The only thing we were armed with was the 7.5' map I'd printed an hour earlier.
We spent the better part of an hour exploring the roads around El Toro in a
counter-clockwise manner starting with Llaga Rd. We drove by many fine homes
and plenty of street dead-ends, but could find no accessible route beyond the
homes that seem to ring the lower reaches of the mountain. It wasn't until we
had gone nearly full circle, when driving on DeWitt Ave
(the SE side of El Toro), that we came across the West Hills Community Church.
The church is perched on a low hillside on the flanks of El Toro. A chain
across
the gate barred vehicle traffic except on Sundays when services were
held. We parked the car on DeWitt and started up the road, just as two ladies
were coming back down. I asked them if they had been to the summit to which
they replied, "Yes!" and then gave a somewhat rambling narrative of the dangers
they encountered along the way, pointing to their soiled pants as proof of the
risky venture. We thanked them for their help and promised to proceed safely.
At the far end of the spacious church
parking lot we found a trail heading down
into a small creek labeled,
"
God's Canyon." Interesting, but we were looking
for something in the way of "God's Mountain." We found no such accompanying
sign, but there was a dirt road heading up right next to God's Canyon and we
followed this road. At a fork we took the
steeper choice to the right, Ryan
beginning to groan and moan at the effort. I laughed at him. He looked at me
with those offended eyes as if to say, "How could you ridicule me in such a
trying moment?" I poo-poohed his look with, "Hey, you've done a whole lot worse
than this - it isn't even a mile to the summit!" "But it's STEEP!" he cried out.
Getting no sympathy whatsoever, he resigned himself to the task and finished the
small slope with no further grunts or groans.
Atop a small knoll, I could see an
alternative route just north of ours, a
paved road leading to a water tank halfway up the hill. The paved road was one
of those we had explored earlier, but had been put off by the No Tresspassing
sign we encountered further down, around a bend. I think that sign was
misleading, as two others nearing the tank via that route gave testimony.
There was a short stroll over nearly flat ground to the base of the
final climb,
about 400ft of steep, loose dirt. We watched a party of three slowly descending,
wondering why it was taking them so long - we had not yet found out how
treacherous it was, though we'd been warned.
The slope we found was hardpacked dirt with a thin layer of sand which made it
slippery. Rough steps looked to have been cut in the slope at one time, and
though they were still moderately helpful, one had to be slow and careful going
up. Ryan was
clawing the ground with his hands as his feet would slip out from
under him. I tried to convince him that standing upright was the best practice,
to give his feet more traction and friction to hold him to the slope. He seemed
to understand the idea in his head, but in practice it wasn't workable and he
kept on all fours for much of the way. The last 50ft to the top had an old
fixed rope
to assist the unnerved. Ryan thought this was sheer brilliance on
the part of whoever installed it, while I laughed to myself that it was the
first time I'd seen a fixed rope on class 2 terrain. A trail led off from the
bottom of the fixed rope to the east, and looked to wind it's way in a less
direct, but more manageable fashion back to the water tank. It would have made
a better descent route, but we had left Ryan's jeans at the base of the steeper
route and would have to go back that way.
The top
was a rounded, brushy affair, though trails had been cut in many places
descending off various directions. Some of these looked to go nowhere, but the
one heading off the west side looked to take advantage of grassy slopes all the
way down. There was a good deal of
poison oak at the summit and I was very
cautious to avoid contact with it, still recovering from my bout with the stuff
a few weeks earlier. The mostly overcast skies obscured much of the surrounding
views to the Santa Cruz Mtns, but it was still pleasant, with views
west to Chesbro Reservoir, 
northeast to Morgan Hill, and
south to the Gilroy area.
After descending the fixed rope section, I led Ryan through a barbed-wire fence
to a 
grassy slope
adjacent to the treacherous dirt track. Though we slipped a
few times each here, it was much better and safer than the dirt would have been.
Back at the bottom we ducked back under 
the fence
and then retraced the steps
we had taken on the ascent. I think Ryan was silently happy to see the female
member of 
another party
struggling on that first steep hill even more than he
had done himself. She would sit down every ten steps or so, her boyfriend
smiling as we went by, in that knowing look of, "Yes, this is the first exercise
she's had in a month."
Once we were back at the car (having spent just over an hour on the hike), Ryan
thought we were done and headed for lunch. "Not so fast," I cautioned, "we still
have to hit up one more, Nob Hill. I thought I had picked out this unassuming
knoll during our descent from El Toro, but had it confused with the higher, but
unnamed Pt. 681ft. We went so far as to find a place to park, hopped a fence
and walked up to the water tank at the base of the hill before I checked my map
to realize my error. Back to the car, fifteen minutes wasted. Nob Hill it turns
out is just north of East Dunne Ave, right next to downtown Morgan Hill. We
parked off Noble Ct., just west of the hill and climbed up
from there. Another
person was coming down as we headed up. It took five minutes to climb to the top
on a well-used dirt path, but a barbed-wire fence stopped us about 20ft short of
the highpoint. Undeterred, and using our newly honed fence-breaching skills, we
were quickly through the fence and standing at the grassy summit. Not much to
see from the top, Ryan's 
wide yawn
indicative that he'd had about enough of
this silliness. Down we went. I had several other nearby Morgan Hill peaks to
visit, but they would have to wait for another time.