D formerly of Sparks comments on 08/01/17:
What is a libtard ? Anyway, the hillary reference curious as I have no idea what you are talking about. As far as LGBT, I am only familiar with BLT or the special BLAT where they put the avocado on it. The Doyle book is still worth a read.

May Sam Shepard rest in peace . . .
comments on 04/28/19:
Haha I'm laughing at the comment of the land owner. Go ahead and "handle it yourself", you live in California where if you do something extreme like that his family will own your ass in a heartbeat. Relax tough guy

anonymous comments on 01/08/20:
Ya I live there in that house you saw. Stay off the property or you will go to jail for trespassing and we do look out for trespassers. Some teenager fell off the rock trying to climb it a few years back and died up on the rock. They had to get a helicopter to get him down.


I KNOW WHO YOU ARE comments on 07/17/23:
I know the names of people who own the land and that one owner who said he will shoot California has a castle doctrine law that applies you are not in Texas which a stand your own ground state. California doesn't have that law. Here are the names are under a llc Giovannotto land and cattle <--- Italian (you know Italians). Researched limit partnership.
anonymous comments on 07/28/23:
What is the name of the potential shooter? Just in case.
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