Thu, Aug 24, 2017
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Etymology Horse Mountain |
Story | Photos / Slideshow | Maps: 1 2 | GPXs: 1 2 | Profiles: 1 2 | ||
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Continuing south along US101 on our way back from the eclipse in Oregon, Jackie and I spent a day in southern Humboldt County to tag a few CC-listed summits that had either failed to catch my attention or I had failed on during previous visits to this area. Though neither was particularly difficult on its own, the combination along with the driving between them occupied us for most of the day.
On paper this one seems pretty straightforward though it's on private property. There is a good road (Monument Rd), almost half of it paved, that goes from the town of Rio Dell along US101 to the summit in about 8mi where some telecom towers are located. That there were no entries in LoJ or PB gave me some concern, thinking there might be a gate far down the mountain I might run into, but the only thing I could do was give it a shot. Turns out that the road is open for the first 4.5mi where a gate is then encountered for the last 3.5mi to the summit. Signed for No Trespassing, it appears to be owned by American Tower, the ubiquitous telecom company one finds all over the Western States (and much more, too - they own 100,000 sites in 13 countries). Much better than an upset ranch owner worried about his cattle.
We parked off the road outside the gate and started off just before 9a.
Most of the hike follows along
open ridgeline, gaining about 1,500ft in
the process.
Fog welled up from the north, leaving us just above the layer of clouds under
blue skies, but the smoke that had been tailing us since Oregon would shortly
make an appearance and erase most of the views before we reached the summit. An
AT&T truck came driving down the road not long after we had started out, the
driver giving us a friendly wave as we moved to the side of the road to allow
it to pass more easily. That was as close as we came to getting kicked out,
never seeing another soul afterwards. We reached the summit in a little over
an hour's effort, finding two closely-spaced summits. The northern summit
has
a monument erected next to
the benchmark.
It was here in 1853 that the
Humboldt Meridian Initial Point was established, from which all further surveys
in northeastern CA would be initiated, much like the Mt. Diablo Meridian that
was established in the Bay Area. The benchmark was replaced in 1923 and the
monument erected in 2003, for which the road was then named. The highpoint,
however, is
the south summit which has no such decorations even though
it is about 6-10ft higher. We
left a register at the south summit
before heading back. The smoke had
squashed what would have been some pretty decent views overlooking the Kings
Range. The return was uneventful, getting us
to the van
before 11:30a - a piece of cake, as it turned out - little need to worry.
With less than two and a half miles to Horse Mtn from our start, I knew the
mileage wasn't going to be the issue on this one, but the unknown nature of
the bushwhacking. There are no roads or trails leading to the summit and the
satellite views are a bit discouraging. This would be the biggest test for
Jackie and her recently practiced bushwhacking skills. The hike up the road was
easy enough, gaining about 500ft in 3/4mi. At the crest we hiked past the
locked gate
heading east. The road here hasn't been driven on in years, but is
fairly open for hiking providing one looks out for and avoids the fresh poison
oak sprouting up from the middle of the road in places. The smoke was nearly as
bad here as it had been on Mt. Pierce, marring what would otherwise be some
spectacular
coastal views. From the end of our road,
Horse Mtn appears to
be a small bump below us, partially forested. I hoped that the forest cover
would mean less thrashing in the undergrowth. The topo map shows an old Jeep
road dropping down to Pt. 1,492ft to the west of Horse Mtn and much of
this road
is still intact although it has been covered in heaps of downfall to
discourage its use. We used this road for about 1/3mi, noting it gets some use
still, but not much.
Use trails
on the uphill side of the road bypass some of
the largest debris piles. So far, all of this was pretty straightforward and it
got us within 1/3mi of Horse Mtn's summit - now for the hard part.
We dropped left (east) off the roadway, initially encouraged by some nice grass
slopes that allowed us about 100yds of easy progress. The slopes were on the
wrong side of a drainage that separated us from the neck of land connecting to a
saddle with Horse Mtn that we wanted to be on. Getting across this dry creek
drainage involved dancing around and over some poison oak that had me nervous
and Jackie even more so. We then spent about 20min negotiating the rest of the
distance to the summit, short by bushwhacking standards, but through a menagerie
of obstacles that silenced Jackie from here usual cheerful self. Dusty
undergrowth, lots of branches and ducking, more poison oak, a section of thick
manzanita (that curiously had evidence
of a trail cut through it previously,
greatly aiding our cause), some moments of open grass slopes, more ducking,
scratches, ripped pants, all of it leaving her a bit crestfallen. This wasn't so
much fun for her. We found the summit in a bit of
open forest
and grass with no
views at all. This would have been a good candidate to leave a register but I
was temporarily out at the moment and the best we could do was build a small
rock cairn.
On
the way back I tried to take us on a more direct route that I
thought would work better, but we ran into wall after wall of brush to block
our passage and ended up returning via a route similar to our outbound one. Once
we were back at the old road on the crest, Jackie's mood improved considerably
and we talked about her reactions. She apologized for her mood and said she
knew it wouldn't do any good to complain. I thought she did pretty good
actually, internalizing her meaner thoughts and mostly just being quiet through
the hard parts. She was all smiles again before we got back to the gate and
even got me
to jog the last mile back down
to the van,
once again beating me
handily.
We showered there where we'd parked before starting the long drive back out to US101. We got dinner in Garberville, initially walking into the Chinese restaurant expecting to order mushu pork, drunken noodles and similar, but then we discovered they had a page of thai dishes. It was mediocre thai food at best, but even mediocre thai is pretty good in both of our books - especially after so much "fun" bushwhacking that can really build up an appetite. Afterwards we headed back north on US101 to spend the night in Humboldt State Park where we planned to hike the next day...
Continued...
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