Two Day Hike in Castle Rock State Park

I decided to try a more rigorous hike - a two day hike with an overnight stay at a camp site. The overnight stay means that I had to gear up and bring a tent, a sleeping bag, clean clothes, and more food. I geared up and purchased a large backpack, a tent and a sleeping back, and I decided to try to hike in Castle Rock State park. My thinking here is that if this hike goes well, this two day hike can just be a dry run for an extended multi-day hike that starts from Castle Rock, go through Big Basin, to the sea, and back to Castle Rock. This two-day hike however was designed just to be a relatively short affair to see how I stand up under the additional stresses of the backpack.


The map above shows a big chunk of the Castle Rock state park. I started at the main entrance, labeled as point #1, then hiked through the Saratoga Gap Trail to the Castle Rock Trail camp, labeled as point #2. Then I hiked through the Travertine Springs Trail with a rest stop at Travertine Springs, labeled as point #3. Then I hiked on the Saratoga Toll Road Trail and connected over to the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail via the Beekhuis Road Trail, labeled as point#6 on the map. Then, 2.6 miles of hiking on the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail, and that took me to the Watermap Gap Trail camp, labeled as point #5 on the map.

In theory, the hike from the entrance of the Castle Rock Park to the Watermap Gap Trail camp covers a distance of 9.3 miles. However, that distance assume that you stay on the trail and doesn't get lost and have to backtrack. Of course, I got lost a couple of times, and hiked an extra mile on the first day and an extra mile and half on the second day. Consequently, I ended up hiking a bit more than 10 miles each day.

One thing that I didn't pay particularly close attention to, in the planning stages of this hike, was the topology of the hike itself. However, I noticed during the first day's hike that I was constantly going downhill. So at the end of the day in camp, I stopped to look at the relatively elevations. It appears from the map that the entrance fo the Castle Rock State park has an elevation of approximately 3000 ft. In contrast, it appears that Waterman Gap Trail camp is located at an elevation of approximately 1400 ft. So I climbed down 1600 ft of elevation on day 1, and climbed up 1600 ft of elevation on day 2. Fortunately, due the way the human body adjusts to accommodate physical demands placed up it, my legs were better adjusted for the weight of the backpack on day 2, and the hike on day 2 was only marginally more difficult than the hike on day 1.

I arrived at the entrance to Castle Rock State Park at around 11 AM. Since I've never been to Castle Rock before, I was a bit surprised that Castle Rock wasn't staffed. I pulled out my GPS to confirm that the location (122,05,46 W; 37,13,52N) was indeed the main entrance to the park.
There were no rangers around. Instead, there's a hollow metal tube called the iron ranger that collects self registration fees. I registered myself and my car, placed my fees in the iron ranger, and started my hike at 11:14AM.

I took the Saratoga Gap trail to the Castle Rock Trail camp. Even though I was very fresh, the hike was a bit slow going since I was struggling to adjust to the weight of the 30+ pound backpack, and the sometimes challenging trail. As the picture shows, sometimes I had to scamper up and down some fairly large rocks. With the weight on my back and having to climb up and down the rocks, I just couldn't go very fast.

For the most part, I was going with the goal-oriented mindset of "completing the hike" as opposed to stopping and enjoying the scenery. Then again, sometimes one segment of the canopy covered forest trail just looks like any other segment of the canopy covered forest trail. So I didn't stop to really investigate every segment that looked like another segment. Sometimes when there is interesting scenery, I do stop and take a picture or two. In the case of the Saratoga Gap trail, it's mostly exposed trail with no canopy. The sun wasn't very kind. However, you do get some good view of the mountains.


Nearly an hour and half later and 2.8 miles from the Castle Rock parking lot, I walked into the Castle Rock Trail camp at 12:40AM. My black backpack is sitting on the bench. There's potable water at this location, so I needn't have brought all of my water. I could have lightened my load bring bringing only a bit of water to get me to this camp, then filled up here. However, the water here and at the Watermap Gap trail camp do have a bit of the metallic taste, and I don't quite like water to taste that way. In the future, I'll have to figure out if I want to bring my own filtered water and pay the weight cost, or drink the camp water.


