A cold front sweeping across the state was bringing sub-freezing
temps to the Sierra, around 28F at 6,000ft for a low. This would
not do - I was not yet ready to start packing for winter
conditions. I turned my attention to the Los Padres NF and some
peaks that had been burned in the 2020 Dolan Fire. The
Ferguson-Nacimiento Rd has been closed since Jan 2020 when
torrential rains washed out sections of the road. Almost two years
later, the state isn't any closer to rebuilding it, but I was
happy to see that it was open from the east to the Nacimiento CG,
which would allow me to get to a handful of these summits. It has
been a while since I've hiked through burned chaparral, but I was
prepared to get a little dirty to reach some normally inaccessible
summits. I left San Jose around 7:30a with about 2.5hrs of driving
before I could start hiking. I had no trouble driving through the
Hunter-Liggett Military Reservation, in fact they had no one
manning the entrance booth - just a sign that it was open to
through traffic. Temperatures were on the cool side with higher than normal
wind conditions - this would do nicely to keep the usual annoyance of flies
at bay.
Peak 3,693ft
This summit is located on the south side of Ferguson-Nacimiento
Rd. With over 900ft of prominence, it has been on my radar for
a decade, but too brushy to attempt ascending. Thus, it was the
day's main objective. I had planned to
climb it from the Ponderosa CG, but on the drive in I noticed a
dirt road running to the high, east-west ridgeline, roughly following the
boundary of the military reservation/national forest. There were
no gates blocking access along the pavement, so I turned off and
started up. It appears to have been recently graded, perhaps in
the last year during the efforts to fight the fire. The road is
steep in places and can be quite loose and dusty. I ran into a
section I couldn't ascend about 1/3 of the way up. After two
faiiled attempts (with front and back lockers engaged), I gave
up, and decided to the rest of the way. If I had
deflated my tires I'm sure I could have made it, but so far I've
been unwilling to deal with that hassle. A little extra hiking
wouldn't kill me.
The route wasn't the shortest way to the summit, but probably
the easiest. I followed the wide road up for a mile to reach the
east-west ridge, then turned west. The road continues up to the
main crest of the range in about 3mi, but it was just up
from the junction I where I'd turned. I followed the road for a
half mile to reach a subsidiary ridge to Peak
3,693ft, another mile further. The topo map shows an old road here, but it
appears to be more of that used to be more common
decades ago when fire suppression was the order of the day. Here's
where the 2020 fire helped, having burned off the heavy chaparral
that has grown up from decades of disuse. As is usual, the fire
didn't incinerate everything - there were left in
place, stiff, charred branches that one needed to weave through.
I would be half-covered in black charcoal before the day was done,
as it is impossible to avoid so many branches. I did notice a few sprouts
of popping up along the route, but for the most part,
the fire gave it a hard reset. Despite the soot, this was
than the typically this range is famous for. The
going was a bit slow, but I still managed to reach in
less than an hour and a quarter, the firebreak continuing all the
way to the top - sweet!
The summit had nice views in all directions, particularly to the
much higher Cone Peak to , and east overlooking the
military reservation. There isn't much military activity or
buildings out this way, just a beautiful California scene composed
of oaks, grass and chaparral - looking very much like it probably
appeared to the indigenous peoples a thousand years ago. I left
under the summit rocks and
the same way, to the Jeep before 1p.
Peak 3,442ft - Peak 3,114ft
I drove back down to the pavement, then west to the end of the
driveable portion of road at the . They have
the road gated beyond this point, but one is welcome to walk the
road (at least according to the USFS person I found driving back
down from the closed section). These two peaks are located on the
north side of the road in the military reservation, but I didn't
expect that to be a problem - the first 500-1000ft are in the NF,
and beyond that it seemed unlikely I would encounter anyone. And
so I didn't. The fire had a more difficult time burning stuff
along the Nacimiento River where trees and brush are much
healthier and harder to burn. The trick was getting up that first
section from the canyon bottom to reach the easier ground above.
Starting from the campground, I found some old on the
north side that led only a short way up, but then I came across
another old firebreak along I was ascending. This
seemed like a good find, though I'm not sure was any
less dense than on the adjacent ridgelines. After the initial
section with some brush, things began to more and I was
happy to find no serious bushwhacking on the entire route. My
looping route would cover about 5.5mi in total, the last 3/4mi
along the road on my return. It took about an hour and a half to
reach the higher at the northwest end of my loop,
the firebreak continuing all the way to . The last half
mile was along an with the peaks on
. I'd forgotten to grab more registers, so I didn't have any
to leave on either of these summits. The lower was about
1.5mi southeast of the higher summit. It would take a little over an hour to
get between the two, again with an old road/firebreak running between them and
no serious bushwhacking. There was some encountered just
below the second summit, but nothing of any real consequence.
Before reaching the second summit, I had thought I should probably
go back down the same ridge I had ascended. This would entail
much to use it, but it seemed the safest option
since The lower part of the ridges descending from Peak 3,114ft
seemed not to have burned in the fire. After a short break on the
summit rocks overlooking the Nacimiento drainage, I decided on
descending from this summit. It would add a
bit of adventure to the day, hopefully not one I would come to
regret. Most of went just find on the descent, having
much the same properties of burned sticks as the ascent ridge
had. I eventually had to to a side
for the last 1/3mi that would provide the adventure section. There
was a good deal to work through along with more
poison oak than I had seen all day so far, but not enough to make
me regret my choice. I spent on an hour the descent, much less
than I would have taken on the original route. Once at ,
I had another 20min or so to hike back up to the campground,
before 5:30p.
I found a note on my car reminding me to pay the $10 day use fee.
What? I hadn't realized there was a day use fee, I thought the
fees were just for overnight use. I only had a few $20 bills
which seemed too much to pay for a few hours' use, so I tossed the
note in the Jeep and headed out. I would find a free place to
camp somewhere down the road a bit...
Continued...