Grant Ranch - Bonus Hike - California, United States

In any event, this is the bonus hike because the power was out all day at work and I came home at about 11 and it was just a gorgeous day and, well, who wants to clean the garage anyway.

I didn't have anything  in mind when I started out except maybe that I'd like to see how McCreery Lake filled in after the rain.  I decided to park in the main lot again (gotta make the pass pay off) and hike up the Hotel trail to the lake.  The lake was as full as it gets - water flowing over the top of the dam.  I circumnavigated the little pond looking for likely subjects and finding ducks, turtles and a few flowers.

We cut over to Halls Valley trail via the McCreery Lake trail along a little canal that funnels some of the water from the little lake over towards the big one.  At the bottom of the trail near where the Los Huecos trail originates there's a good view of the countryside north of the lake and what might be a way to get over to the Washburn trail.  Its my guess that the easiest way would be to follow the trail along Grant lake and stay above the arroyo.  Maybe someday.

Today we headed up Halls Valley.  At this point I had Antler point in mind among other things.  It's the one area of the park that I haven't been to and in fact, it wasn't to be today either.  If you haven't been up the Halls Valley trail, I recommend it.  It's a bit over two miles from the fork and while the elevation change is considerable, the trail is seldom uncomfortably steep.  At the bottom it winds through the trees and is relatively flat for maybe a half mile.  Then it winds up the hill through an occasional grove of oaks but mostly out in the open.  About a half mile from the top I was surprised to see a little cascade next to the road and a little bit after that there was a noisy colony of acorn woodpeckers in an old, mostly dead oak.

By the time I made the top, I was pretty tired and it was pretty late.  I decided to cut up to the top of Los Huecos and head down that trail.  Los Huecos is much steeper than Halls Valley and about a half mile shorter. It affords a good look at the valley to the north and west.

When I got down near the bottom; when I could see McCreery again we cut off the trail and down to the lake.  I took another shortcut on the other side of the road and was able to get home in time to start the barbecue before it got dark.

Nice hike, but I am going to conquer the Antler next and I know how I'm going to do it.