Potrero John and Chorro Grande
I decided to hike Haddock, but have and easy but early start by camping up on Pine Mountain the night before. Of course, as I was driving up, I could certainly stop a place or two to look around and I've been wanting to see what is up Potrero John. The trail is well marked from the road and has few parking spaces that are often occupied, but the sign seems to just point at a small opening in the rocks. It is well documented online, so it is easy to know to expect a waterfall up there. There's even a person who went up to the campsite and was quite happy with the hike, but has replies that they just did "half" the hike. They went as far as the trail is maintained. I stopped and made my way up as far as the trail is maintained, which is nearly 2/3 of the way, and then followed my choice of use trails up the rest of the way to the bottom of the waterfall.
I tried out my new red for some fall leaves and found it came out hot pink. Not what I was looking for. After sketching, I pondered the chute that allows access to more waterfalls above and decided against. I headed back down instead.
A little further along, I stopped at Chorro Grande, which I have hiked completely now. This time I only hiked up far enough to check the rocks for water. The waterfall there is quite dry. Then back to the car.
I drove up to the pass the road uses and turned up the ridge road, happily open for another week. I dodged a few very deep potholes, once driving up the side of the cliff to do so, but everyone else was clearly doing it too. I dodged a lot of deep holes that didn't drop so steeply at the sides and probably weren't a danger to forward progress. I dodged most of the last few people on the mountain coming the other direction. Pine Mountain Campgroud was empty, but I was headed for Reyes Peak Campground. It had a couple people, but then most of them left too. In the evening, I spotted a couple headlamps coming up Chorro Grande who camped a little way up the road and there was one more car as well. There was also a lot of chairs that looked like they were just claiming a site that wasn't really occupied.
Being away from the buzz of electronics was nice, but was replaced by the moan of wind through the upper levels of the trees. The stove tried to get me because it wouldn't pressurize, but I made use of still having the instructions and fixed it quickly. I settled down on a very thick Thermarest that turned out not to be warm enough to keep the ground from sucking the heat from me, but I'd brought a blue mat into the tent too to put my stuff on, so that was quickly fixed too.
I tried out my new red for some fall leaves and found it came out hot pink. Not what I was looking for. After sketching, I pondered the chute that allows access to more waterfalls above and decided against. I headed back down instead.
A little further along, I stopped at Chorro Grande, which I have hiked completely now. This time I only hiked up far enough to check the rocks for water. The waterfall there is quite dry. Then back to the car.
I drove up to the pass the road uses and turned up the ridge road, happily open for another week. I dodged a few very deep potholes, once driving up the side of the cliff to do so, but everyone else was clearly doing it too. I dodged a lot of deep holes that didn't drop so steeply at the sides and probably weren't a danger to forward progress. I dodged most of the last few people on the mountain coming the other direction. Pine Mountain Campgroud was empty, but I was headed for Reyes Peak Campground. It had a couple people, but then most of them left too. In the evening, I spotted a couple headlamps coming up Chorro Grande who camped a little way up the road and there was one more car as well. There was also a lot of chairs that looked like they were just claiming a site that wasn't really occupied.
Being away from the buzz of electronics was nice, but was replaced by the moan of wind through the upper levels of the trees. The stove tried to get me because it wouldn't pressurize, but I made use of still having the instructions and fixed it quickly. I settled down on a very thick Thermarest that turned out not to be warm enough to keep the ground from sucking the heat from me, but I'd brought a blue mat into the tent too to put my stuff on, so that was quickly fixed too.