The Matilija Wilderness
Saturday February 9, 2013
Flat Rock - Matilija Wilderness - Ojai, CA
Views of Caro Blanco
My Tripometer: 2.75 Hours * 6.25 Mile * +650 Feet
Welcome Back to Matilija Canyon Ranch
Elevation 1515 Feet
Directions:Follow the driving directions from Days 523-524: Camping on the Matilija Trail. On today's hike, follow the dirt road (trail) straight back past the peacocks and the private residents...
Today's blurry map
(of course I left the map at home again)
A couple of easy creek crossings
Beware of Germans...
I was up here with Ayden just last month: Day 775: Murietta Divide. Today we continued past the three German Shepherds at the Blue Heron Ranch. We were not followed by them this time...
Making our way back here...
The road narrows and becomes a trail
Views of Caro Blanco Elevation 4860 Feet
Fork in the road, which way do we go?
Stupid me, I leave my map and home and don't even bother looking at it before we go. Either way would have been fine, so we chose right because it seemed to head toward the creek. Our destination today was to reach the Matilija falls. This junction is 2.4 miles from the trailhead. We did it in under an hour.
We spotted a side trail to the right, leading to the creek...
We discovered Flat Rock!!!
Awesome Chill Out Spot
Sammi takes a dip
Back on the trail
Camping area! This is not marked on the maps
We explored for awhile, found two tents and assumed that they were there Friday night and day hiking it up to the falls. We are on our way; maybe...
Rather than follow the creek, we climbed this bluff. Maybe it was an animal trail but it weaved through the thickness up there and eventually lead to a legit trail. For some reason, I chose left thinking that the trail would wrap around the hill and then meet back up with the creek at a higher point. Well, I was wrong!
Looking back on what we've done so far
Heading back down, into Poison Oak???
This trail intersected the junction from earlier. So, I guess we are heading back. Next time I plan to mountain bike the trail until about this point. I'll bypass the creek section of the loop and remain on this trail instead. Right around here, I'll lock up the bikes to a tree. From the picture above, the falls are about 2 miles further and will gain you another 600 feet.
The entire wilderness has so many possibilities. This would be a spot to come back to many times and then explore off trail to really take in the undiscovered. I will return for sure!
Looking back - Flat Rock is in there somewhere :)
Blue Bird!
Rewind:
The past few days I've been finding unique places to hike and spread the word around about Chill Out. That said, I am out of fliers and we now need to find a new marketing mechanisms. I did have one duplicate hike at Arroyo Verde mixed in there, for the record...
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