A 2020 fire may have burned the ridgeline leading to Apache Kid Peak. Although that section was not heavily forested (until the last bit to the summit), I don't know the current conditions due to the fire.
Oct 10, 2018 — Without any information regarding the trail system in the San Mateo Mountains and only an old map outlining some trails that lead from the east up to Apache Kid Peak, I was moderately excited to get into the middle of nowhere and expected some bushwhacking on very old trails, and I dragged Austin along with me to this potential sufferfest. The initial goal was to go up the Teepe Trail to Blue Mountain, and come down the Cold Spring Trail to make a pleasant loop, but as you'll find out, nature was having none of it.
Starting from the trailhead, unmarked except by a broken sign hidden in the grass, follow the Cold Spring Trail down into Basin Canyon, where basalt pillars make up the canyon walls - it was really pretty. The trail is overgrown, but fairly easy to follow at this point, and it leads west into a canyon for a few miles. We passed the junction with the Teepe Trail, but the trail itself looked like it was nonexistent, so we opted to skip that leg of our trip (the first of many changes to our plans) and instead just go up to Cyclone Saddle and call it a day. Eventually, the Cold Spring Trail enters a narrower section of canyon and becomes more annoying, and only gets worse from there. We attempted to follow the trail as it skirted the ridgeline, but it had eroded so much that we gave up and decided to nix our plan to get up to Cyclone Saddle (change #2, blue line on the map), instead opting to bushwhack up the ridge in an attempt to summit Apache Kid Peak. The slope is steep and has some bushwhacking, but it was totally reasonable, had nice views, and avoided the likely failure of trying to stay on the Cold Spring Trail. Apache Kid Peak is forested, but does have a summit register with only a few entries. We decided to go back down the ridge we came up, but rather than retrace our steps on the basically nonexistant Cold Spring Trail, we avoided the most annoying bushwhacking and got down into the canyon via the ridge (see map). Overall not the most fun adventure, but we bagged a seldom-visited peak and area, so there's that.
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Hire/refer me as a web developer or send me a few bucks if you find my site useful. I'm not sponsored, so all fees are out-of-pocket and my time preparing trip reports is unpaid. I really appreciate it!
