Chris had a class in San Francisco the first week of December, so we decided to try and find a hike to do on our way north. Henry W. Coe State Park, one of California’s largest, lies in the Diablo Range between San Jose and Gilroy – containing more than 40 miles of hiking trails, it seemed like a good option for us and not far out of the way. After returning home from Maui in July, we realized we were on a pace to exceed 300 total miles hiked for the year, and that became a goal – after our various outings in Pismo earlier in the week, we needed only 6.22 miles to hit 300, so we opted for a 6.3-mile loop through the extreme western edge of Coe Park that would put us over the top. The drive up I-5 and across Pacheco Pass on Hwy 152 was crazy, the freeways packed with travelers heading home after Thanksgiving – we were involved in two near-pileups where traffic went abruptly from 80mph to zero in a hundred yards, so we were both a little on edge when we arrived in Morgan Hill about 12:30pm. Then, we had to drive east another 30 minutes up a narrow, winding paved road into the park – with the drive up Lopez Canyon Road last Monday, this was definitely the week for tedious driving. We hit the trail right at 1pm – our route first went north up Pine Ridge, then southeast along Middle Ridge, then westward across the drainage between the two ridges before climbing west back to the trailhead – we figured to be done in something less than three hours in order to continue the drive to SF. We knew the loop had a lot of ups and downs, with something like 2,000′ of gain/loss over its 6+ miles, and we climbed moderately northward up Pine Ridge, eventually topping out in some grassy meadows where we took a short side trail to a monument honoring Henry Coe, a prosperous rancher whose family donated much of this land to the state in the 1950s. While not really rugged in terms of precipitous peaks and canyons, the landscape is more than rolling hills – Pine Ridge gets its name from the ponderosa pines along its crest, and it was up the spine of this ridge that we continued north on Hobbs Road, an old jeep trail. Dropping into Little Coyote Creek drainage from the ridge’s northern end, we found Frog Lake, a small but picturesque pond lined with cattails – we can imagine how idyllic it looks in springtime when the grasses are green. From the lake, we headed northeast, climbing moderately again up Middle Ridge before turning southward and following its crest downhill – here, giant manzanitas are prominent, although it was quickly apparent that the area burned sometime in the recent past. Among the burnt manzanita trunks were many stands of poodle dog bush, a poisonous plant similar in effect to poison oak, and we gave these as wide berth as possible as we picked our way down the ridge. At just under four miles from the start, we arrived at the junction with Fish Trail, the route we would take back westward – we had yet to eat lunch, not really finding a nice, shady spot to stop, so we continued down the often-steep trail until we reached a crossing over the now-dry Little Coyote Creek. Here in the creek bed, there were several boulders upon which to sit, so we stopped for a few minutes to wolf down our sandwiches, after which we continued southwest up and out of the drainage through a handful of short switchbacks. While in deep shade, we could see the whole of Middle Ridge to the east still bathed in sunlight, and we continued to contour around the southern end of Pine Ridge before emerging once again into the sun atop some pretty, open hillsides with views again to the south and west. Finding the Corral Trail junction, we turned west and followed it not much more than half a mile back to Coe Park headquarters where we had started, arriving at about 3:50pm. This was a very nice little hike – while the temperatures were great for hiking and the fall colors appealing, we’d like to revisit the park in the spring, when we understand that the wildflowers make the scenery all the more inviting. At 6.48 miles, the loop did indeed put us over the 300-mile mark, so that felt very good to accomplish. A nice break from the general chaos of California freeways, into which were again immersed as we continued our drive to San Francisco.