Pistachios and Pines

Having not made the distance we intended to the day before, we were not sure if we could pull off the big day that would get us over the hill back to the coast, but we decided to get up early and give it a go. Within an hour we had climbed well above Maricopa and enjoyed the view back over the moonscape of the oilfields in the desert. Things started to shift in our favour as a tailwind helped push us gradually higher and higher up the valley past pistachio orchards and carrot harvests, and eventually back into the Los Padres National Forest for our final climb up to Pine Mountain Summit.Read more