25.6 miles; 6,278 vertical feet gained in elevation May 25 - 26, 2012 Jared Atkins, Dave Sholer  After a couple years without hiking together, we took an opportunity to return to Henry Coe State Park for a nostalgic hike. We didn't get to the park until almost 10am, but despite the late start, we were feeling ambitious and decided to attempt to reach Jackrabbit Lake. The lake, on the far eastern side of the park, is a long day hike of which we had failed twice before finally making the almost 17.5 miles of mostly faint and overgrown trails (see the Jackrabbit Lake '04 hike notes). We reached Mississippi Lake at around 1:15pm with plenty of time and energy to reach Jackrabbit Lake. After a short rest, scarce rain drops quickly turned into a heavy rain as an usual May thunderstorm passed over the lake. We would have been less-than-comfortable in what become hail and slushy rain if not for a conveniently-placed restroom with a covered porch. We waited a couple of hours for the storm to pass and pondered whether or not we would continue on to Jackrabbit. We finally decided that the return trip would make for a longer day 2 than we had originally planned, and that the weather was still uncertain, so we would stay camped at Mississippi Lake. We cooked the usual couscous for dinner, but Dave had brought a well-aged can of spam for an additional treat. We got to sleep shortly before sunset and the weather ended up staying fairly nice throughout the night.  We woke up at around 6:30am, packed up our packs, and pumped water before heading on the trail. We decided to add a few miles on the return loop since our first day was shorter. We hiked up and over Bear Mountain, back down to the creek, and eventually up Poverty Flat road before arriving back at Henry Coe headquarters at around 2pm. The headquarters was packed as we had finished our short hike at the beginning portion of Memorial Day weekend.  |
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