Latest Hikes

I haven't posted any hikes here lately. So, here is the writeup for some of the hikes I have been on this year so far.

January - Cache Creek Ridge Backpacking

One of the nice things about living in California, is that you can go hiking year around. I usually hike near my home in the inter coastal in the fall/winter/spring until the weather gets too hot to enjoy hiking. this time I decided to take a backpacking trip cache creek ridge. the weather was nice and it was supposed to be in the 40-50s during the day for the week.

I started my hike at brophy canyon, hiking cross country up the ridge and connecting with one of the ranch roads (name) in the area. I followed the trail and turned south at ??? trail pasing the old stage coach stop and meeting up with the cache creek ridge trail, heading west. most of these trails are on BLM public land and this time of year the land is populated by bovine, which I'm sure are pretty weirded out having people hiking through their pastures. I hiked until sunset and pitched camp at the side of the trail in part of the trail that is not racnhed.

On this hike I was trying out my new backpack which I bought on sale and want to use on a thru hike this summer. I packed a stove, fuel, sleeping bag (30F) and pad, plus enough water (1.5Gal) and food for an overnight trip. no tent, since I wasn't expecting rain or high winds. for dinner I had oatmeal wit brown sugar which is great for cool days. the night started out nice with clear skies. watched the stars and various jets taking off from SMF heading west and north. around 0100 it became obvious that the 30F sleeping bag I had wasn't going to be warm enough. my legs were cold... struggled with trying to find a position that would be more comfortable/warmer until I remembered my space blanked in my emergency kit. wrapped it around my legs and now I was warm. in the morning, I awoke and noticed that the sleeping bag had frost out the outside. so, the temps were defintately below freeezing and space blankets do a good job of insulating, except that they are noisy (crinkly...) and contain the moisture. anyway, made some more oatmeal and had hot tea, both with brown sugar and got underway.

I kept hiking west until I hit a 4 way in the trail. the BLM trail marker was torn down, so I wasn't sure which of the 2 likely branches SW or NW I should take. I took the SW branch and followed it until it started peterging out for about 45mins. backtracked and followed the NW branch, until another branch further down the trail. I followed the spur to the parking area on HWY20, and then turned around retracing my route until the T on cache creek ridge trail were I started the day before. this time, I followed the ridge all the way to the eastern end, which is on bear creek, near the confluence of bear/cache creek.
a short trip 1+miles along HWY16 north back to were I left the car.

Notes for this hike :
- oatmeal is tasty with brown sugar, especially in colder weather
- my new backpack is one of the most comfortable packs I have worn (old style REI UL60 long)
- need long underwear for sleeping in 30F sleeping back around 30F
- need to do something about my toes hurting on long hikes. the total trip for both days was around 25miles

Febuary - Cold Canyon in the Rain

My wife's friend was in town and we had made plans to go hiking. since the forecast called for rain the girls decided not to go hiking and hang out watching movies at home instead. can't blame them, but since I was in a hiking mood, I decided to go for a short hike anyway at cold canyon. about 1/4 into the hike is started raining and I was soaked in no time... oh well, I'm wet now, might as well finish. despite the rain, the hike was nice until I got the end of the trail (I went clockwise) where they had build a serpentine trail, since the old trail went straight up the side of the ridge and was eroding. by now it had stopped raining. the new trail was done very nicely, but unfortunately since all of the earth work was fresh, it was very muddy, which made it hard to descent down the ridge. I met some hike coming up the ridge at 4:00, who seemed ill prepared, wearing tennis shoes and just starting out. sunset was still early, so they'd probably have to come down near dark. oh well, live and learn.

