Thanksgiving was over, bodies were strewn about my sister's house, still in a
turkey comotose or perhaps too much imbibing and staying up late. Jackie and
I were up by 7:30a to pack up and get ready to head back to Santa Barbara. My
brother-in-law had been up for several hours already, and after cleaning up
after his many guests, was busy preparing a huge pot of turkey soup with the
two carcasses that were mostly consumed the previous day. He's a saint. Jackie
wasn't too keen on hanging out more with the relatives so we said goodbye and
headed out before the rest of the dead began to arise. She wasn't eager to part
ways with Dad just yet, so we planned to spend much of the day hanging out,
buying her some Christmas lights for her apartment, fixing a few things and
of course a hike. The weather was chill but sunny with crystal clear skies
after the previous two days of rain. The hike would be a short one because we
expected muddy conditions, much like we had two days earlier. We were not
disappointed. The unnamed peak was only a few miles from the previous one,
also in Thousand Oaks, within the North Ranch OSP. I found the peak on PB with
an easy starting point in one of the adjacent neighborhoods. The Bowfield
Trail is probably the easiest way to the summit, the hike less than half a
mile each way, taking only 25min to reach the top. Our boots
were covered in sticky mud almost from the start, building up "mud snowshoes"
that were both annoying and comical. There is a neat little view bench at the
summit to which we availed ourselves, taking in the clear views and a
spectular one of the fresh snow to the north in the Los Padres NF. We had the
place to ourself until we were back at the TH when a family of 6-7 were just
starting up. They looked at our feet with dismay and asked if it got better
further up. We laughed and responded, "Nope, pretty much like this all the
way!" They continued up anyway, but came back down less than two minutes later,
all their shoes looking pretty much like ours, laughing with us now. They headed
back home, saying they would find something less messy to do...
