Long canyon, the hard way....
this weekend I decided to connect two trails that I know about. one trails is the fiske creek trail and the other the long canyon loop trail, but of which can be found on yolohiker.org. if you look at the map, the trails aren't that far apart, aprox. 0.5mi straight line. of course, straight line would mean fighting brush up a steep canyon to get to the saddle of long canyon loop. by car, the trailheads are easily a 2.5-3.0hrs drive apart, since you have to drive out of one valley, drive up another valley, go around lake berryessa and up a lonely back country road. so, I set out to find a route that would connect the two trails.
this is going to be a long hike, and possibly an overnight trip if I didn't get back before sunset. so I decided to take my backpack. one of the goals is to document any routes for others to use, I decided to take my GPS, which I normally don't take. I programmed in one of the critical way points (the saddle) into my GPS, so that I would have a place to navigate to if I get stuck in deep brush.
I started off the hiking up to the fiske creek trail head since the county road is not open yet. then following fiske creek trail until the southern trailhead. of course, once the county road is open, one can just drive to the far trail head. however, this trail is actually very nice and I enjoy hiking it anyway. the southern trail head is on fiske creek road, which connects rayhouse road one the adjacent ridge with the blue ridge. now the fun starts. from the trail head, we can't see the saddle since it's occluded by a hill. but no worries, I had the saddle programmed into the GPS, although it seemed weird that the GPS thought the saddle was farther west then I thought it would be...
well, I walked east on fisk creek rd looking for any path that might go up to the saddle and found one past a small picnic/camp area... following the path it quickly petered out into a washed out ravine. at one time, this could have been a fire break of jeep road, but years of rain had eroded the trail into a ravine which was grown over with brush in places, but it kept going up the hill, towards the west... there were a couple of promising intersections and I could see the saddle once I got high enough. the GPS, was pointing the wrong way... hmm, maybe the map I got the coordinates from was wrong. I followed the path until found sign telling me that I was entering a CA wilderness area and that motorvehicles weren't allowed..., past the sign, I met up with the long canyon loop trail, but about 0.5 miles to the west of where I wanted to be. oh, well.
the long canyon loop trail was nice and I scared up some turkeys and saw what looked like a couple of bears in the valley below, as well as a nice lizard on the trail. since I got a later start then I wanted to, I made it a short loop, instead of the long loop. the trail back to the saddle goes up the long canyon past the spring. somewhere along the way, I realize that I had mad a mistake entering the coordinates from the map onto my GPS... longitudes increase right to left on the map in these parts, and I read it off right to left... so I was off by about one minute (1.2 miles). this time, when I got to the saddle my new coordinates matched up pretty well to real life...
at the saddle I still couldn't see an obvious way down into the canyon or the road, but I found a fire break along the ridge that went off to the east. eventually, the road would intersect with the fire break. at this point I was close to blue ridge and could have returned by ascending up the ridge and then following the blue ridge trail north past lowry and fiske peak. but since it was getting late, I decided to go back to the fiske creek trail head and head back to the car the same way I came up and made it back in time before it started getting dark in the canyon. total trip, according to GPS was 24+ miles, but I now I know two routes from fiske creek rd to long canyon and several more options for various loop hikes of varying lengths.
it would fun to do a fiske creek -> long canyon -> blue ridge loop at some time. I suspect it's going to be 26 miles, but it would be well worth it. of course, parking on fiske creek rd by the picnic area and hiking in and out of long canyon is a nice hike too, and less driving then going around lake berryessa.
later...
this weekend I decided to connect two trails that I know about. one trails is the fiske creek trail and the other the long canyon loop trail, but of which can be found on yolohiker.org. if you look at the map, the trails aren't that far apart, aprox. 0.5mi straight line. of course, straight line would mean fighting brush up a steep canyon to get to the saddle of long canyon loop. by car, the trailheads are easily a 2.5-3.0hrs drive apart, since you have to drive out of one valley, drive up another valley, go around lake berryessa and up a lonely back country road. so, I set out to find a route that would connect the two trails.
this is going to be a long hike, and possibly an overnight trip if I didn't get back before sunset. so I decided to take my backpack. one of the goals is to document any routes for others to use, I decided to take my GPS, which I normally don't take. I programmed in one of the critical way points (the saddle) into my GPS, so that I would have a place to navigate to if I get stuck in deep brush.
I started off the hiking up to the fiske creek trail head since the county road is not open yet. then following fiske creek trail until the southern trailhead. of course, once the county road is open, one can just drive to the far trail head. however, this trail is actually very nice and I enjoy hiking it anyway. the southern trail head is on fiske creek road, which connects rayhouse road one the adjacent ridge with the blue ridge. now the fun starts. from the trail head, we can't see the saddle since it's occluded by a hill. but no worries, I had the saddle programmed into the GPS, although it seemed weird that the GPS thought the saddle was farther west then I thought it would be...
well, I walked east on fisk creek rd looking for any path that might go up to the saddle and found one past a small picnic/camp area... following the path it quickly petered out into a washed out ravine. at one time, this could have been a fire break of jeep road, but years of rain had eroded the trail into a ravine which was grown over with brush in places, but it kept going up the hill, towards the west... there were a couple of promising intersections and I could see the saddle once I got high enough. the GPS, was pointing the wrong way... hmm, maybe the map I got the coordinates from was wrong. I followed the path until found sign telling me that I was entering a CA wilderness area and that motorvehicles weren't allowed..., past the sign, I met up with the long canyon loop trail, but about 0.5 miles to the west of where I wanted to be. oh, well.
the long canyon loop trail was nice and I scared up some turkeys and saw what looked like a couple of bears in the valley below, as well as a nice lizard on the trail. since I got a later start then I wanted to, I made it a short loop, instead of the long loop. the trail back to the saddle goes up the long canyon past the spring. somewhere along the way, I realize that I had mad a mistake entering the coordinates from the map onto my GPS... longitudes increase right to left on the map in these parts, and I read it off right to left... so I was off by about one minute (1.2 miles). this time, when I got to the saddle my new coordinates matched up pretty well to real life...
at the saddle I still couldn't see an obvious way down into the canyon or the road, but I found a fire break along the ridge that went off to the east. eventually, the road would intersect with the fire break. at this point I was close to blue ridge and could have returned by ascending up the ridge and then following the blue ridge trail north past lowry and fiske peak. but since it was getting late, I decided to go back to the fiske creek trail head and head back to the car the same way I came up and made it back in time before it started getting dark in the canyon. total trip, according to GPS was 24+ miles, but I now I know two routes from fiske creek rd to long canyon and several more options for various loop hikes of varying lengths.
it would fun to do a fiske creek -> long canyon -> blue ridge loop at some time. I suspect it's going to be 26 miles, but it would be well worth it. of course, parking on fiske creek rd by the picnic area and hiking in and out of long canyon is a nice hike too, and less driving then going around lake berryessa.
later...
posted by cynicwanderer at 11:01 AM
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