More hiking fun!

The Bushnell Girls spent this Saturday morning hiking. The weather was perfect - cool, sunny, and just a little breezy. We went to Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness Area, because we had seen on a hiking blog that there were some caves on this trail. The blog also categorized it as an easy trail, without much change in elevation. The girls and I got a map at the trailhead, and then we were off. The first part of the trail was paved, and then we took another path that was not paved but was fairly smooth and flat. There were many other hikers, joggers, and cyclists sharing the trails, so we figured that it must be interesting since it was so popular.

There were hills around the hiking area, and because it had rained recently, everything was green and gorgeous!

The first place we stopped was Cave Rock. It is a huge sandstone formation that has natural holes in it, creating shallow caves. Some of these are connected to each other, like tunnels. The girls crawled right in, although I was too tall for most of it. We rested there in the shade before continuing on our quest to see Dripping Cave.

We went back to the main trail and walked along until we found the trail marker indicating the turnoff for Dripping Cave. That part of the trail was shady, almost a tunnel of trees, with wooden footbridges over little stream beds. Dripping Cave was much larger than the caves in Cave Rock, although it was not a deep cave. It was quite tall, with some blackened places on the cave ceiling. This is from long ago, when stagecoach robbers once used it as a hideout after pillaging the stagecoaches that traveled between San Diego and Los Angeles. The girls were disappointed that the cave had no drips, but I showed them that the ground above the cave was covered with plants, so I am sure that it gets drippy in wet weather. There is also a small footbridge in front of the cave, to cross over a stream that exists in wet weather. We had the cave to ourselves for a while, and then we were joined by the men's volleyball team from Servite High School - a nice group of young men.

We could have hiked further and seen The Old Corral, but we were all getting tired and a little warm. We stopped to play on a plank bridge where a small stream crossed the trail, and then we started back. We played with a long stick, trying to poke one another's shadows one the ground, running and laughing, and finished our outing at McDonald's. We had been hiking (walking) for about three hours! Abigail managed to stay awake until we got home about 2:30, then fell asleep with a thud!