Santa Rosa Plateau 3, California
February 1, 2014
Today we went back to the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve.
As noted previously, this is their map, with North being down.
Today, we did something different. I dropped Stephen off at the Visitor Center (bottom left), and I parked at the Hidden Valley Trail Head (in the middle of the map).
Our plan was to stride purposefully, each at our own pace, meeting at the top of Monument Hill (left center).
Stephen, being the faster of the two, put on about 6 kms by the time he got to the top. I only put on about 4 kms to get there. He got there about 10 minutes before I did.
Then we moseyed back to the car.
First, the Google Earth view of my trek, with North being up. The parking lot is at the left. Monument Hill is at the right. You will observe that I did quite a bit of backtracking.
And Stephen's trek, with the Visitor Center at the top, and no backtracking.
And the two overlapping a bit. If you squint just right, you can see Stephen's red track hiding under my magenta track.
My elevation profile.
Stephen's.
This one was kind of pretty, with the clouds off in the distance.
And here is the I-was-here photo, plodding resolutely towards Monument Hill to meet Stephen.
This being Saturday, there were many more fellow hikers than we have seen there earlier. The parking lots were well-occupied, especially the one by the Visitor Center.
After the hike, we tried (for the second time this trip) to find an On The Border restaurant (Mexican food). We really like the restaurant. But every time we plug it into our navigator, it takes us to a place where the restaurant isn't. We do see buildings that perhaps were that restaurant in the past. But no longer. It's a good thing there are so many restaurants in California, so that we don't really need a Plan B!
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Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve, third Visit
Now for some photos. I didn't take a lot of pictures - the view was very similar to what we have seen on our previous trips there.
Today started out quite chilly - close to freezing. By the time we got to the trailheads, the temperature had risen all the way to about 10 C. And it was really windy. Stephen was in shorts and a T-shirt, but I was thankful I was in jeans and a sweatshirt. Every so often, the wind would die down, and we would feel quite warm for a while. But that didn't last long enough to inspire me to unlayer a bit and just wear a T-shirt.