Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Malibu Creek

Trip to Malibu Creek State Park. We set out to do this loop that ended up being just killer; about a 2,000-foot climb then descent, and about 16miles around. Steep as hell, too.

Oh well; it was fun!

Here, Patrick sets off alone in the desolate wilderness...



Oh, wait! It's Memorial Day! The trail is packed with families!



Most of them were headed here, to Rock Pool, seen in a high-tech composite photo:

Thomas in front of Rock Pool:



Climbing away from Rock Pool, trying to shortcut back to the stupid trail. Oops.



On the way up:



In an old truck left over from the show MASH. This is one of their old locations, and they left a few props:



"Out of my way. Honk!"



Then it started to get steep:



That's too big for any dandelion to be! What's the idea?



Yeah, then it was really steep...for a long time.



This section of the trail is called the Bulldog Motorway. Here's what it looks like in 3D, courtesy of Google Earth:





Thomas wills himself up the mountain:



Thomas 15 minutes later. Progress slow.



Climbing to the tippie-top:



View from tippie-top:



Patrick at summit:



Thomas at the same:



Cool road. "We could have driven up here?!" Corral Canyon Road, to be precise.



Patrick finds a cistern or something that looked like it came from an old antenna station.



Patrick on a spirit quest:



Now it's the downhill kind of steep!



Abandoned house. We saw 4 ghosts, 2 mummies, and a zombie in here. They were nice, though.



Get it? I'm acting like there's a fire in the fireplace! But there's no fire! Hilarious.



This was actually part of the trail. Somehow neither of us fell in.



Deer grazing at sunset. Pretty. We asked them to get closer and stand together so we could take a better picture, but they pretended not to understand us.



Finally we reach the car, and, after 7.5 hours and 16+ miles, Thomas enters into a state of reflective meditation:




Patrick wanted to do the whole route again, but took pity on his brother:

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