Into the Desert

From our campsite just down from the Nacimiento Summit, we had a long gradual descent through dry rolling oak plains to Mission San Antonio beside the Fort Hunter-Liggett military compound. This mission was established in 1771 and had a lot of interesting history that was being preserved by the local parish and dedicated volunteers. From there we descended even more to highway 101 and the tiny farming town of San Lucas where we rested in the shade and filled all of our water containers before we started climbing back over another ~800m ridge to reach the true central valley of California.This afternoon was likely the hotest of our trip so far, so we were grateful when we found a neglected fruit tree on the side of the road. It has been a while since we have found apples along the road, but this was no apple tree - we are in pomegranate country now! We ate a couple pomegranates while resting in the shade before we tackled the final climb in the evening sun.Read more