Three Mile Hill

Today was an Orange County day, so Carrie and I headed up first thing in the morning ready to hit the trail on the way to a hike that included a cave!
We met at Jo'ls place and she drove up to a park in Aliso Viejo and we started with a loop around the park and out onto the road for what became a long slog up three mile hill. Carrie and I didn't know that it was going to be three miles, and Jo'l kept us going when we started asking about the end of this steep climb. When we finally got to the top we were in a residential neighborhood getting ready to descend into a different park.

 After getting through the park we went down to a trailhead in a canyon that was nice and shady. I finally got it together and wore shorts, since I've learned not to trust the weather up in O.C. as it's never 64 and cloudy, and 75 and sunny makes for a warm day when you're going long distances. The path we were on was tree-lined and we saw several mountain bikers off and on all day.

It was nice to have water flowing since we finally got some rain in the past two weeks, and the cool ground was a really welcome change.

 We stopped for snacks of bread, cheese, and dried fruit and decided that bringing our snack game up to par has been the best plan we've made thus far. Did you know that Trader Joes carries dehydrated hibiscus flowers? They're like tart gummy food and they went so well with the rumrunner sartori that we were eating. I have no photos but trust me the people who stared a little may have been jealous and not just confused.

After eating we turned a corner and discovered that the trail to the cave was closed, and it wasn't the only one. Much of the area that we were walking through was closed for rehabilitation after the wildfire that had come though recently. We could still smell the char in the air, and the devastation was pretty obvious.

Jo'l was quick to get us reoriented and moved us onto another trail that looped around to where we needed to go. We got to stop and watch two beautiful (and healthy!) coyotes wander around for a bit. 

From there we kept seeing what looked like snake tracks but anticlimactically turned out to be children dragging sticks in the dirt. 

We did eventually get to see a cave-like thing that was created from erosion and formerly used as shelter by Native Americans passing through the area. It was no smugglers cave, and we decided that we definitely wouldn't all fit inside in our present sore state. 

 By the time we made it back to the car I had slowed down considerably, consistently falling behind Carrie and Jo'l. But it was different today, yesterday I had to concede that my Mizunos were leaving my feet sore and the same spot on my heel with a blister, so today I swapped to my Oboz which I usually use for hiking. At the end of todays walk the balls of my feet were hurting pretty badly, but they were the only part of me that was, my hips (and by extension my knees and back) were doing pretty dang good. I think it has a lot to do with the structure of these shoes, so I'm going to try to find some kind of cushion for only the ball of my foot and see where it goes from there. Fingers crossed for a solution, because after 22 miles in 2 days I'm walking fairly well!