Agile Trekker: Gene Marshall-Piedra Blanca National Recreational Trail, Los Padres National Forest, California 10/16

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
10/16/2026	5.8 miles	3 hours 33 minutes	761'	1.9 mph	307.2

Parking:

Piedra Blanca Trailhead, Rose Valley Road

Map:

Gai GPS app

Directions:

Misc trails

We were supposed to take a boat ride to Santa Cruz Island (one of the five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park) today and camp on the island overnight. We got an email from the ferry company that said the waves would be really bad due to the Santa Ana winds. We made the tough decision to cancel our trip. We found out later that the ferry decided to cancel the trip too - so even if we had decided to go, we wouldn't have been able to go. That left us with no lodging for the night, so we searched for places to camp. Most campgrounds were full, but the Wheeler Gorge Campground said they leave a few sites as first come first serve. We drove to the campground early and found only 5 spots available. We chose the best amongst the sites, a spot next to a creek. It was a great place to camp. The site had shade, a picnic table and a bear box and plenty of space. We paid for our spot and then took off to go hiking.

We drove further down the road to hike. I saw a hike that had cool rock formations. The trail is 18 miles long, so we only did part of it. We saw a couple of backpackers at the trailhead. It would be cool to backpack this! The weather forecast was 97 degrees, even up in the mountains. Oh boy! Against my better judgement, we still went hiking! Our hike was uphill. The hike was mostly exposed, so we were hot, hot, hot! Whenever we found a shady spot, I'd stop to cool down, catch my breath, and drink some water. We only saw 3 people on the hike. We hiked to a backcountry campsite and took a snack break. We hiked back down. It was a beautiful hike with neat rock formations. Gai is really helpful for the hike - in the beginning you cross arroyos, and the trail isn't clear there. Once you start climbing, the hike is straightforward.

I bought a new 1-person tent for this trip. I own a 2-person tent and a 3-person tent already. This tent will be good for car camping when I fly by plane and don't have a lot of space for gear. It's also a double wall tent, so better for preventing condensation than my 2-person tent. I didn't sleep well, but I was so happy to be back in a tent again!