It was a crisp clear fall morning. not a cloud in the sky. A couple of recent rain storms have already started to clear some of the haze and smog out for a little while. We only had a limited amount of time for this hike as we were headed to a barbeque in Sun City with our dad so we threw this short hike in as we drove the scenic route through the mountains behind Orange County along the Ortega Highway. Five of us, Linda, Barbara, Rob, Josh and I hike the 2.1 mile San Juan loop trail. It was one of those downhill into the canyon and the uphill out of the canyon hikes. The creek was not yet flowing. The falls were dry with a few resting pools of water but even though this was a really nice hike.
Linda and I got up early on a Saturday Morning with the car loaded with camping and hiking gear. We wanted to stay fairly close to home but somewhere new to us so we decided to go camping at Blue jay campground in the Santa Ana Mountains in Eastern Orange county. We drove up through the clouds and ended up driving up along a high ridge where we stopped and took in some spectacular views above the clouds. We could see San Gorgonio mountain and San Jacinto mountain ( which I have summited ) rising above the clouds on the eastern horizon. We found our camp and set it up. We were then ready to hike. First we hiked down into Hot Springs canyon toward a location of waterfalls and pools that we read about. The creaks were dry and the poison oak was really creeping up on the trail so we had to hike very carefully. What was really nice was the solitude we had down in the canyon and on our entire trip for that matter. We covered many miles after coming up back out of the canyon hiking through grasslands and pine and oak forest. Then we set out and hiked up to two small peaks and took in the views of the mountains and enjoyed the silence. After all of that it was time for lunch and a nap. Later we ate a nice dinner, say around a nice fire and gazed at the star filled sky. The next day we hiked to Tenaja falls where we were happy to find cool flowing water. Peace..........
