Briones- Getting Closer

Last Friday, Suzy and I, took on another chunk of our goal to finish all the trails in Broines Regional Park by 11/11/10. By far, this was our longest and most time consuming hike we have done. We parked the car at the last staging area that we had not started a trail at, the Lafayette Ridge Staging Area. By the mileage on the trail map we did 7.03 miles and took a few wrong turns adding about .50 miles. Our feet hiked the Lafayette Ridge Trail, Buckeye Ranch Trail, Springhill Trail and back to the Lafayette Ridge Trail.

The first major chunk of the trail seemed to not be scale according to the map. The map has it at 2.85 miles but it seriously took us over two hours. The ridge trail was the first ridge trail we have taken in the park, and I now understand better why it was a ridge trail. Most of the trail was up and down, up and down, steep downhills on either side. The trail was very deceiving, when you got to the top of one hill, you thought you were done with uphill for awhile, but you saw a down and then up again.

Both Suzanne and I were tired and did not think we could make it up another hill top. We must have done 20 hill tops and it was taking a very long time compared to other hikes we had taken. Finally, we saw a trail marker that gave us good news, we did not have to hike up the next hill top which was big and steep. "Oh we are blessed, blessed indeed", was all we could utter.

At one point, we decided to change the Law of Newton to, "what goes down must go up" and called it Newton's Reverse Law of Gravity. The trail looped at the end of our time on the ridge and we knew that we had to go back the way we came to get to the car. On the side of the hill we saw distinct deer trails that cut off the top of the hill and kinda leveled out the up and downs, so we decided to take the deer trails. NOTE TO SELF: Don't take the deer trail again, scratched legs and a tiny bit of poison oak is not worth it.

The last point of worth noting about this hike was confusing guideposts or missing all together guide posts. There were several trails we took, thinking we were going the right direction because the sign said so or we guessed when there was no real clear sign. The sign here to the left is one such example of the confusion, every side of the sign had different arrows point which way to go. So, we know for next time but it was trial by error this time.

Got a blister on my right heel bone again this time. Need to get some new socks I think.

Another great hike. Think we have about 6 left, maybe we will hike a small one to tie up loose ends in the morning.

I'm loving exploring God's amazing and beautiful creation.