Trail: (West Ridge – Fire Trail loop) No. of days: 1 day Date: 02 February 2013 Picasa link: here It’s my first hike after completion of the Masters degree and a first one in California after a long time. I was excited to go on this hike. Thanks to Keerthi for informing me about the hiker group and also for the ride to the hike start point and back.A group of 11 people, we departed Tasman at Cisco Way at 8:15am and reached a Safeway in Aptos at 9:00am. After a brief halt, we headed to the “West Ridge Trail” head in the Nisene Marks State Forest. We reached the forest check post at 9:35am and started the hike at 9:45am. The West Ridge trail to the west ridge camp is about 6.5 miles. On the way though, we missed the trail and got lost. We did a double back after almost a mile and got back to the point where we had diverted off the trail. There was a lot of map reading, gps location tracking and the navigation by the olden means (by intuition) to find out the right direction to hike to.At around 12:45pm we reached the West Ridge Camp site. Took a 30 min break to rest, freshen up and fill our tummies with very delicious fruits. The Almonds and Pistachio was a blessing. It tasted out of the world.
We decided to head back to trail head for the potluck that was planned. We took the Fire Trail and reached the base at 3:40pm. The potluck that followed the hike was indeed very tasty and fun. I reached home by 5:30pm. A wonderful time with nature and a long 15.7mile hike concluded the day. Picasa link: here |
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