I had planned to get up early so I could drive the two hours in the dark and be ready for a sunrise start, but things didn't work out that way. I lazily stayed in bed until 6a, getting up with the rest of the family and leaving about the same time as they were heading off to school and work. I didn't manage to get started on the hike until nearly 9:30a.
My route to CC-listed Anderson Peak would follow 6-7 miles of the Coast Ridge
Rd that runs some 30 miles or so along the high ridgeline following the coast
(but then you guessed that from the road's name, didn't you?).
Not wanting to hike it from the start in the north, I found a
helpful online map
that pointed
out several options. The one I settled on would take me up to Timber Top, and
from there south about six miles to Anderson Peak. I loaded a coordinate for
the start location into my GPS and used this to find the point along SR1. It
worked like a charm. There is ample parking on both sides of
the road here,
shaded by some trees on the west side of the road. There was one other vehicle
parked here when I arrived, but I saw no other hikers the entire day.
A gate across
this old dirt road is simply marked as USFS property, no other
signs indicating it as a trailhead. It has been some years since a vehicle last
drove on the road, and the trail become a thin thread of trampled grass making
its way to the ridge top. It is beautifully open 
grass slopes with
unobstructed views of 
the coast, 
ocean, and
surrounding country, with none of the thick chaparral found on
adjacent slopes. There are some old 
fenceposts in places,
but no active fences that I could find other than the one along the highway.
Cattle grazing still looks to be done here.
A little more than an hour brought me to 
a second gate just before
reaching the Coast Ridge Rd. The gate leads to the old
Timber Top campsite, little more than a picnic bench and some cut up
firewood stacked nearby. 
A sign indicates
simply, "Timber Top" near a cut pine. I hiked to the top of this hill about
50 yards away, not at all satisfying for a summit with mostly obstructed views.
There is a second point just to the north that is shown on the map with the same
number of contours, so I visited that before satisfying myself I had been to
Timber Top
(I think the southern summit is highest, fwiw). I dropped down to
the road and started the long hike south.
The weather was overcast with clouds blowing in over the ridge and summits
periodically, mostly with hazy views, but occasionally clear inland. I hiked
for another hour to reach the junction with Cold Springs, indicated with several
signs on 
either side
north end of Lockwood Ridge lies
Mt. Olmstead, a nicely situated summit overlooking the Big Sur River. I made a
mental note to pay it a visit sometime in the future. There were also views to
Black Cone
to the southeast, another peak on my Ventana todo list. That would
be a more arduous undertaking, judging by the amount of cross-country travel
involved to reach it.
As I neared Michaels Hill, really a crescent-shaped portion of the coast ridge
about a mile from the Cold Springs junction, I veered right off the road and
scrambled to the top of the ridge just north of
Peak 3,840ft. It isn't clear
on the 7.5' topo map which is the highest of two possibilities, so I planned to
tag both 'just to be sure'. Dead snags from past fires stood sentinel, unwilling
to fall back to earth just yet, while the undergrowth was vigorously reclaiming
the surface. Thistles of all types stuck to my boots and socks as I plied my
way along the ridgeline. I would have several sessions of thorn removing before
the day was done. Peak 3,840ft was a bigger disappointment than Timber
Top and I wasted no time in
continuing south. Ten minutes later I was atop
Peak 3,861ft and judging from 
the view
on both summits, this one appears to be
the highest. It has a clear view looking south and southwest, better than the
previous point, but unfortunately the clouds were thickest in that direction
and the best that could be obtained was
a fuzzy view to Anderson Peak. I
continued down the ridge heading south, picking up a use trail and intersecting
the road once again five minutes later. There were several small water tanks
at this point along the road, remnants of an 
old homestead
that once stood
nearby. For anyone interested in the easiest way to Michaels Hill, this use
trail 
starting behind the water tank is the best bet.
I spent the next 50 minutes making my way along the road
to Anderson Peak.
Like Michaels Hill, I didn't find the easiest way until I came back down. I
took the higher road on the left at the
first fork on the north side of
Anderson. This lead to
an installation with several buildings on the northwest
side of the peak, surrounded by difficult fencing. Hopping the fence would do
no good since it did not encompass the summit area. I turned left and
bushwhacked up through
an overgrown roadbed, up 
a grassy slope and then onto
the 
flat summit
of Anderson Peak. The summit had been bulldozed for an aviation
VOR installation used by planes navigating up and down the coast area. A
second installation
surrounded by the same fencing is found on the south side
of the summit, but I saw no easy way to get back down to the road.
Taking to more
bushwhacking, I threaded my way off the south side just west of the fenceline
until I reached another spur road some 100ft down the slope. This spur led
back to the main ridge road with
a sign found here to distinguish the two
nearby peaks. If one follows this sign to Anderson Peak and then takes another
spur on the left before reaching the fenced installation, the road will lead
to the summit on the southwest side of the peak, without the bushwhacking.
Another mile further south along the road was the last peak of the day, Marble
Peak. One first passes through the gated
Marble Peak Ranch, no bikes allowed,
but hiking OK, then finds the unsigned Marble Peak Trail just north of the
summit. There is a 
trail mileage sign
on the opposite of the road nearby, as a way to help locate it.
The trail unfortunately does not go to the summit, but instead drops
down the east side of the peak and into the heart of the Ventana Wilderness. I
followed the trail until it started downhill, then bushwhacked my way up to the
summit, aided in places by a faint use trail that threaded through the ugliest
parts of the brush.
As the name suggests, 
the summit rocks
are composed of marble and limestone
rock, whitish in color. The views are fairly decent in three directions,
north, 
south,
and east, but again the cloud cover made obtaining those views rather
difficult. I saw no register on any of the four summits I visited, leaving none,
either.
What took me 4.5 hours on the way up took only 3 hours on the return, thanks to
the lack of bushwhacking required on the way back along with a bit of jogging
once I started down from Timber Top. It was just before 5p when
I returned to
the trailhead, leaving me a few hours of daylight before the sun would
disappear. I found a nice grassy spot off the highway and mostly out of view
that I used to take a rinse with a jug of some lukewarm water I'd left on the
dash. I then drove south with the intention of finding a place to sleep for the
night somewhere near the trailhead for Mt. Mars. But during the drive I got
the idea in my head of driving up Nacimiento Rd and hiking to Twin Peak near
Cone Peak, a peak I had neglected to hike when I first visited the latter. The
problem was that there is no maintained trail to Twin Peak and I had no map
with me. Would I be able to find my way there?
I recalled my first visit to Cone Peak was in the fog and I had no views whatsoever. I only knew that Twin was somewhere west or northwest of Cone. I drove the 7 miles of pavement up Nacimiento Rd, then turned left on the good dirt Cone Peak Road. I drove past the Cone Peak Trail TH at mile six, then a few more miles to the end of the road, not really sure where it went to. There I encountered another vehicle and a gentleman who got out to welcome me to the End of the Road. I explained my purpose and wondered if he might have a map of the area. No map, sadly, but the gentleman turned out to be Robert Parks who was there to do trail maintenance. I'd never heard of him before, but later found he's one of the moderators on the VWA site and one of the more knowledgable guys on Ventana trails. He gave me a verbal description of how to find the use trail off the Cone Peak Trail along with another alternative that I couldn't remember. After our bit of chat, I drove back to the Cone Peak Trail TH to spend the night. A dinner of sushi and soup would suffice for the day's replenishing. I went to bed around 8p with plans to get up at first light to start my hunt for Twin Peak.
Continued...