Ventura, California!
Day #777 * Hike #976 New Track #765
Tuesday January 1, 2013
Botanical Gardens Hike Above City Hall - Ventura, California
My Tripometer: 1.5 Hours * 3.5 Miles * +800 Feet
Looking down at the trailhead
Happy New Year!
Directions:
Park up the hill behind City Hall in Ventura. Essentially, the corner of California Street and Poli, yeah, up there. This is a new trail! It's not entirely complete but we just found out about it. Apparently they've been working on it for many years now. The trail is very accessible and you can take it all the way to the top and beyond! The surface on the lower end is made of joint friendly material. This is especially inviting because the slope starts with an immediate switchback formation...
Great views of Ventura and the pier, but they get better...
As usual, we dedicated New Years Day to be a special hike. We were not the only ones! We do a family hike on New Years every year and the hiking traffic is always inflated on this day. However, it's hard for me to get too excited. It was one year go today where we were hiking in Malibu while Domino was at home gnawing on her tail. It was one year ago and not a day goes by where I do not wake up in the morning and say hello to her, good night to her, and I love you...
Today is also Sammi's 4th Birthday! Let's keep it rolling...
The smooth service ends, keep walking up the well marked path
Future home of the Ventura Botanical Gardens
(cross the street)
This is a crowd for Ventura!
Easy Switchbacks
The other hillside...
We walked up these stairs instead
Take a breather...
...or not...
Made it to the top!
to the left leads to The Cross
The Avenue Area below...
The Avenue Trail (search the blog for stats on it)
More uphill?!
Ayden made this poop face because he was scared. Sounds like gun shots! From the top of the stairs, we walked to the right away from the Cross. Guess what, you are nowhere close to the top! Follow the path to the right and it will lead to what looks like a closed gun range. Guess what, not closed! We rejoined this trail in the pic above and climbed above the guns...
Really Dad, is this necessary?
With all the gun violence out there, I cannot condone teaching an 8 year old how to pull the trigger. Maybe I shouldn't voice my opinion, but these video games and guns, etc, man, just Chill Out and eat some Frozen Yogurt!!!
By the way, we are open for biz in Port Hueneme. I've been so busy working, hence the reason why I am behind on my updates. Still hiking...
Dude, if they aim high, we could get hit!!! Lookout!
Keep Climbing! - It's not so bad...
Happy New Years!
I've been over there before... (the rare side of Ventura)
The Trail goes down that way...
A unique glance at Two Trees
Anacapa!
Looped Down a different way
This parking lot will eventually become a trailhead for me. This is a great cheating spot to skip a lot of the initial climbing. We circled around here and then rejoined the switchback trail back to the car. It was a very pleasant New Years. A bit cold and windy at the top, but it's January. Heck, it beats Cleveland; unless we're speaking of Cleveland, Alabama...
***Quick Rewind:
I hit a New Track on New Year's Eve Day, after work. I was without a camera and walked around the foothills in Newbury Park. My intention was to only cover a brief mile, and that's pretty much all I did. I can't recall the street names now, but it's that trailhead that I found when I hiked to the highest peak in Newbury (not Boney Mountain). I just walked back across the fields, climbed through the grass and then back down to loop. I'm exhausted....
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