Henry W. Coe State Park

Coyote Valley RV Park
Morgan Hill, CA

Today we took a drive up the mountain to

Henry W. Coe State Park.

It's only about a 13 mile drive from Coyote.

It was cold and foggy (well 50's!) here,

but as soon as we got above the fog, it was beautiful!

 Henry Coe was a cattleman back in the late 1880's.

He and several other men had homestead claims on 160 acres

and raised cattle.

Eventually, in 1953, the Coe's daughter Sada, gave her family's ranch

to the Pine Ridge association which eventually became the second largest

state park in California.

It now has over 87,000 acres of wide open spaces.

On the way up the steep windy road,

we passed by Anderson Lake, which is Santa Clara's largest reservoir.

Even after all the rain we got last weekend, you can see how low it is.

As we kept climbing higher, we saw some deer.

There was really no place to safely pull over to get a picture.

The views of the valley were spectacular from the road!

We finally got to the top, and paid our $7.00 day use fee.

There is a visitor's center, but unfortunately it was closed today.

There are several trails to hike, but we chose the Monument trail today.

It starts up the hill and ends up at a monument to Henry Coe.

We had some terrific views of the fog from the top..

We enjoyed some of the wildflowers that were popping up early..

Mostly we enjoyed the views!

George and I had packed a picnic lunch,

and we enjoyed that after our hike.

We hiked almost 3 miles, and we were pooped!

It was a great day :-)