Sonoma County High Point Trip Report
Date: January 2002
Author: Edward Earl
Commentary
Cobb Mountain has three summits: east, middle, and west. The west summit is the Sonoma County HP.
The middle and east summits have towers and are in Lake county and rise about 100 and 70 feet,
respectively, above the saddle between them. The middle summit is therefore the main summit
(Cobb Mountain HP). The dip from the middle to the west summit is almost 400 feet deep, and the west summit
itself, much lower than the other two, is about 100 feet above the west saddle. The register, which is the
only man-made object on the county HP, contains many familiar names.
A good graded dirt road connects the radio towers on the middle and east summits. Apart from
convolutions in this road, it trends east-west. Scott Surgent thought he was going south when he was
actually going west, from the east to the middle summit. At the junction near the east saddle, the left fork
(following Scott's convention) goes to the middle summit. A don't know where the right fork goes, but I
presume it goes down the mountain and provides vehicular access to all the towers from below.
That explains why Scott never found a saddle when he went this way.
Continuing on the left fork, the road passes just north of the middle summit. A very short spur road south
leads to the towers. On the left side of the spur road are some volcanic boulder piles with low overhanging
branches above. These are the very summit of Cobb Mountain itself. This is what another commentator
thought was the county HP; he thought he was on the west summit when in fact he was on the middle summit.
To reach the west summit, continue past the spur road to the middle summit towers. The condition of the
"main" road suddenly worsens at this point; it appears abandoned from here. The road continues west a
short distance, turns south, loses 200 feet of elevation, turns west, loses 200 feet more, and finally peters out
just before reaching the west saddle. Several trip reports and Gary Suttle's guide book say that the 100 foot
scramble up the steep slope from here to the west summit is hampered by brush. When I was there, the area
had been cleared recently. There was a large man-made pile of cut brush surrounded by large areas of bare dirt.
The final push to the county HP was unimpeded by vegetation.