February - Fiske Creek / Rayhouse Road loop

I hiked fiske peak a couple of time last year and though it might we fun to explore the area. I picked the fiske creek trail, which runs parallel in a canyon to blue ridge. you have to take ray house road to get to the trail head, which is about 2.5 miles from the beginning of the road and parking area. normally, ray house road is open in the summer, but it's busy with rafting traffic of buses taking rafters to drop off points near bear island on the cache creek. fisk creek trail runs 4 miles south until it intersects fiske creek road. fiske road then follows up the opposite ridge until it intersects ray house road at the 4 way intersection.

since there was going to be plenty of water, I took dakota the ueber dog with me. she is a lot of fun and loves to hike, when there is enough water to cool off in and drink. the hike from the parking area to the trail head is a bit uneventful. once on fiske trail, which is at about 1600ft ele. the trail descents into the canyon, which is probably around 700-800ft.. the tail follows an old ranch road and crossess the creek several times, which was flowing well from the rains of last week. the canyon bottom was pleasent with oak groves and pastures in wide places. at the other trail head (fiske creek road) I was welcomed by a bunch of trash. bummer... wish the road was open and I would go down with my trooper to haul it away... we'll have to wait.

took a break and prepared for the long hike up to ray house road, which is at about 2500ft. the hike up the ridge was long, but the scenery on top of the ridge was very nice. there was a pond to stop and dakota tanked up on some water. once I got to the four way intersection (four corners), we starting back down ray house road. met some guy going down the road on a motorcycle. we kept going past the two trail heads to fiske creek trail (didn't know there were two), and end up in the parking area... this hike was about 2.5+4+5+??+3.5 miles... probably 17-18 miles total. I was trying some new socks with more padding, but my toes still hurt a lot, mostly from going down hill.

Arpil - Blue Ridge / Fisk Creek loop

haven't had enough from the first loop adventure and decided it would be fun to do the other loop. this one consts of going up blue ridge trail, past fiske peak and lowry peak, descending... into fiske creek and back via ray house road. last weekend was a nice day for hiking and even managed to get a little sunburned. I decided to make this a backpack trip for more conditioning and since I was unsure whether I would be able to finish before dark or not.

ascending to fisk peak was grueling. I had hiked up this way a couple of times in the last 3 mos, but didn't remember it being this hard in the past. then it dawned on me that hiking up 15% inclines (in places) with a 40+lbs pack isn't the same as without backpack. the new backback is pretty comfortable, that I forget I'm waring it. except for the reduce climbing performance... once I established that, settled on more resting climbing pace and finally made the peak in 2.5hrs... took a rest and signed the register. trying to continue on what I thought was the blue ridge trail ended up in the middle of burned brush from the rumsey fire. after beating through the brush, I finally found the real "trail" after being covered with black soot. the trail is not very well defined after fiske peak, also I didn't notice any foot prints, so I think it's been a while since anyone has hiked this section. Rumsey canyon was a challenge going south on the trail with steep climbout back up to lowry peak, but it's a great opportunity to practice my climbing pace. there was a lot of haze so the visibility wasn't that great, but the haze was burning off during the afternoon and it was improving... past lowry peak and to the end of the "maintained" part of the blue ridge trail.

here we descend on a mountain goat trail for about 0.5miles along the side of the ridge down to the parking lot area of fiske creek road (closed). this trail is very narrow and luckily there were no washouts or obstructions. the parking lot looks alien on the side of the ridge. it's perfectly flat and has a sheen of green grass on it this time of year. there are no visible vehicle tracks or foot prints. it looks like noone has been there for quite some time. going down fiske creek road, I pickup some motorcycle tracks. there were also some washouts in the road, which would have made it impossible for any regular cars to make it to the parking lot areas. the trail head for the fiske creek trail was still littered; have to remember to organize a trip sometime to pickup trash once the road is open again this summer.

this time, I'm hiking fiske creek trail back the opposite direction. the canyon is still very nice. I notice more wildflowers in the area this time, then last time (a month ago). the creek is pretty low and not flowing in some place. all of the side creeks are dry. at the final creek crossing, the creek was flowing better and the water looked clear and fresh and was cool. I filled up one of my bottles and added water treatment, since I was running low on water I brought with me.

climbing back out the canyon was very steep... funny I didn't remember how steep this section of the trail was, since I went down it the last time... it seemed to go on forever, but finally made it to the ray house rd. trailhead. hiked back down rayhouse road to the parking area... not bad for a days worth of hiking. (8.5+2.5+4.0+2.5 = 17.5 miles and about 4000ft elev. changes all together...