El Sombroso ^3x CC / NN
Mt. Thayer ^2x P300

Two days later, I was back in Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve, heading to the same summit, El Sombroso. This time I approached via the Woods Trail, starting from Hicks Rd to the east, a slightly longer route. The trail traverses low around the north side of Mt. Umunhum, visible from several vantage points along the trail. Shortly before reaching El Sombroso, I noted the start of the old trail to Mt. Thayer shown on the topo map. I had used this same trail back in 2005 to reach Umunhum and Thayer when the two were not open to the public. Though it lies in the OSP, Mt. Thayer is still closed to the public since there is no all-public route to reach it. I wondered if the trail was still usable and wandered into the brush to find that it appeared to be so. It seemed like it would make a fun addition to the plan, so I first went up to tag El Sombroso (again wandering into the poison oak-laden summit crown of brush) before returning to the start of the old trail.

The old trail was overgrown to start, but it had seen some grooming within the past 3-4yrs, I guessed. I had to crawl short distances in a few places, but it was quite navigable. On that previous visit, the trail had ended abruptly after less than half a mile, leaving me to thrash for several hours the remaining distance. To my surprise, the second half of the route has seen more recent grooming, probably in the last year or two, and was a breeze by comparison. Upon emerging on Loma Almaden Rd, I was only about a quarter mile from Mt. Thayer's summit. I followed the road west and then a spur road that takes one to the highpoint, only a short bit of easy cross-country at the end to claim the top. Nice views looking around, and I was happy the trail nicely skirted the restricted area to the west where telecom installations occupy a large clearing between Mt. Thayer and Mt. Umunhum. Or so I thought. I had passed a brown Outback parked on Loma Almaden Rd on my way up, the occupants on the hillside below to the south, looking to be surveying for flora or fauna. On my way back, they were at the vehicle and one of them asked if I had permission to be there. When I replied to the negative, he berated me for my intrusion, warning me of large fines and whatnot for my trespass. I tried to explain that I had come via a trail from El Sombroso, not through the gated roads at Mt. Umunhum, but that seemed only to exasperate him more, "So, an UNMARKED trail, right?!" "Yes," I replied, but that didn't make things better. I had planned to walk the road to Mt. Umunhum, but I asked if he'd prefer I went back the way I came. Yes, he would, he indicated, but it seemed what he really wanted was for me to drop dead. I would have loved to explore further why he was so upset, perhaps unhappy that I was destroying the pristine mountaintop and his private fiefdom, but that hardly seemed productive. I left them, returning to the trail and then back along the connecting ridgeline to the Woods Trail. I was pretty tired by the time I returned to the TH, but it had been a good training hike, almost 15mi with something like 3,500ft of gain.

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Is this a correction?