Moments in Dirt and Ink

Panoche Hills Click for map. There's a lot more access to the Panoche Hills than to Griswold Hills to the south . A graveled access road comes up to the top from the northwest, then splits and continues a few more miles in two directions along the top with numerous more primitive roads splitting off both. Tucked into the east side of the main road (right fork) are a pair of wilderness study areas split by the road to the FAA VOR station (left fork). This means there shouldn't be any motor vehicles in those areas, but it doesn't stop the target shooting. With some rather nice views and lots of little roads down into spots with a bit of hill to one side, there is a lot of target shooting. It has me rather hesitant to go for the loop I had roughly planned. Still, between the rain yesterday and the weatherman insisting it was actually coming today, there doesn't seem to be anyone shooting now, nor has anyone driven up to start. I can at least do the high point and ...

Central Coast BLM Click for map. It really looks like rain, but the automatic weather report assures me that's still on for tomorrow, not today. Today will just be mostly cloudy and I want to get out to something. Something will be the Griswold Hills high point. The area has a single day use area with bathrooms as the only official parking, although there seem to be a few turnouts too. There are no legal roads, but there is a single trail. I'm not sure where exactly it goes, but it is nice to see that it climbs the steepest bit of the hills along the route I was looking at to get to the high point. At least, there's a series of switchbacks carved into the hill, so I assume that's where it goes. There's no signs by the parking lot for it. There's a gate to exit the parking area and switchbacks on the hill side, so just connect those and I should be on trail. Cows grazing on the flats between Griswold Hills and Panoche Hills and Tumey Hills. Th...