To enjoy my last day in California I drove to Castle Rock State Park for some hiking.
Castle Rock is one of the smaller parks, it’s fairly close to Mountain View and I don’t really know why I haven’t been there before. After an healthy breakfast at Clarke’s on El Camino I drove to Castle Rock. There were already dozens of cars parking along the road and for a moment I was seriously considering to turn around and drive a few more miles to Big Basin. I’m glad I didn’t because I rarely met anyone for the first four or five hours.
I took Saratoga Gap Trail which was initially in the shadow and I was happy to wear my down vest (review later). After 30 minutes the trail left the shadow. Now the weather was absolutely perfect: cool but with the warm sun on the arms. It took some willpower not to sit down and just read in the sun the whole day.
A few twists and turns later I got a beautiful view south-west towards the sea. The trail went on over a few smaller rocks and passed many bigger rocks, a few of them with bolts. But it seemed all climbers stayed far away from the trail, because I didn’t see another soul until I reached Saratoga Gap.
After Castle Rock Camp the trail changed into a small dirt road. After a mile or two it left the state park and went along a paved road nearly all the way to Saratoga Gap. There I had my first short break on a bench at the vista point, enjoyed the sun and explained a clueless girl how to find Big Basin (“Do you see the big sign over there saying Big Basin?” “Yes” “Drive that way”). Annoyed after 5 minutes by the roaring sound of the soon-to-be organ donors racing their motorcycles I went on.
After about a mile I found a tiny meadow in the sun an decided to have a bigger break here. I sat down, enjoyed a muesli bar and read a few chapters of Shadow of the Hegemon. After 30(?) minutes I was nearly falling asleep and to avoid that got up and started walking again.
Just a few minutes later Skyline Trail hit 35 again and met Loghry Woods Trail. It was still early so I decided not to head back to the parking lot but take the detour via Castle Rock Camp. Not much happened on my way there. But I was happy when I got the chance to refill my water bottle in Castle Rock Camp. When I left the camp toward Ridge Trail a group of girls (girl scouts?) passed my carrying backpacks bigger which looked heavier than the girls.
This marked the end of the relaxed and quite part of my hike. Every few minutes I passed a group of hikers, on most rocks people were sitting, enjoying the sun and I could see a lot more climbers and boulderers close to the trail.
So I quickly walked the last few kilometers to the parking lot and drove back home.
Stats according to MyTracks (it took the N1 10-15minutes to get a fix, so a part of the hike is missing):
Total Distance: 19.48 km (12.1 mi)
Total Time: 6:03:08
Moving Time: 3:25:02
Average Speed: 3.22 km/h (2.0 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 5.70 km/h (3.5 mi/h)
Max Speed: 14.09 km/h (8.8 mi/h)
Min Elevation: 631 m (2072 ft)
Max Elevation: 900 m (2953 ft)
Elevation Gain: 1400 m (4593 ft)
Max Grade: 0 %
Min Grade: 0 %
Recorded: Sat Mar 27 18:06:25 GMT+01:00 2010
Activity type: hiking