Beyond this point the trail levels out somewhat. Keep watch along here for some excellent sea-floor shales on your left. In another quarter mile, you'll come to two trail intersections, both signed, one leading off to the right, the second -- only a few yards further on -- cutting off to the left and down toward Bear Valley. Don't try to figure out how far you've come from these signs, by the way; the first says you've come about 1.2 miles, the second only 0.8.
From here, you wind around hillsides for another quarter mile or so until you reach beautiful Sky Camp, a delightful open hillside area in which you can stop and unwind. There is a restroom here, if you need it, and a huge lone spreading tree under which you can sit down and relax for a few minutes. Water is available a hundred yards down into the canyon to the right of the trail just ahead. The views out to the northwest over the moorlands and the Pacific Ocean are spectacular, marred only by the wintry leafless branches of trees further down the slope, where the fire reached. The slope steepens to the south and east, going up toward the not-so-distant summit of Mt. Wittenberg.
Having relaxed for a few minutes, now continue south along the trail and up the side of the slope to Mt. Wittenberg. Don't worry -- the trail won't take you all the way to the summit. In a few moments it curves to the right, shallows out and bit, and plunges into Douglas Fir forest. You'll be in this forest for the remainder of your walk along the Sky Trail.
For some little time you continue to get views out through the trees toward the northwest, but gradually, as you come onto the top of Inverness Ridge, the views disappear. Beyond a junction with another trail leading back toward Mt. Wittenberg, you start descending moderately to the west. If it is autumn, keep watch for the huge bushes with masses of tiny oval leaves growing along the trail and back from it. These are huckleberry plants, fairly rare in California (I first discovered them along the Eagle Creek Trail in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon). At the right season (August-October), you may be tempted to stop and harvest along the trail, eating your fill of huckleberries.
Huckleberry Lane continues for about a mile, until you descend to the edge of a flat little meadow. The Sky Trail continues straight ahead; you can continue along it either to reach the Coast Trail just a short distance north of Arch Rock or the Bear Valley Trail about three quarters of a mile east of Arch Rock (check at the Visitor Center to make sure that both these trails are open; they were not when we went this way). You can also turn left here, along a depressed track leading through the grass to the west-northwest; this is the Woodward Valley Trail, and the way we went.
Leaving the meadow after about a furlong, you start descending through open woodland, gradually emerging into hilly moorland terrain with scattered trees and lots of brush. Here the trees, and most of the older brush, are either dead or badly damaged -- the Mt. Vision Fire again. You wind around the slopes of a couple of high rounded hills, with views south along the coast and out over the ocean, and eventually come out onto the western slope of a final hill in the chain. From here the trail angles down to the northwest through grass and brush, and eventually joins with the Coast Trail about three miles south of Limantour Beach. To get to the parking lot, follow the route of April 28. Addendum to that hike: in the first canyon you enter after joining the Coast Trail, the one with the rock monolith to your right, it now appears that a bridge is about to be constructed.
Don Harlow
| Map will be added later | Map will be added later. |
Don Harlow <don@donh.vip.best.com>