Morgan Hill resident Ron Erskine started Jan. 1 hike tradition five years ago

Published in the Jan. 7 – 23, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life

By Staff Report

A group of people and their dogs climb a trail  through the verdant hills of the South Valley’s Harvey Bear County Park during the 2015 annual New Year’s Day hike. Photo by Marty Cheek

A group of people and their dogs climb a trail through the verdant hills of the South Valley’s Harvey Bear County Park during the 2015 annual New Year’s Day hike. Photo by Marty Cheek

The winter sun shined cold and brilliant on about 80 hikers, including families and people with dogs on leashes, who participated in the South Valley’s fifth annual New Year’s Day four-mile group hike starting from the Mendoza Ranch entrance of Harvey Bear County Park.

Gilroy residents Jim and Connie Rogers do the hike every Jan. 1 because they find it a fun way to start off a brand-new year together.

“You’re out with a lot of people who have similar values and interests and enjoy being outdoors, and you get to see people you don’t see too often,” Jim said, standing at a point on a ridge vista on the park’s Mummy Mountain Trail overlooking a panorama of the South Valley below.

“It gets your blood going for the New Year,” Connie said. “You get fresh air and sunshine. It starts off the New Year on a good foot, literally.”

Hollister resident Laurie Venturini said this was her first time doing the annual New Year’s Day adventure.

“It’s a great hike to be in nature, specially on a day like this,” she said. “Who could not want to be outside?”

She loves hiking and said that the Mummy Mountain Trail is a “good starting trail” for people beginning to venture into the activity of hiking.
“I just like to be outside and see everything. I’ve hiked a lot of different places and I haven’t don’t many of the trails here (in the South Valley).”

Two hikers enjoy the view of Coyote Lake from a trail. Photo by Marty Cheek

Two hikers enjoy the view of Coyote Lake from a trail. Photo by Marty Cheek

Morgan Hill resident Ron Erskine started the hike tradition five years ago, with the first hike held at the Rancho Canada del Oro Open Space Preserve. To make the hike more accessible to people in Gilroy and Hollister, he decided to make the Mummy Mountain Trail the permanent location for the hike. People drove from as far as Walnut Creek to participate in this year’s hike.

“A lot of the hike’s appeal is what I call spectator value, the vistas of the valley below,” Erskine said. “It’s sort of invigorating. It energizes you on the first of January and maybe energizes you for the year as well as the day. You get in touch with the life force, and there’s never any harm in that.”

The New Year’s Day hike is the first in a series of six hikes Erskine will lead to prepare for a challenging group hike that will climb up Mount Hoffman in Yosemite National Park in July. For more information about these hikes, contact Erskine by emailing him at [email protected].