Sunday, May 22, 2016

An Adventurous day on the Hopalong Cassidy trail

Hiking date: May 21, 2016
Location: Palm Springs, CA
Rate: normal/hard

What a day! Today, we hiked two portions of the Hopalong Cassidy trail. Here they are.

Hike one: The object trail

This portion of the trail wasn't very long, there were a lot of things to see. This part of the trail is one of the very few trails that allow dogs, so there were a lot of dogs. On with the trail!

As we headed up, we passed a shaded picnic area and a sign honoring someone.


Soon after, we reached a cross.

The cross


Sign in front of cross


One of the beautiful rock formations 

Then we went back and took another trail for a more strenuous hike. The trail started out steep and led us to a private property sign. Fortunately, the trail led in another direction, but it led us BACK to the cross and we were back to square one.  

The "Fence Trail"

So we took another route down, which we hoped would lead to the Hopalong Cassidy Trail. 

As we hiked, we passed a big pad that had a picture of a Ying-Yang on it.


We were heading back to the civilization, so we gave up and got in the car.
But It wasn't even 10:00 yet, so we went on a another hike

Hike two: The Bump and Grind loop
This was our second hike of the day. We went to Starbucks to go to the bathroom and we were off. It started off on a trail going the opposite way of the Bump and Grind trail, as we went along, I fell down and hurt my knee.

Bloody knee, neat

Then, we came to these steep switchbacks that my mom points out to me all the time.

The switchbacks

Next, we saw these amazing lizards!!



Then, we hiked down the Bump and Grind trail to our car. Then with a cinnamon roll from Starbucks and a stop at Carls Jr. (our new stopping place after a desert hike) the day was done!





Sunday, May 15, 2016

The schoolhouse path

Hiking date: May 12, 2016
Location: Oak Glen CA
Rate: easy>this trail

This hike is so easy and so short that I would not even consider this a trail, more like a path. We were stopping at a park after school to have a picnic lunch and play. So obviously I HAD to follow the path since hiking is now my favorite thing to do. There were several signs indicting interesting trees and plants. Here are a few pictures of the signs (by the way I shaved myself bald due to the summer heat. My hair will be like that for the rest of the summer).
A Canyon Oak
A rock sign marking someone important
A Mugworth plant
Box Elder grass
Verbe Santa at the end of the trail
A Black Oak