North Table Mountain Hike 1-28-10

This trip started at the northwestern trail head. The climb starts out pretty steep as usual amongst most of the foothills. As you climb you will pass a large metal container and up further you will come to a maintenance rd. Here you will continue that steep climb until you come to the top of the mesa. There must have been some mining practices that have taken place here as they have done on South Table and on the right you will see the area dug out. Louie and I hiked south through the mined area, we walked with no real indications of wildlife. Once out of the scree field we followed an old road. There were only two other tracks of someone hiking there too. They must have been there in the morning. Wildlife tracks are everywhere showing there is no lack of food here.


I decided to go off the trail and head east following a drainage. Louie liked it here because he could run his little butt off. We come to an area where two drainage's come together and offers moisture to a couple of the few trees on this table top. After taking a break I decided to start heading north following the cliff line. The really interesting experience here was the lack of visibility and how big the table is. I couldn't see the other side and had no real references to tell me what direction I was heading. To make matters more interesting I learned how hard it is to maintain a specific direction on rough terrain. I was getting a little worried as I came to a much larger quarry. I wondered "where the hell is this"? I had no idea this table offered such a variety of features.

We had come over a knoll and I saw a large animal about 200 yds away which at first I thought was a lion. Boy, I was excited! As we watched Louie not really sure what we were looking at but held his stalking pose. I realized at that point there was no way that a lion would still be sitting there as I know it saw us. Then it turned sideways and I could see it had longer more pointed ears than a lion would have. I was surprised to see it was a coyote. Same color fur and was very thick making its hind quarters look bigger as it was sitting there. I really thought this was the lion I am looking for. I had a camera but my batteries died and that really pissed me off.

to be cont....