Henry Cowell (3)

This was our first foray into tippy sites in the post BAL Leveler era. I am happy to report that Lynx Levelers work better. The Anderson Leveler probably feels nervous in fact. I guess we have to get the Lynx chocks now? Our black one seemed sufficient, but we wouldn’t want to mess around if there’s a chance we could roll. And since we’ve removed so much stuff from our camping gear, we can afford the space.

On Saturday, we hiked up to Observation Deck and took the trail down all the way down to Cable Car Beach. That’s a great loop. It takes you to lookout points where you can, if it’s clear, see Monterey Bay. If you go just a little off the loop to another Lookout, you can see Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Then you descend into the thick redwood forest until you come to a river. Great place for a bit of lunch, or a wade if it’s hot. You do have to pay for it on the return because it is almost all uphill to return to the campground. At least it’s also shady.

In the afternoon, Richard went on a ride up the Felton and Empire grade. I dozed in my Nemo. After dinner, we went back up to the Observation Deck to catch what we could see of the sunset. We noted how much fire damage there is around there, but we saw a sign indicating it was all controlled burns. If so, that’s a lot of intentional burning there. It did seem to be contained within the boundaries of the trails though, so I guess I could believe it.

Once the sun disappeared, we walked an easy downhill path along a well worn and sandy chute, back to the campground. I used my blue plastic sippy cup to bring some Chardonnay along for the ride and spent some more chair time back at the site, watching bats whiz around at dusk.

Lovely weekend in nice weather. And for the record, I wore my Permethrin treated clothes while outside and have yet to get a bite. Staying hopeful!

Total miles: 83.0, 16.8 mpg, 2 hours 20 min. Site 46, right next to the dumpsters. Spacious, but unlevel. Trail runs behind it. Some solar though. Nice bathrooms, water spigots, no dump but you can go to New Brighton for free. LTE for ATT, but very little service for Verizon.