Continued...
On my way to San Diego to meet up with my wife later in the afternoon, I spent
the morning hiking in the low hills east of Temecula and Pauba Valley in
Riverside County. None of these summits had been on my radar until the previous
evening when, having run through my prepared hikes for the week, I was poking
around for more places to visit. Once again, Mike Sullivan's GPX tracks helped
nicely. Seems he's been everywhere in SoCal.
Roundtop
Though Mike describes the roads as high-clearance, I managed to get the van to
of the knoll immediately east of Roundtop, a small bump between
Lewis and Lancaster Valleys. I spent the night there quite peacefully and was
up to start the short hike by 6:45a. I found the lower
valleys filled with fog that was slowly rising and - I
would only have a short time before it had enveloped the van, Roundtop, and
everything around it. It took only 15min to make my way along the rest of the
roads to the saddle on of Roundtop where old vehicle
tracks could be used to climb the steep slope to the summit without fighting any
brush at all. There was a PVC cross erected at , looking
somewhat vulnerable to the elements and
held up at an angle with guy wires. Behind me, the fog was rolling in and would
cover the landscape in the short time it took me to return to the van.
Black Hills/Oak Mtn #1
Found 4mi west of Roundtop, these two summits are within a mile of each other
and easily combined with connecting dirt roads. They are both located on a
smallish parcel of BLM land though access to them seems to be mostly surrounded
by private lands with semi-public roads through them. The easiest approach is
from the north or northwest through the Glenoak Hills and Glenoaks Country
developments, horse-friendly rural
communities with well-graded dirt roads that can be used to reach Esplendida Way
or Via de Oro, either of which can be used as a starting point. As I was coming
from the east, I followed a Google Maps-recommended route along the rough
Powerline Rd (bad) and Denise Rd (better), a 4mi odyssey into the backwaters of
Riverside County where my low-clearance van was ill-equipped to travel and
turned out to be the most exciting (not in a good way) part of the day. Once
I reached my on Esplendida Way northeast of the Black
Hills HP, the hiking was pretty easy, though now entirely engulfed in fog. It
took all of six minutes to reach marking the Black
Hills HP. If there were fine views, they were lost on me. I did note
in the area were starting which always
makes for an impressive sight. Some
draped in the dew of the fog were also pretty nifty. I spent another 25min
making my way south along the dirt roads (mostly used by ATVs, it seems) to a
saddle, then a short climb of less than 300ft to the summit of Oak Mtn, the
first of two identically named summits in the area that I would visit. The area
is as an endangered species habitat (the Quino Checkerspot
Butterfly)
for foot and horse travel only, but that appears to be regularly ignored. The
summit features a "HENDERSON" and yet more fog, at least this
morning. I took a descending from Oak Mtn back to
the saddle, then returned via the same route back to the van around 9a.
Oak Mountain #2
This second Oak Mountain is only 3mi southwest of the first. I drove northwest
out through the Glenoak Hills development (MUCH better roads), then south on
paved
De Portola Rd to SR79. A little more than a mile east on the highway got me to
the gated start used by Mike Sullivan in his trip report found on PB. The hike
is not difficult, about 2mi each way with barely 500ft of gain. The gate is
signed for No Trespassing, but as pointed out by Mike, it appears to be a
popular mountain biking area with trails, both old ranch roads and single
tracks, . The fog was dissipating as
this third hike and would be gone before I reached its
summit in about 40min. Like most of the area, there are few trees, mostly
chaparral and not very dense at that. The grasses were quite green with recent
rains, probably as green as it will get for the year. That the two peaks are
named "Oak Mtn" is a bit of a mystery since there are no oaks anywhere near the
summits. I did find in the creeks along the base, but the naming
still seems a bit odd. I followed Mike's track on the ascent up an old road
along a gradually rising . The offers an
overlook of to Temecula to and other brushy hills in other
directions. I noted there was a peak to the south across SR79 that looked
interesting, and decided to check it out afterwards. My descent route originally
started along , but on a whim I turned left onto a
single-track and returned down a minor canyon to the original route near the
start.
Dorland Peak
This turned out to be the most interesting peak of the day. Not found on PB, it
had no ascents shown on LoJ where it is listed as unnamed "2581" (for its
elevation). It is located south of SR79 on BLM land, just north of the Agua
Tibia Wilderness. The Dorland Mountain Arts Colony is located on its northern
flanks and they have built a cairned trail leading from their grounds to the
summit. One might be able to call them (951-302-3837) for permission to use
the trail, but I didn't know about its existence until my return. I had spied
an old to the west of the arts colony on private
property that I thought might be able to get me up most of the way to what
looked like a brush-covered summit. My starting point was the intersection of
SR79 and De Portola Rd. The property I passed through is owned by the Rancho
California Water District (RCWD), part of the watershed for
Vail Lake to the northeast which is maintained by RCWD. The old road I followed
is no longer used which made me feel somewhat safe, though it is mostly exposed
to view below. I followed this road to
just west of the arts colony, across a steep gully. From
the road's end, a use trail zigzags up the through
fairly heavy brush to the crest where the trail dissolves and the brush relents.
I made my way along through light brush, eventually
finding a ducked route that caught me by surprise. I followed this to the
with a view into the Agua Tibia Wilderness on the north
side of Palomar Mtn to , Temecula to and San
Jacinto far to the northeast. I decided to follow the back
to see where it originated, finding it to the arts colony
(the trail starts just beyond the cell tower if one is coming up from the
colony). Having no idea what sort of reception I might get at the arts colony,
I walked down the road past a number of unoccupied, but nicely kept
. These are
rented to artists (writing/music/painting/etc) at reasonable rates for the
purpose of allowing one's creative juices to flower in the quiet, mountain
retreat. Lower down, one passes by the on-site caretaker and it was here that
my scent was picked up by the resident german shepherd that came out to greet
me in a most unpleasant manner. I picked up a reasonably-sized rock for
protection as the dog came barking and snarling at the intruder that had dared
cross his property. Each time the dog circled around me I would turn to face it,
sternly telling it to "Go home!" to little effect. I then heard an older woman
calling out for the dog which left me in a quandary - do I let her discover me
holding a rock with which I had intentions of bashing her dog's skull with, or,
do I drop the rock and risk having the dog attack me unarmed? I dropped the
rock. She managed to recall the dog without actually having heard or seen me,
but to be safe I called out to her when I caught sight of her and let her know
I was just descending from the trail I had "discovered" while at the summit.
She didn't seem to mind much and we parted ways without further discussion. I
descended the wide, paved road to , then walked along SR79
for about half a mile back to the car. Though it was only a bit after 12:30p, I
decided to call it a day and drive south to Rancho Bernardo to meet up with my
wife who had arrived the previous day...
Continued...