The Way of the Creek

Thursday (March 22) I took another march in my stomping grounds where I let my feet lead the way. I turned off onto Wood Canyon because well, that’s the way of the creek, and I think that if there’s a choice between of going the way of the creek or not, I’m always going to choose the creek.

After a short while in Wood Canyon, I took a detour to one of my favorite places on Cave Rock Trail and spied this little guy:

After the caves, I hiked to the top of the giant rock but before climbing back down on the other side, I took a steep scouting expedition. This well travelled trail ran straight up the hillside. It confused me as to where it might lead. Much of the trail was rock; tire marks and foot prints marked the dirt sections.  Though it was mighty steep,  I continued to climb the trail out of curiosity. My direction intuition was out of sorts and I could not fathom where it  lead – this fueled my curiosity all the more! Eventually I saw the Top of the World neighborhood not too far away – the actual named neighborhood that overlooks Aliso Canyon. Wow. What a surprise. Once I realized where the trail lead (either directly into Top of the World,  or it turned off somewhere near it), I decided to head back down and let my feet continue directing.

Just as I am a sucker for creeks, I am also for caves. Next stop Dripping Cave:

A short time after arriving to Dripping Cave, two men hiked up. Not wanting to intrude on their time at the cave and not really wanting to hang out with two strangers at the cave (but also not ready to leave it), I found a trail that lead up and above it (but not before chatting a bit with the guys about poison oak). The view up top was breathtaking, exhilarating really, but more so because the rock up there sloped forward toward the cave’s mouth. The sensation was that if I were to fall, I would tumble down the slope and fall off of the top of the cave. Yikes! I would not like that one bit. Of course, I wasn’t going to fall. But that slant, though fairly slight, was just too scary. So, I hopped down from there pretty quickly and went and hung out in a tree close by that overlooked the trail . When I heard the voices from the guys coming my way, I jumped down and headed back to Wood Canyon Trail where I continued this delightful afternoon journey.

Above the cave:

Along the way, I saw deer in the field near the old corral:

And then I took another quick detour up a little known, short trail called Alwut Overlook. A bench sits up at the top overlooking Wood Canyon. I rarely visit this spot. But being spring, I knew the view would be superb so I took the hike up and parked myself on that bench. The view did not disappoint.

Last thing I did before heading back toward the way of the creek was to locate a secret meadow that I noticed some time ago while on a ridge trail. I had studied its location for a while, so with relative ease, was able to take a peek at the hidden meadow not too far off the trail. I love moments like this: