I was planning on going up Mt Shasta for Memorial Day weekend with a short backcountry trip in the Yosemite or Tahoe wilderness as a backup.

Mother Nature had other ideas.

With the huge amount of snow that was still hanging around at elevations AND some very unusual late May storms that deposited more new snow making the avalanche danger very real AND another storm passing through on the holiday weekend, there was no way I should be any where near the Mt Shasta or the Sierra Nevada mountains this particular weekend.

Of course, being Memorial Day weekend getting reservations at some of my favorite Bay Area and coastal places was a futile effort. So I went down my list of things I wanted to do someday and settled on Henry Coe State Park. It’s a very large park south of the Bay Area with many miles of backcountry trails. I’ve only done some day hikes there, so doing some backpacking was attractive to me. The fact that you didn’t need reserved permits or reservations for most of the park helped cement my decision to go south for the long weekend.

There was that storm passing through Saturday Night and Sunday, but by all reports it would just be light scattered showers. I had rain gear and a waterproof tent to sleep in, so what the heck.

I decided to start late Friday to avoid the Hunting Hollow parking lot filling up. While I knew I wouldn’t have time to make it to the top of Steel Ridge or even Wilson Peak that night, I did get 2 miles up the Jim Donnelley Trail and enjoyed views of the setting sun all the way up. I chose the Jim Donnelley Trail because the trial directly up Steel Ridge looked VERY steep (and was) when I was driving to the trailhead.

I setup my tent and settled in for a night night’s sleep.

I awoke inside a cloud.

Probably literally. While it may have been fog, it was very widespread and didn’t seem to follow the contours of the landscape. I packed up my tent and finished the climb towards Wilson Peak.

It was a very DAMP morning. No rain, just a lot of moisture in the air and water dripping from the trees.

The view from the top was… the same foggy cloud I woke up in. After taking some panoramic shots fo the fog/inside of the cloud, I made my towards my primary goal for the trek: Pacheco Falls. I decided to go down via Grizzly Gulch towards Kelly Lake. This would give me some different scenery (if the fog/cloud lifted), since I’d likely return via Wagon Road.

It also gave me the chance to see Kelly and Coit Lakes, which were very lovely lakes. Fortunately, by the time I climbed out of Grizzly Gulch the fog/clouds had lifted and I started to get a good view of the surrounding rolling hills and Kelly Lake. After shedding my rain gear at the lake, I made my way to Coit Lake. It was supposedly very popular and should have been packed with people on a holiday weekend, but I think the poor weather scared some people off.

Their loss.

Coit Lake or the nearby Fish Game Pond were a possible campsite for the night, but it was still early so I decided to try to make it to Pacheco Falls that afternoon.

As I approached the trail down to the falls, I found a great spot on the ridge line to camp for the night. While I could continue and camp near the pond near the falls, there wouldn’t be much of a view at the pond AND I’d have to carry my gear down and back up about 600 feet of elevation. I chose the view, setup my tent, left most of my gear behind, and headed down to the falls.

It was worth the trip. Very beautiful falls with alternating cascades and pools making their way down a narrow split in the rock walls. I enjoyed the falls from above and also saw the lowest cascade from the bottom.

Returning to my camp, I enjoyed a modest sunset behind the nearby ridge line. There was a few rain showers overnight, but when morning arrived there was only some lingering clouds. Unfortunately, they obscured the morning’s sunrise, but I still had a chance to see some golden light as the sun rose behind the clouds. It was at least better than the thick cloud I awoke inside the previous morning.

With the weather forecast showing the light morning showers were more likely to be heavier afternoon thunderstorms, I decided my best course of action was to take the Wagon Road back to Wilson Peak. A longer route was available, but that could mean I would have to hike through the rain. Even with my rain gear, I wanted to try and find a place to camp before the rains hit.

Wilson Peak was kind of where I wanted to spend Sunday night anyway, so I made my way back and enjoyed the views from the trail as I may my way back.

When I arrived I saw… the entire park surrounding me (or at least most of it). The skies were pretty clear and I was able to enjoy the views from the top. I did see some very menacing clouds to the Northwest, which made me ponder returning to my Jeep. It was only 4 miles away and probably an hour and half or so (all downhill). It was very tempting to abort the trek at that point, but it’s not like I had anything better to do. 🙂

So, I setup my tent at the very top of Wilson Peak only a few feet from the bench marker. I crawled inside whenever the skies started to rain down on me. While there were some brief rainstorms that passed overhead that required me to use my iPhone to entertain myself with and grumble whenever the rain forecast kept extending into the evening instead of ending in the afternoon like it had said earlier.

But the rain stopped a little over an hour before sunset to allow me to crawl out of my tent and make some ramen for dinner. My outlook for the sunset improved and as the skies started to slowly clear around me.

After the storm, it was pretty magical as the sun started to bake the wet ground. Wisps of steam rose all around me, dancing around the summ

That led into the equally magical sunset to make it all worth while. While there were some clouds, they only helped make the light more spectacular. With the 360 degree view, I enjoyed the sunset and the light dancing over the surrounding terrain.

I had chosen wisely.

After another night’s rest, I awoke to look for the sunrise. More clouds than the previous night did mute the sunrise a bit and I didn’t get a chance to see the actual sun most of the time, but the gaps in the clouds did produce some amazing rays of light beaming down on the hills.

With Monday looking to be pretty decent weather-wise I wished I could spend more time out there, but there were no particular hikes from where I was that I wanted to do, so after enjoying the sunrise and packing my gear up I made my way back to the trailhead I started from.

So a good weekend to get back in shape for even more backpacking and treks to come that year.