Читать книгу 101 Hikes in Northern California. Exploring Mountains, Valleys, and Seashore онлайн

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The route cruises near the ridgeline through golden grasslands, charred forest, and thick new growth. Oak woodlands and stalks of Our Lord’s candle, a large and easily distinguished yucca, punctuate the scenery as you next ascend and top a minor saddle before continuing upward to another, more prominent saddle. Views vanish briefly as the trail switchbacks southwest and then climbs north to the second highest point along the route (2.1/4,740'). From this point onward, it’s all downhill to Pine Valley.

The trail turns southwest on a steep grade, dropping 850 feet through open woodlands carpeted with spring wildflowers. A final series of switchbacks deposits you at Church Creek Divide and a four-way trail junction (3.6/3,650'). The divide forms a deep saddle between two west-trending ridges and sits atop the 29-mile-long Church Creek Fault, a splinter fault of the greater San Andreas Fault system. The grinding faults of the area pulverize adjacent rock, which then erodes away to form distinctively straight valleys. Here the Church Creek Fault has created linear Church Creek canyon southeast of the divide, and the upper Carmel River valley (including Pine Valley) to the northwest. The divide also separates the watersheds of the Carmel River, which has its headwaters in Pine Valley, and the Salinas River, which initially flows southwest before turning north, eventually entering the sea some 80 miles north of the Carmel River mouth.