Coe - Three Ridge ride

The three ridges: Middle Steer, Lyman-Willson and Phegley Ridge.

After last week’s navigational mishap I wanted to do some exploring in the Redfern / Phegley Ridge area. I’d been in the neighborhood before but got somewhat lost too on that occasion. This Saturday morning didn’t look too appealing – cold and cloudy – and I almost resorted to doing a quick Kennedy / Los Gatos afternoon ride. Later in the day the clouds and fog started breaking up though, so I headed for a late Coe trip after all.

I got going around 4pm and conditions were magnificent (sun, blue sky, wildflowers, critters, vistas), be it a bit on the breezy side. For a change and with a good amount of unwarranted overconfidence I launched an attempt to climb Middle Steer clean. The longish wall after the gate and the short but ridiculously steep and loose section right before Bowl trail got the better of me though. Near Wilson peak I met a few hikers who mentioned Tule Pond was crowded with turtles. So I set course to it, descending Serpentine which currently has some very bad ruts in spots. I brought my ‘big’ camera with me and I wouldn’t mind some wildlife shots – I had to settle with the turtles and a turkey vulture, not too bad but that was a lot of camera carrying around for those few shots.

Tule Pond was pretty and glorious in the evening sun; after dabbing around the pond and hanging out with the turtles I climbed up Wagon road to camp Willson and beyond. That climb on Wagon following the descent just passed the camp (to the south) is actually rather obnoxious. More climbing was on the menu after I took the turnoff to Phegley Ridge road to get to Redfern pond. But then things started to lighten up: I had a big, steep, bumpy, thrilling descent ahead of me. The trail, a doubletrack turning into a lovely singletrack was in pretty decent shape and had apparently seen a good bit of recent (mainly horse) use, so it wasn’t too hard to follow or overgrown. Only one down tree, which had a bypass. Phegley is quite steep and some tricky switchbacks are thrown in lower on the ridge for good measure. The lower part was pretty rutted and had suffered severe hoof damage. Soon I ended up in Hunting Hollow again.

After a quick break I decided I hadn’t had enough and took a right turn on Lyman-Willson – there would just be enough light I figured for perhaps a quick Lyman-Willson – Bowl – Middle Steer loop. Or I could just do an out-and-back. I still had some juice left in the tank as I cleaned the wall and was able to carry on without too much trouble. The approaching sunset and the height of the ‘magic hour’ were perfect icing on the cake. At the Bowl intersection I took a left – this section doesn’t seem to get a lot of bike traffic, equestrians appear to use it more, and unfortunately the hoof damage was pretty bad in spots and quite a pain in the rear end. The treacherous little creek crossings and mini mud bogs were starting to annoy me as well, and I was glad to see Middle Steer Ridge come in sight.

I think I had started to burn through my rear brake pads, so I took it a little easy on the descent but it was quite a ride as always. It was now twilight and getting really cold, so I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the final creek crossings on Hunting Hollow – having wet and numb feet would be my fate but that’s a small price to pay for a decent dose of Coe-bliss!