Starting from Coe Ranch, we took Flat Frog Trail to Frog Lake and made our way to camp the first night at Skeels Meadow, just below the shortcut. I was skeptical about how steep this thing could be because we live in San Francisco and we are used to walking up famously steep hills, even a mile at a time! No, it was brutal. We tackled it at about 11am and it was already pretty hot. Thank goodness for the lovely well-placed bench! The ridge hiking at the top felt like a stroll in the park by comparison… then we took Jackass trail down toward poverty flat to spend night two. I couldn't wait to be done with Jackass trail as it was faint and hard to follow and totally overgrown in a lot of areas… ticks!!! SO MANY TICKS!!! Poverty flat was a great little camp spot with a big open starry sky at night, a creek, frogs croaking and wild turkeys gobbling. Day 3 Poverty flat road reminded us of the shortcut as it climbed steeply up. But only after fording the creek first! Forest trail made for an easy break before taking Corral trail back to complete our loop. It was a wonderful hike, even if it wasn't a place I'd usually choose to go backpacking. You'll notice I didn't mention Sizer yet. It was so underwhelming it's hard to know what to say about it… not much of a peak huh? That's okay, Mt. Sizer, you'll always have a special place in my heart after this super fun trip to the backcountry of Henry Coe.
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Responses
Sounds like you had a great time! Thinking about doing that hike tomorrow. The Shortcut has the same average slope as the last 1.5 miles to Mt Diablo’s North Peak (coming up from Marsh Creek Rd). I’ve done that a few times and it’s … challenging. And I’ve not tacked on 9 more miles afterwards. More and more I’m liking the idea of splitting it up over 2 days. But ticks? Why does there have to be ticks?! I hate those things. 🙁
Coe is a great place to backpack if you’re into it because there are a ton of trail camps out there. There are 3 or 4 camps on the way to the ridge but after you hit Sizer you’ll have to get down to Poverty Flat at least, I think that’s the first camp you’ll come across. It’s by a wonderful spot on the creek, but yeah… TICKS! You could skip Jackass Trail (super overgrown and grassy) and just take poverty flat road and you’d avoid the major tick hazard. We just tried to stick to singletracks when we could… but Jackass was not fun. There were three of us and we all found ticks on our clothes and packs but no bites. We hate them too!! They’re disgusting. Anyway, thanks for the comment! I had no idea Diablo had such a steep part too! I guess I’ll find out when we do that peak! ????