Читать книгу 101 Hikes in Southern California. Exploring Mountains, Seashore, and Desert онлайн

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The La Jolla Valley Walk-In Camp ahead has an outhouse and oak-shaded picnic tables. Bring your own water if you plan to camp; the faucets are not operational at the time of this writing. Just south of there, beside a trail leading directly back to the Ray Miller Trailhead, you’ll find a tule-fringed pond, seasonally dry in some years. Look for chocolate lilies on the slopes around it.

From the camp, continue west in the direction of a military radar installation on Laguna Peak. Stay right where marked trails diverge to the left, circling the perimeter of the La Jolla Valley grassland and rising sharply on the Chumash Trail to a saddle (7 miles) on the northwest shoulder of the Mugu Peak ridge. At that saddle you’ll have a great view of the Pacific Ocean. The popping noises you may hear below are from a military shooting range, near the Pacific Coast Highway. Up the coast is the Point Mugu Naval Air Station.

Beyond the saddle, the Chumash Trail descends sharply to the Pacific Coast Highway. You veer left on the Mugu Peak Trail, and contour south and east around the south flank of Mugu Peak. (Alternatively, a use trail on the left just before the saddle shortcuts directly to the peak.) You arrive (8 miles) at another saddle just east of Mugu’s 1,266-foot summit. Five minutes of climbing on a steep path puts you on top, where there’s a dizzying view of the east-west-oriented coastline. You can look down upon The Great Sand Dune (coastal dunes) and the Pacific Coast Highway where it squeezes past some coastal bluffs. On warm days there’s a desertlike feel to this rocky and sparsely vegetated mountain, oddly juxtaposed with the sights and sounds of the surf below.