Ventana Double Cone

April is epic on the Central Coast, with blue skies, green hills and colorful wildflowers greeting those willing to get out on some of its trails.  We had to work our way there via a roundabout detour that cost us an extra hour on the road, but once we hit the trail all was well with the world.  The oaks and madrones of Skinner Ridge happily survived the horrible fires of a couple years ago, and a babbling creek encouraged us uphill to our spectactular campsite overlooking the dramatic Little Sur watershed and the solemn marble mountain, Pico Blanco.  Pico Blanco was our lodestone for the entire trip.  We orbited it on our second day, keeping it and the blue ocean on our right the entire way up the ridgeline trail to our destination, craggy Ventana Double Cone.   Our camp was a little windy thanks to high and low pressure systems trading blows, but we bundled up both nights with a good campfire and good times with friends old and new, and all was right in the world.

When 17th-century Spanish explorers first spotted the coast of Central California, their gaze focused on a prominent v-shaped gap in the coastal ridge. They called it “La Ventana” – meaning “the window” – and the name persists in both this craggy 4,853-foot summit and its surrounding wilderness. Only a few hardy hikers climb it each year, especially after the Bear Complex fire of the summer of 2008 obliterated much of the trail. The upside of the fire is that the wildflowers along this mostly ridge-top route practically riot in the spring.

We’ll start our outing Friday morning with a challenging 7.5-mile climb to lovely, scenic Pat Spring camp, our basecamp for two nights, perched over the dramatic gorges of the Little Sur River. Saturday morning, the ambitious hikers among us will make our summit attempt of Ventana Double Cone as a 15-mile roundtrip dayhike, doing a fair amount of bushwhacking and route-finding up to the summit. At the summit, we’ll enjoy unmatched views of the Big Sur coast, and we’ll say hello to a colony of rare, endangered Santa Lucia firs that thankfully survived the 2008 fire before returning to our basecamp at Pat Spring on Saturday evening. Less ambitious hikers will be welcome to spend Saturday as a layover – birdwatching, journal-writing, or just relaxing at camp. We’ll hike out to our cars together Sunday morning, returning to Los Angeles at around 8:00PM Sunday evening.

This will be a strenuous backpack, covering 32 miles in three days at a purposeful pace over very challenging terrain, so this trip is suitable only for experienced backpackers in very good shape. We’ll cheerfully face the possibility of mud, ticks, rattlesnakes, bushwhacking and abundant poison oak.

This trip is strictly dependent upon a favorable weather forecast. A National Weather Service forecast of rain within 72 hours of our meeting time cancels, as does fewer than four confirmed and paid signups as of Monday, April 25. This trip will be by individual commissary, and we’re not planning any potluck meals, so please plan to provide your own three-day supply of food.

Signup preference will be given to GayOutdoors “Full Members”. Estimated per-person cost of $95 (gas, mileage and parking) must be pre-paid and will be refunded only if the leader cancels or if a replacement signup is found. This is a consciously low-impact outing, so carpool participation is required.