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Home / Mojave Preserve and Desert bikepacking trips / 2007: Henry Coe State Park Mountain-Bike Camping / Day 2: Sierra View camp to Mississippi Lake /

After descending that little steep piece of Hobbs Road, I ride down Manzanita Point Road across the meadow.

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05265-manzanita-point-road-550px.jpg At the end of the Sierra View trail, the 10-ton bike has to cross that little drainage gulley where it got stuck last night.ThumbnailsI just descended 1000 feet in 1.7 miles down the steep Poverty Flat Road to the bottom of the canyon.At the end of the Sierra View trail, the 10-ton bike has to cross that little drainage gulley where it got stuck last night.ThumbnailsI just descended 1000 feet in 1.7 miles down the steep Poverty Flat Road to the bottom of the canyon.At the end of the Sierra View trail, the 10-ton bike has to cross that little drainage gulley where it got stuck last night.ThumbnailsI just descended 1000 feet in 1.7 miles down the steep Poverty Flat Road to the bottom of the canyon.At the end of the Sierra View trail, the 10-ton bike has to cross that little drainage gulley where it got stuck last night.ThumbnailsI just descended 1000 feet in 1.7 miles down the steep Poverty Flat Road to the bottom of the canyon.At the end of the Sierra View trail, the 10-ton bike has to cross that little drainage gulley where it got stuck last night.ThumbnailsI just descended 1000 feet in 1.7 miles down the steep Poverty Flat Road to the bottom of the canyon.

It's a mostly gentle downhill across this meadow, which is painted in a typical Henry Coe late-summer palette: golden yellow (grass), sky blue, and some dark green trim from the oaks and other trees.

I will climb over that ridge in the distance (Willow Ridge) later today to get to Mississippi Lake on the other side.

It's interesting to me how many people interpret the golden yellow of the dry grasses as brown and dead (and thus unappealing). Personally, I find the dry golden yellow grass against a bright blue sky to be a one of the more striking colour combinations that California landscapes have to offer.

I do most of my visits to Coe Park in late summer, when the landscape it at its driest. While the greener landscapes of winter and spring have a beauty and lushness of their own, I find their verdant character at that time of year to be darker perhaps a bit more monotonous (I love yellow!).