October 5, 2013
It's a beautiful and warm day. After the usual morning coffee and newspaper reading, we decided to go for a daytime hike on the Guidotti Trail in Fort Ord, which is a very popular site for the Monterey Hiking group. We hiked this trail with the group twice already, but both times were in the evenings, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. The route the hiking group likes to take is a loop, from Guidotti to Skyline, then to Oil Well Road back to the parking lot, total 6 miles. Today, we'd like to go farer. The Fort Ord entrance on HW 68 has improved. The parking lot is new, and there are even new bathrooms. We started from the Guidotti trail head right next to the parking lot (Pic #1).
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| Pic #1 |
Very quickly we found out that it was so much better to hike this trail during daytime when we could see things much clearer. There are so many trails in Fort Ord, and it is nice to see many people hiking, biking and walking their dogs here (Pic # 2).
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| Pic #2 |
We saw "our mountain" again on Guidotti, and we were not surprised. After all, it is in Toro Park, directly across HW 68 from here. (Pic #3 and Pic #4)
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| Pic #3 |
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| Pic # 4 |
On Guidotti, we walked gradually uphill for about 2 miles, then turned right on to the Skyline Road. About less than a mile on Skyline, we came to a Y intersection where the Skyline Road continues toward the left and the Oil Well Road begins on the right. (Pic # 5) Both time when we were with the Monterey Hiking Group, we took the OWR leading to Toro Creek Road, then back to the parking lot. So, this time, Charles and I ventured to the left and continued on Skyline. It was very beautiful, and we could see clearly two magnificent trails parallel to Skyline, Pilarcitos Canyon Road and Lookout Ridge Road. We hiked on Lookout Ridge Road before, and planned to hike Pilarcitos Canyon next week.
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| Pic #5 |
On Skyline, we took a very interesting and less traveled path, Trail #44. It was very narrow, flat at first, then downhill sharply, and landed on Three Sisters Road. While walking on Three Sisters, we were pondering on where the name for this road, Three Sisters, came about. Hopefully, we would find it out someday. On Three Sisters, we ran into a deep gauge and canyon (Pic # 6). It is dry now, but there must be a very strong current running through here before!
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| Pic #6 |
From the end of Three Sisters, we picked up the Oil Well Road, Trail #45, and then the Toro Creek Road back to the parking lot. On Trail #45, the view looking over the valley residential area was quite beautiful! (Pic #7)
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| Pic #7 |