Feeling rested, I packed up and left the Castle Rock Trail Camp around 1:04PM. I stopped in front of the sign to investigate which trail I should take. I took the Saratoga Gap trail (the middle trail). The trail here was under canopy and didn't have large rocks to climb over, so I made good progress. Unfortunately, that effort was wasted as I took a wrong trail and walked around in a short loop. At 1:35PM, I found myself walking right back into the Castle Rock Trail camp via the Frog Flat Fire Road trail. I was a bit shocked and dismayed as I saw the same water fountain and road sign that I had saw just 30 minutes ago. Sigh.

Back on the Saratoga Gap Trail. . .


An hour and half later, I walked by the Travertine Springs and decide to rest up. This location has many bamboo-like plants. I'm not sure what kind of plants they are, but they're more grass-like than bamboo I believe, since they are relatively short (5 ft tall or thereabouts), and the stems are rather weak as opposed to the long, skinny but hard bamboo stems. These plants appear to be unique to this location. I didn't see these plants anywhere else in the hike.

I didn't see any water pouring out of the ground, and I wasn't going to take any pictures at this location. However, after sitting down for 10 minutes, I noticed that the sign was rather interesting, since it said "Travertine Srings". I have no idea what an Sring is, and I'm not sure that many people do. More on the misspelling later.

After I left Travertine Springs, I walked down the Saratoga Toll Road Trail. I was frankly a bit concerned and puzzled as to why the trail was called a "Toll Road Trail". Given that they didn't even have the resources to staff entrance to Castle Rock State park, would they have a little booth in the middle of the park with a ranger there to collect toll for hikers walking on a "Toll Road Trail"? Or, could there be another iron ranger in the middle of the trail where you drop your fees into the iron ranger? How would a hiker know to bring his or her wallet into the middle of the park? How would they enforce the toll for a hiker that climbs 50 feet below and around the toll booth? I had a lot of questions. Fortunately, it seems that "Toll Road Trail" is only part of the name of the trail. There were no toll collectors anywhere to be seen.

After less than a mile on the Saratoga Toll Road Trail, I cut over to the Beekhuis Road trail to connect to the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail. The Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail is the trail that connects to Big Basin state park, and eventually to the Pacific Ocean. So if I had the fortitude, I just had to stay another 30 miles on the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail, and that would get me to the Pacific Ocean. For this hike, I decide to just stop overnight at the camp and turnaround on the second day.


On the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail, I mostly kept my head down and marched on the trail. However, around point #4 on the map (not exactly sure, I only know that it was 1~1.5 miles from the Watermap Gap Trail camp), I was startled by some movement in the slopes below the trail. I looked down and was surprised by three deer scampering about. Even more surprising was that they were apparently resting next to an old abandoned car on the slopes below the trail. I was at first surprised to see a car in the park and wondered where it came from, but it was only a few seconds before the sound of the traffic in the slopes above the trail reminded me that this part of the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail runs mostly parallel to a very twisty highway 9. A driver that loses control of his or her car can easily drive off of the road and end up in the park. However, I was surprised that the park didn't make the owner of the car pull the car out of the park, but instead left the car there to rot. Then again, it appears from the age of the car that the car may have been there for a while, so perhaps the powers-that-be didn't have the power at the time to get the owner to tow the car back out and the car remains there to this day.

At around 5:18PM, I stumbled into the Waterman Gap Trail camp. I dropped my backpack next to a tree, and went about to set up my tent.


About half an hour later, I set the tent up, and laid down on the sleeping bag. I was quite tired and dozed off. The next thing I knew, it was nearly 9 PM.

Feeling a bit rested more alert, I was now bothered by the very hard ground that I was sleeping on. A friend of mine, Russell had lent me some light padding material to place under the sleeping bag, but due to the bulk, I decided against bringing that material. I was now regretting the decision. I had to get up and construct a makeshift padding with my cloths, both clean and dirty. The layers of cloths made the ground slightly more tolerable, but as I twisted and turned, sometimes I slid off of the "pad". I think I will re-evaluate the decision about the pad if I do this again.

