Every spring, the Pine Ridge Association, a volunteer group for
Henry Coe State Park, organizes a special weekend for nature lovers
to drive deep into the heart of the Orestimba Wilderness in the
northeastern corner of the park. This popular annual event gives
outdoor adventurers an extraordinary opportunity to camp, hike,
bike and ride horses in some of the most pristine and rarely trod
sections of Northern California.
Every spring, the Pine Ridge Association, a volunteer group for Henry Coe State Park, organizes a special weekend for nature lovers to drive deep into the heart of the Orestimba Wilderness in the northeastern corner of the park. This popular annual event gives outdoor adventurers an extraordinary opportunity to camp, hike, bike and ride horses in some of the most pristine and rarely trod sections of Northern California.
Last month during this annual “backcountry weekend” event, I found myself on a three-day backpacking trip with my Morgan Hill friend Stu Nuttall and his son Calvin. Earlier that week, I’d mentioned to an acquaintance my upcoming trip into the Orestimba Wilderness. “Why?” that person asked with a sneer. The subtext from his tone asked: “Why in hell would you want to waste your time schlepping 50-pounds of gear up steep mountain trails and down into rugged canyons under a blazing hot sun and then sleep on the cold, hard ground miles away from the conveniences and comforts of civilization?”
I knew I could never provide a satisfactory answer. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Because it’s fun.” He replied cynically, “Yeah, some fun.”
Well, if you’ve never spent time on a real backpacking trip (and I’m not talking about camping in some packaged campground with running water and bathrooms within easy reach), it’s really hard to explain the appeal of testing yourself physically, mentally and spiritually against the awe-inspiring rawness of true wilderness. It’s really a bit intimidating trekking into the rugged wild and putting yourself up against the trials of Mother Nature.
Most Americans, like the guy I had talked with earlier in the week, will never experience that kind of arduous adventure. They’re either too soft or they’re too fearful of true wilderness. They’re depriving themselves of the rewards that come from getting away from the amenities of modern civilization for a short spell.
Words can never truly convey what I personally got from the recent trip I took into Henry Coe’s awe-inspiring Orestimba Wilderness, but I’ll try to give you a glimpse of it by sharing with you some highlights of my recent Backcountry Weekend backpacking adventure.
Along virtually every hiking trail that Stu, Calvin and I traversed, we witnessed the dazzling colors of sheets of wildflowers spreading across the Orestimba hillsides. At some spots, it seemed like a florist shop had exploded over the landscape. We felt hypnotized by the tall green grasses, top-heavy with dart-like seeds, swaying in the wind gusts racing along the rolling hills.
After a steep climb through bramble of coyote brush, we reached the pinnacle of Mustang Peak. From the 2,263-foot high mountain’s summit, we gazed at the Orestimba and felt humbled by the spreading vista of a vast valley seemingly frozen in silent and splendid desolation. I felt tiny gazing at the awe-inspiring sight of the waves of mountain ridges, rumpled from millions of years of tectonic churning, that surrounded this vale.
At our camp site as I lay on the ground snuggled in a warm sleeping bag, I would occasionally wakeup in the middle of the night and stare at stars painted on the black vault of sky. The misty film of the Milky Way streaked mysteriously over the constellations. In my half-dream state I couldn’t help but wonder that among the nearly 400 billion stars of our galaxy, there must be worlds where exotic beings might now be staring up at space as I now was doing.
I felt at one point in the early morning hours the strange sensation that I was not looking up at the sky but was really strapped by my sleeping bag on the ground at the bottom of planet Earth and looking straight down into a well of worlds. I felt the delicious terror of feeling that at any second I might slip from the bonds of Earth and tumble deep into the dark void of the universe.
Sunday morning of our Orestimba adventure, I sat in solitude by the small pond near where we had made camp. The rays of the rising sun hitting the water’s surface filled my eyes with glittering sparkles. The pond’s misty vapors skated across the surface like ghostly ballet performers dancing to the music of songbirds hidden in the surrounding oaks.
As I gazed into the stillness of the pond, I recalled my cynical acquaintance. When he had asked me “why” I wanted to go into the Orestimba, I should have shared with him the words that Sada Coe wrote when she dedicated a monument in the park to her father, the rancher Henry W. Coe for whom the park is named. She blessed the park with this thought: “May these quiet hills bring peace to the souls of those who are seeking.”
