Continued...
I was in the San Luis Obispo area for my nephew's graduation this afternoon.
Always looking for an angle to get some hiking in, I had two hikes in mind for
the morning that would take in a couple of summits I've had my eye on for
years now. Temperatures in the area were expected to be quite high despite the
proximity of the Pacific Ocean and it would be good get these done earlier
rather than later.
Point Sal Ridge / Mt. Lospe
Mt. Lospe is a P1K on the edge of Vandenberg AFB in the northwest corner of
Santa Barbara County. There are a couple of dirt roads leading to the summit,
both originating within the military complex. I had hoped that a friend with
ties to the Air Force might help me gain access somehow, but so far all my
inquiries to date had come to naught. In one of my map studies a few months
ago I noticed
there is a Point Sal State Beach at the upper corner of the AFB property. The
Point Sal Road has been converted to the , allowing
access
to the state park with an easement through the NW corner of the AFB. This trail
happens to go within a mile and half of Mt. Lospe which lies on ranch property.
I spent the night camped at the end of Brown Rd where the trail starts and
also the entrance to one of the active ranches. I intended to get up early
and start hiking before sunrise but the sun was already up when I started off
shortly before 6a. It took about half an hour to reach the 1.5mi mark where I
turned off from the main trail and started across
towards
Mt. Lopse. Point Sal Ridge is an LoJ summit more or less along the way that I
went over. From its rounded summit one can see
another mile and a half
away, looking rather flat. The boundary of the AFB has been bulldozed to make a
very wide -
whether that is to prevent fires from burning onto AFB
property or the other way around is hard to discern, but the firebreak made a
convenient trail to follow up and over several intermediate rises. It took a
little over an hour to reach ,
or at least what
seemed like
the summit and matched the LoJ GPS coordinates. The flatness of the summit
prevents it from having really as did the sun which washed
out views towards the east.
I much the same way, checking out several other
along the way. I saw no activity on the base
or the adjacent ranch lands, but the Point Sal Trail proved to be quite
popular in the morning as a workout run and later for those making the 10-mile
roundtrip effort to spend the day at the beach.
There were more than half a dozen cars at
when I returned soon after 8a and it had warmed to 77F already - it was
going to be a hot one today.
Cerro Romualdo
This is one of the Seven (or Nine, or Thirteen, depending on who's counting)
Morros between Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo, and a
CC-listed summit. I had
visited most of the other morros over the years, but had missed this one because
of restricted access. There is a trail switchbacking up the north side on
Camp San Luis Obispo property, owned by the California National Guard. Various
reports have said the public is not welcome, welcome with permission or merely
at the whim of the acting commandant. Ranches occupy lands on the east and south
sides with heavy brush a considerable impediment from those directions. There
is a monastary on that Sean Casserly had reported using
successfully, and it was this version I decided to repeat.
It was 9a when I pulled onto the monastary property where
indicates
vistors are welcome. I parked where two other cars were found adjacent to the
chapel and immediately headed uphill past the private residence and onto a
rough trail with a sign that said Please enjoy the trail at your own
risk. This was just the sort of indication I was looking for to make this
legit, but the trail ends all too soon at a concrete water tank half-buried in
the hillside. I did a bit of flailing at this point trying to find the
connecting trail to the Camp SLO one. There is a great deal of poison oak among
the brush surrounding the summit so a direct effort up the west side is akin
to self-inflicted pain and suffering, almost guaranteed. I eventually realized
the only practical route drops down a short distance after crossing a fence
onto a , then heading northwest over a
saddle and another barbed-wire fence to that is signed as
owned by the state prison. The water tank is on Camp SLO property and a use
trail leads northeast to connect to . Voices could be
heard down below - groups of men and women shouting loudly in unison in some
sort of training exercises taking place on the fields far below. I was much too
high to be noticeable and I happily went about hiking the trail up towards the
summit. Even with the decent trail there is much encroaching poison oak to watch
out for, all the way to which I reached after about
40min's effort. I took a few pictures of the other morros looking
and , Camp SLO and the prison to , and a poorly
spelled (couldn't find the benchmark) before starting
back down. It took only 20min to make the return now that I had the route dialed
in. The same two cars were there in when
I returned. Unlike the last monastary I visited at Mt. Hannah a few months ago,
I saw no one stirring about the grounds either coming or going. Time to clean
up and go join the graduation fun...