The highest point of Sonoma County is the western summit bump of Cobb Mountain, which straddles Lake and Sonoma counties. In good conditions, this is an easy hike following old roads to the main summit (and towers), then down some logging roads to the Sonoma county highpoint. As I would discover shortly, in bad conditions, getting around up here can be extremely confusing and frustrating!

My first attempt at the county highpoint was in December 2001. It was in the afternoon when I got started, but I didn't think the late start would affect me adversely. I did not have a detailed map other than what was printed in Gary Suttle's California County Highpoints book. Nor did I carry a compass. Nevertheless, I felt I would be alright on this little jaunt. How hard is it to follow a road? I'd find out soon enough.

The hike starts in the quaint mountain town of Whispering Pines inside Lake County. I parked along the main highway and walked up the paved roads to the last house, then past it, losing the pavement at an old gate. The road continues, but now as a derelict path mainly used by ATVs and dirtbikes, and the occasional hiker. I made good time up this road, gaining about 2,000 feet in a little over an hour. It was actually a pleasant hike and I had no complaints. I came upon a "summit", on which sat a small building and a buzzing generator. Now the fun began.

I followed Suttle's directions, which were accurate but assumed that one started at the same points as he described in his book. Long story short: I could not find road junctions as he described, and to make things worse, dense fog started to roll in, reducing my visibility to just a few yards. Being so close to the winter solstice, it started to get kind of dusky. I grew frustrated by the seeming mismatch between the book and what I was seeing. A couple times I'd backtrack to the first summit I had come upon, and retry my steps. The fog grew very thick and I was losing my confidence on this outing. Twice I came upon another hilltop, this one covered in a major set of towers. Was this the county highpoint? No, it couldn't be, but just to be safe I tagged anything that looked high. I even descended the road beyond this hilltop, but with the fog as thick as it was, and the cold wind blowing, and the setting sun, common sense finally entered my thick head and suggested I abandon my county highpoint attempt. I backtracked to the first summit and safely down the path/road to my truck, staying the night with my sister in San Francisco. The storm that was coming in turned out to be quite a big one, dropping snow down to 2,000 feet elevation.

I had in fact been successful in reaching the summit of Cobb Mountain, the hilltop with all the towers, but not in reaching the Sonoma County highpoint. I could not make sense of where my error had been, and was quite frustrated by the whole experience. Obviously, I'd have to come back and try again.

In May 2003, I was back in the region, now with my lovely new fiance Beth, visiting her old home in Fort Bragg. I had never been here before, and we had a great time walking around town and checking out all the locals, a neat blend of loggers, fishers, artists and general hippies. Earlier in the trip we'd visited Black Butte, the highpoint of Glenn County. I hoped to rectify my errors on Cobb Mountain on this trip, too. So, after we were done with Fort Bragg, we made the long, curvy, scenic and very indirect driive into Lake County and the town of Whispering Pines. We parked in the same spot and essentially hiked the exact same route as before. This time, however, the weather was fantastic, and I had a great-looking babe with me. These things matter, you know. As mentioned earlier, getting to the summit is cake, and we managed this in about two hours. Aside from all the towers, the top is very lovely, lightly-forested with a mat of pine needles underneath.

Now it was time to figure out just what I did wrong 17 months earlier. From the first summit, we hiked to the main summit with the towers, then went left at a junction beyond this point, down about 400 feet to bottom out at a small saddle, covered in a huge pile of recently-logged logs and slash. The western summit, which is the Sonoma County highpoint, lies just beyong. It was easy to climb up the slope and top out on a small rise. And that was that. We found a small pile of rocks but to be sure, we explored anything else in the immediate region to be sure we had the Sonoma County highpoint properly claimed. I didn't want to come back a third time. The weather was fantastic and we took an enjoyable break here. The hike out was easy, but when we hit the town, we met up with some Charlie Manson-esque character with long beard and wild eyes talking gibberish, so we deemed it best to just get rolling and change our clothes as a gas station up the road. The highpoint hike had been a success, and I now knew what my errors were from 2001.

Basically, I got my summits wrong. There are three, an eastern one (which you come to first), the main middle one (the Cobb Mountain highpoint) and the western one (the Sonoma County highpoint). Suttle's directions assume you begin your point of reference at the main summit. My point of reference was from the eastern summit, which I assumed at first was the "main" one. No wonder nothing matched up. Also, some roads on the mountain are not shown on the map, and these junctions would add to my confusion. If the weather had been better I could have seen the broader scene easier. In any case, I now knew my error, and was happy to fix it. This is a fun hike, but not one I want to be doing twice.

Well, it felt good to correct an error and learn my mistakes. From here we drove into Clearlake, where we stayed for the night before flying back to sunny Arizona the next day.