The Living Landscape: Cobb Mountain – crest of beauty
- Kathleen Scavone
- Posted On
COBB, Calif. – The mountains of Lake County are many and varied, situated as we are here in this land of contrasts.
Cobb Mountain is located at a lofty 4,720 feet, making it the highest in the Mayacamas mountain range.
According to the Lake County Historical Society's Pomo Bulletin (now named Konocti Chronicles), the mountain was named for John Cobb, who hailed from Henry County, Kentucky.
Cobb, born on May 19, 1814, arrived in the Cobb Valley in the month of October in 1853. Prior to arriving in the Cobb area, which was then part of Napa County, he was a river boater and farmer in and around Kentucky.
His first wife and both of his children passed away before 1848 was over. Cobb then married Esther E. Deming from Ohio and they raised six children together.
The great West was calling him, so, along with his wife and one of his children they set off for California in the spring of 1850.
After stopping over in several places, they finally arrived in California in July of 1851. Cobb was voted in as assessor of Napa County in 1854. After he resided in what we now call Cobb Valley for around five years, he moved down to the Middletown area, in the Callayomi Valley where he farmed.
When Lake County was divided from Napa County, Cobb worked the Callayomi and Guenoc Land Grants for Robert Waterman.
At about that same time Cobb moved to the Stone House in what is now Hidden Valley, where he farmed, as well as leased some of the lands to settlers.
Cobb moved around throughout the years, but ended up residing in Little High Valley at the Lea Neu Ranch.
He died Nov. 13, 1893, and rests forever at the Lower Lake Cemetery.
Geographically speaking, Cobb Mountain's area encompasses about 74 square miles of mixed and pine forests, oak woodlands as well as chaparral.
Geologically, Cobb resides in the Franciscan assemblage with its mish-mash of sandstone, chert, shale, serpentinite and greenstone rock.
Cobb Mountain possesses peaks which are volcanic in nature, such as Mount Hannah at 3,978 feet in elevation, Boggs Mountain at 3,720 feet and Seigler Mountain at 3,692 feet. The relatively nearby Mount Konocti is 4,299 feet high.
Cobb Mountain dresses up in snow a few times a year, matching some of the other tall peaks in Lake County, such as Mount Saint Helena and Snow Mountain.
Most of Cobb Mountain resides in the Clear Lake and Cache Creek watersheds. Much of the mountain's melt waters and creeks at its eastern side create the headwaters of Putah Creek, which flows on into the Sacramento River, then into the San Francisco Bay, all the way to the great Pacific Ocean.
At its southwest section Cobb Mountain's flow runs into Cobb Creek, and next pours into Big Sulphur Creek to the Russian River and again into the Pacific.
Along Cobb's northwest the moisture is diverted into Alder Creek, on into Kelsey Creek, Clear Lake to Cache Creek to the Sacramento River.
From south county's Middletown looking west it is easy to see that Cobb Mountain stretches out to the world famous Geysers Geothermal Field.
Some of Cobb Mountain's other claims to fame have been its resorts and small communities of Hobergs, Cobb, Loch Lomond and Whispering Pines.
Other distinctions it held was its timber lands, as well as its refreshing spring waters belonging to Cobb Mountain Spring Water and bottled as Mayacamas Mountain Spring Water.
Although the nightmare 2015 Valley fire devastated much of Cobb Mountain, the area still remains a crest of beauty with its abundant wildlife in the mountain's riparian and wetland communities, such as blacktail deer, coyote, black tailed jackrabbit, western grey squirrel, black bear and even mountain lions.
Cobb possesses unique vernal pools which host rare or endangered plant species like orcuttia grass, Boggs Lake hedge-hyssop and delicate dimorphic snapdragons.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, freelance writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.”