Pine Ridge P300
Christmas Hill

Wed, Apr 23, 2014

With: Jackie Burd

 Etymology
Pine Ridge
 Story Photos / Slideshow Maps: 1 2 GPXs: 1 2
Pine Ridge later climbed Mon, May 5, 2014
Jackie wanted to go out and capture some outdoorsy video for a school project she's working on. Nothing too strenuous, mind you, and preferrably two different locations so she can make it look like she's been to more places. Luckily her dad is somewhat the master of tailoring a hike to specific areas/needs/restrictions, etc, and it would give me a chance to tag a few easy summits that I would be too embarrassed to pursue on my own.

Pine Ridge

The headquarters for Henry Coe State Park lies along Pine Ridge, one of the higher ridges of the Diablo Range inside the park. The highpoint of this ridge is located less than half a mile from, and 400ft above the parking lot, making for a rather easy outing. We got up early to get the hiking in while it was still cool in the morning - Spring was starting to warm up around here. The hills continue to be a bright green, but already there were signs that they would soon start to turn brown. The grasses had mostly gone to seed and the flowers were doing their best to bloom in many colors to attract insects, get themselves pollinated, and be down with it. We found there were two summits to Pine Ridge. The west summit, with a VABM we couldn't find and marked with an elevation of 3,009ft on the topo map, proved to be the lower of the two. The unmarked and unlabeled east summit, about 5min away, showed to be about 10ft higher according to the GPS. This east summit is just north of the Henry Coe Monument placed to honor the man for whom the park is named. In addition to the video footage Jackie was shooting, we did a little geocaching while in the area, finding three before deciding to call it quits. We spent a little more than an hour covering just over 2 miles.

Christmas Hill

Christmas Hill is the highpoint of Christmas Hill Park, the site of the World Famous Gilroy Garlic Festival. Held every summer, it has become a South Bay classic of 100F temperatures mixed with rampant public drunkeness. At other times, like today, it is a quiet little park west of Gilroy and Uvas Creek. It, too, has two summits, and again the east one was higher. We visited both in a meandering route starting from the more manicured part of the park, wandering through the "natural" area which turns out to be a pleasant enough mix of oak and grassy hillsides, poison oak waiting in vast quantities for anyone who might venture off the trail. The views take in parts of the Santa Clara Valley around Gilroy to the east and the Santa Cruz Mtns to the west. This proved to be an even shorter outing - less than a mile. It doesn't get much easier than this...

Nathan comments on 04/26/14:
Hey Bob with all these trips to Henry Coe you should check out Pacheco Falls if you get a chance, it's a pretty neat feature. It's on the North Fork of Pacheco Creek, just to the east of Coit Lake down a steep steep ravine. Unfortunately in terms of peaks it's not really on the way to or from anything, but I think it's worth a visit.
Anonymous comments on 04/26/14:
Nice if anybody here can see this school video project, unless it's private.
Bob comments on 04/26/14:
Video will be posted next week. It's awesome and features yours truly.
Anonymous comments on 04/26/14:
Hope it's in at least 720p HD. Novel for snwburd.com, but we'll see.
Skip in Nevada comments on 04/29/14:
Bob, I enjoy all of your posts, so interesting. Question is, how do you have the time for all the hikes you do with family and a job? Do you work, or are you independently wealthy and can go do all these trips... I'm envious
Reply: Between family, work and hiking I had three competing forces in my life where I only had time for two. So I ditched the job.
Anonymous comments on 04/29/14:
Good that you posted those videos so quickly. I'd have a few obvious tips if you were interested, but I suppose this is the end to that.
Bob comments on 04/29/14:
They're my daughter's videos, not mine, but feel free to post comments to the You Tube page (see the link in the lower right hand corner).
Kerry comments on 04/29/14:
Great videos! Hope you guys do some more in the future.
Anonymous comments on 04/30/14:
Excuse me, but it just looked like your Lumix. There's far better new cameras for video, hardly the cost of an expensive meal for two, but as you will. Other things, too, but if interested, I can advise.
Reply: Remember, it's just a 15yr-old's school project...
Anonymous comments on 04/30/14:
Well be it when I was 12, I was helping produce travel shorts, albeit in 8mm, praised then even by knowledgeable filmmakers, and at 15, feature films with high school actors contributing, of course to be disallowed by the school in their showings for other students. The luck of some and the misfortunes of others, nothing to do with quality or entertainment value, as it is.
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