Caliente Mt. Ridge Trail dayhike April 2009

At the trailhead: Tom Armstrong, foreground, and Sam Duran, with Sheila showing only her tail and her shadow.

From left to right: Bryan Allen, Karen Armstrong, Tom Armstrong, Sam Duran. I was hoping that an errant gust would not come along and blow my camera off the top of the Element's rear-view mirror.

Soda Lake on the Carizzo Plain below. Yellowish swaths are wildflowers; a portion of the access road that we took to get to the trailhead is seen in the middle of the photo.

Tom at left, Sheila on right; she was wearing a new doggy pack, lugging her food.

Sheila walks faster than Tom and myself.

Left to right: Karen, Tom, Sam. Sam's pack looks quite compact; we would discover the reason why a bit later in the hike…

Since this was a Friday, we had the ridge trail all to ourselves, seeing no one else the entire hike.

Sheila amongst the Fiddlenecks. She is a combination of Australian Shepherd and Great Pyrenees. Small birds seem to fascinate her; she runs bounding beneath them as they fly overhead.

Tiny little horned lizard, on Sam's hand.

The same little Phrynosoma coronatum, this time on Karen's hand. We saw several others of this species during the day, but all the other ones were too quick to catch.

Sam, Karen, Tom. We all wore light jackets as there was a moderate and somewhat cold breeze from the northeast, which is to the right in this photo.

Sheila did fine with her pack, but it did seem to keep her from dashing about quite so much.

Further along the trail and the flowers & greenery have encroached upon the trail a bit more.

Hike, hike, hikety-hike. All of us were yacking up a storm, catching each other up on news and events.

I suppose I should know what these flowers are named, but I don't. They were quite pretty, regardless.

Tom's probably just said something funny, the little stinker.

Further along the trail and we saw more and more of these pretty yellow flowers. Last year at about the same time we saw lots of flowers, too, but they were blue and a different species.

Another shot of the flower-strewn hillside. Another ridge of the coast range lies to the west in the distance.

Sheila "doggedly" hiking onward. We'd give her squirts of water from our hydration bladders, which made for very little wasted water; she seemed to enjoy it too.

Even further along, and the two tracks of the trail have narrowed to one.

Really quite a pleasant trail, with enough ups and downs to keep it interesting. Sheila in the distance is probably thinking "hurry up."

There was quite a profusion of miner's lettuce along some of the more shaded parts of the trail. Yum! (Well, I had a few handfuls; everyone else nibbled a few sample leaves, while watching to see if I would keel over from my excess!)

Bush lupine.

A close-up of one of the lupine blossoms.

Sheila was too fast for me here. If Sam wanted to customize her pack a bit, he ought to have the right-side pack be brown and leave the left-hand pack blue, so the pack colors would mirror her eyes!

As the day went on, a bit of haze, probably from blowing dust out in the Central Valley, wafted in from the northeast.

Strolling along 'midst flowers and sky.

Lunchtime! Sam's interpretation of lunch was to take a nap… By now we had discovered why Sam's pack seemed to have so much room: he had forgotten his sleeping quilt! We decided to just make our excursion a day-hike; the original plan had been that Tom and Karen would hike along with us for a ways and then turn back, while Sam, Sheila, and I would camp out overnight. The forecast was for below-freezing temperatures overnight, so not having some way to keep warm overnight would have been unpleasant. Ultimately, our change in plans allowed all of us to stay together and enjoy each other's company more fully.

Sheila The Pack Dog.

Still snoozing…

Karen had quite a selection of snacks: tasty crackers, dark chocolate, and other goodies. And she was willing to share! Orange top of SPOT satellite beacon can be seen in grass, pointed to by a walking stick.

Tom The Mighty Outdoorsman. Or should that be "The Mighty Dentist"?

Sheila amongst the blooms and grasses.

Happy Dog.

Contemplative moment.

The girls stick together, taking the lead. Sam had taken Sheila's pack off, which she reacted to by dashing about in apparent glee.

Another rest stop, near some sort of antenna facility. Since we were now close to the cars, we poured out most of our water to lighten our loads.

Carizzo Plain. The main trace of the San Andreas Fault lies at the base of the range in the distance.

Cloud shadows moving across the plain below.

Nearing the trailhead, with afternoon shadows lengthening.

A tuckered-out Sheila; Karen didn't seem fazed.

Sheila in repose.

Sam, next to the Armstrong's Subaru.

A dusty Element and Forester. Quite a pleasant hike!