Sycamore Canyon, July 27th

We went for a hike through Sycamore Canyon this afternoon getting some amazing overlooks of the Pacific coast as well as seeing some very alien landscape. This canyon was one of those hit by the wildfire recently and while the firefighters clearly worked hard to keep the campsite untouched as soon as you walk out onto the trails the impact is clear. The area looks almost desolate with blackened trees littering the hills. It’s so quiet up there too, it seems that few people want to explore while the canyon is in this state but I found it quite interesting to see just how different everything is right now. It’s not all bad news, there are lots of signs of regrowth, prickly pears with green buds, agave with green shoots and many trees are showing new green leaves. I think the most spectacular thing was how a lot of the damage was clearly only skin deep. Lots of the trees there are black on the outside yes, but where the bark has started to peel away the branches are a bright red underneath, as if untouched by the heat and flames. It makes for quite a spectacular contrast. We’re planning on going back there a lot to see how everything changes.

This trail was just under 4 miles though we extended it by having to park down the road because the campsite was full. It’s mostly a loop with a spur off to follow the ridge to overlook the coast. It is amazing to be up so high and see down the coast. Today the skies were clear and the ocean was a beautiful blue making for some truly epic views. Check out the photos I took on the map below.

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Wildwood Regional Park, 1st June

Last weekend a friend of ours was visiting so we took him out to one of our favourite walks in the Wildwood Regional Park. We’d spotted earlier in the week that there was a closer entrance to the park, just a few minutes drive from our house so we decided to try it from that side. From the maps it looked like we could drive quite close and by just a mile or so from paradise falls. Of course things never work out like that. One of the roads was closed to public traffic and so we ended up parking further out. We spotted the start of a trail leading up into the hills and so decided to take that instead. It ended up being a very steep climb up some 600 feet in the first hour but it was worth it for the views from up there. After we got down into the park and to the waterfall we found a flatter route back, it just involved going past a water reclamation facility so we had to put up with some bad smells for five minutes.

This is a five and a half mile hike, quite steep at first but it flattens out once you get out of the hills and into the main park. It took us three hours to complete.

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