I couldn't sleep from about 9 PM to mid-night, but I couldn't do much else anyways, so I just laid down in my sleeping bag, feeling sticky all over, since there were no showers around. Finally, I got up and used a hand towel to towel myself down a bit. Since the water and the towel was cold, I first placed the wet towel in a zip lock bag, then wrapped the bag in a t-shirt and put the whole thing with me in the sleeping bag for half an hour. After that time, my body heat warmed up the wet towels just a bit to be a bit more tolerable. Then I tried to wipe down myself as much as I could. I can't say that the results were absolutely satisfactory, since all I can say was that I was "less sticky" after each wipedown. The problem was that after a bit of time, the hand towel would be saturated with sweat, so I had to wash the hand towel as best as I can, so the whole thing takes a bit of time to iterate.

Sometime after midnight, I finally fell asleep again despite the hard ground and the sticky skin. I had some weird dreams, including one where I "woke up" to find that my tent had been torn apart and my backpack and wallet stolen, and I was filing a report with a ranger, who told me they had arrested some people. Anyways, it was rather strange, and I'll just keep the details of this and other strange dreams to myself.

After I woke up around 8AM, I continued to lay in the sleeping bag until past 9 AM, listening to rain dripping on the tent. It rained a bit in the morning. Fortunately, the tent has a rain fly built in, and I didn't have to worry about getting wet in the tent. However, I didn't prepare for rain, and I was wondering how I would have to deal with hiking in the rain. I started to prepare some scenario where I would leave my backpack and most of the gear in the camp, and just hike with some water and no gear back to my car. Since the trail camp is no more than half a mile from a parking area on highway 9, I could then drive the car to the parking lot, hike the 0.5 miles back in the camp to get my backpack and the rest of the gear. I didn't want to try to hike nearly 10 miles in the rain unprepared. However, after I got out of the tent, it was clear to me that I needn't have worried. It was just few drops of morning rain, mostly from condensing fog. After the sun comes out, the few drops of rain stopped quickly and it was dry again.

I took my time to pack up and clean up, and started on my way back on the trail to my car at around 10:50AM. I saw the same car and presumably the same set of deer were near the car again - they must be nesting close to the car, which is strange considering how close the car is to a trail.

Despite the fact that I was now doing a lot more climbing, my legs had adjusted to the weight of my backpack, and I was hiking with much vigor. However, I missed the Beekhurs Road trail cutover to the Saratoga toll road trail, and it was nearly a mile later before I realized that I had missed the trail. When the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail came out next to a Fireroad right next to highway 9, I realized that I hadn't seen this part of the trail before. So I took out my GPS and confirmed that I was quite a bit off my trail path. Since I had already walked a mile past the cutover, I could continue on the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail, and take the much longer path back to my car, but the much longer path would add another 4 miles to the trek, so I decided to backtrack instead. The backtracking decision turned out to be a good decision, since the elevation climb and the pounding on my feet gradually took a toll on my body, and at the end of the day, I struggled to hike the last three miles back to my car. If I had decide to continue on the longer path back to my car, it would have meant a seriously long struggle to get back to my car.


After getting back to the Castle Rock Trail camp, I decided to take the Ridge Trail instead of the Saratoga Gap Trail back to the Castle Rock parking lot. The Ridge Trail took me next to the Goat Rock, which I presume was named because the rock looked like the head of a goat.



Finally, at around 5:20 PM, I got back to the parking lot to where my car was parked. I was rather tired, but I still had some energy to walk around without the backpack. Moreover, I remembered that the posting on the bulletin board had numerous spelling errors that I noticed on the first day. I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I saw the sign in the park for "Travertine Srings", I made the mental note to come back and take a picture of this posting as well. Either the rangers are having some fun and making an Easter Egg hunt of spelling errors in Castle Rock, or the California state budget crisis have now forced the park system to forgo hiring rangers that can spell properly.

Exercise of the day: See if you can count the number of spelling errors on the posting in the picture.

After getting back to my apartment, I weighed myself, and I was surprised to find that I had lost 8 lbs in two days. However, I was quite dehydrated at the time, and after some food and water, I gained back 2 of the 8 pounds. Still, the 20+ miles of hiking with 30+ pounds of gear on my back, climbing up and down for two days is probably a more rigorous workout than anything you see on TV. However, I'm still thinking about whether to try a multi-day hike, or just to do long single-day hikes. Call me spoiled, but I can't honestly say that I enjoyed the sleeping on the hard ground or the no-shower aspect of the great outdoors experience.