A fenced corral like this made of manzanita posts, rudely staked, but sturdy enough to contain a herd of wild mustangs, would have been very similar to Murrieta’s lair in the canyons above – La Vereda del Monte

Joaquin’s Oaks – La Vereda del Monte – I was hesitant to jump the fence in this neck of the woods, everyone out here has a rifle. But two things motivate me, the light and the oaks.
As I walk under the branches I am reminded of a poem about a mountain that holds you in its spell so completely that you forget everything you have ever been. The mountain, the trail, the tree remain, but nothing of your past.

Once you have had a thing
and then lost it
is it like you never had it
or is the story that remains
like a shadow
of a dream you can’t quite remember

La Vereda del Monte – it is pure speculation how many times Murrieta made this trek, but one thing is known, he rode from Sonora Mexico at eighteen with his wife to a home in Niles Canyon, and before joining his half brother, Joaquin Carrillo, in Calavaras, to work the gold fields, he was a vaquero in Brentwood and worked the mustangs from the wild herds that roamed the central valley west of Stockton. He may have began herding horses at this time, legally, to Sonora Mexico, where he could turn a profit. If this is the case, he traveled the trail over a period of 3 or 4 years. To my knowledge it has never been ‘proved’ that he made the journey at all, what is known is that the trail, through Henry Coe Park, follows the Diablo Range into San Benito along creek beds like the one below. Meandering along San Benito River, I will shortly come to the turn off that takes me to the ridge, at least that is the way it looks on a map