Lemon Hill
Limekiln Hill P300

Continued...

I've had some pretty lame outing before, but few as lame as Lemon Hill and Limekiln Hill. The two summits are found at the west end of Lake Kaweah in the Sierra foothills northeast of Visalia. I was on my way home after six days in the Sierra and an aborted trip to climb Squaretop on Kaweah Ridge. Making the best of a not-so-great situation and running on limited beta, the two small hills appeared on my GPS just off SR198 on my way home in the morning. Lemon Hill is a drive up, a paved mound holding federal law enforcement offices, overlooking the marina and boatramp into the lake. It was fresh and clean, newly paved with a new restroom and no visitors at 8a. I got out of the car to step onto the highpoint at the west end of the lot and took a few pictures. Limekiln Hill was a bit more of a challenge as it lies on private property. A road takes one up to another set of federal buildings on the north end of the hill while the highpoint is found to the south. I parked at a saddle between the two, ducked under a fence and then made the four minute hike to the summit. Most of Lake Kaweah is visible from the summit looking east. To the west, citrus orchards fill what used to be the river's flood plain. Besides Lemon Hill, other place names such as the small town of Lemoncove and the Citro rail station pay honor to the area's agriculture history. A quarter mile to the north is the other summit of Limekiln, atop which sits government buildings. The topo map shows the north summit to be two feet higher, but it certainly looks lower from the south summit. It didn't seem like a worthy enough peak to go through the trouble of tagging both points, so I settled for just the one. Rah. Now for the four hour drive home...

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