First Visit on Saturday, 7 September 2013
In the afternoon around 3:00 pm, Charles and I decided to checked out the Fort Ord National Monument, which is very close to our home. The Ford Ord National Monument is huge, covering approximately 14,650 acres (about 60 square kilometers). That's why, even though it is right next to our home and we have been there several times already, there are still many trails and sceneries waiting for us to visit and discover! We are so lucky to live in this area!
This afternoon, we wanted to explore the trails behind the Laguna Seca Recreational Area. So, we drove to Parkerflats Road, Watkins Gate Spur, and then Eucalyptus Road. At the end of Eucalyptus Road intersecting Barloy Canyon Road, there are fences preventing cars to go further. So, we parked our car there, and walked south on Barloy towards Laguna Seca. After 2/3 a mile, we got distracted by an inviting trail on our left. We walked on that trail for about 10 minutes, and came across this beautiful and straight trail on a ridge (Pic #1).
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| Pic # 1 |
We found out that this lovely trail is called, "Lookout Ridge Road" (Pic # 2). Charles was super happy because, by accident, he found a bench mark (Pic # 3), a survey marker for location and elevation, on this trail. Charles is a geographer. He looks for bench marks whenever and wherever we go to a new place. We call it "di-bao" (地宝，ground treasure) in Chinese.
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| Pic # 3 |
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| Pic # 2 |
The Lookout Ridge Road is very long. We were not prepared to hike for a long time on that day. So, even though it was very inviting, we decided to head home. But, I told Charles that I would definitely want to come back here next week to hike this trail from the beginning till the end. So long, Lookout Ridge Road! (Pic # 4)
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| Pic # 4 |
Second Visit on Saturday, 15 September 2013
Another beautiful day, sun is shining and the sky is so blue! Charles and I decided to re-visit the Lookout Ridge Road Trail. This time we wanted to hike from the beginning of this trail to as far as we could, near Laguna Seca if possible. So, we parked the car at the intersection of Eucalyptus and Barloy Canyon (Pic # 5), and walked East to the Jacks Road (Pic # 6).
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| Pic # 6 |
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| Pic # 5 |
About a mile on Jacks, we came across a sharp turn around a huge depression where it was once a lake. After the turn, Jacks Road took us uphill quite a bit until we arrived at the point where Jacks Road intersects with Lookout Ridge trail. We took the trail on our right going southwest towards Barloy Canyon and Laguna Seca. Hiking upwards a while longer, we found ourselves, indeed, walking on a RIDGE! (Pic # 7)
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| Pic # 7 |
The view up there was breathtaking! We could see many inviting trails, hills and canyons in this vast and priceless land of Fort Ord, and hope we will one day visit them all. From the top of this ridge, of course, we could see "Our Mountain" (Pic # 8). It's like the old faithful to us now because we can see it almost anywhere in this region, high or low, east, west, north or south.
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| Pic # 8 |
Charles was extremely happy to find another benchmark (地宝) unexpectedly! (Pic # 9)
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| Pic # 9 |
Not far from the benchmark, there is a flag pole, probably indicating the highest point of this ridge (Pic # 10). Charles checked the elevation of this point on his iPhone--it is only 800 ft, but it seemed to us much higher.
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| Pic # 10 |
From the flag pole, we started to go downhill. The ground was dry and sandy, which made going downhill more difficult. I was grateful to have a good pair of hiking shoes and a hiking stick, which Charles made for me. After about half a mile downhill hike, we looked up and saw the peak where the flag pole stands (Pic # 11). It looked so high up, and I couldn't believe we were up there just 15-20 minutes ago!
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| Pic # 11 |
About two hours after we started, we reached the intersection of Lookout Ridge Road and Barloy Spur Road which we discovered and visited during our first visit on Sept. 7. We continued south on Lookout Ridge Road, hoping to reach our destination, Laguna Seca. We were so close that we could hear the noise those race cars were making at Laguna Seca. But, Rubee was tired! So we stopped at the sign marked P7 where there was a shortcut connecting to Barloy Canyon Road. (Pic # 12) We took the shortcut and walked on the nice, flat, well-paved Barloy Canyon Road leading to our car! We hiked 7 miles that day which took us about 4 hours.
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| Pic # 1 |
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