JANUARY 1, 2012 – Stunt Rd / Mulholland Dr

It was the first day of the year and the last day of my holiday vacation. A 9th and final caching hike was in order. Sissopolis (Christine) and pianofab (Fabrizio) joined me for a car shuttle. From the viewpoint at the intersection of Stunt Road and Mulholland Drive we started hiking toward Topanga Lookout (GC1CB6K).

What was a fire lookout post in decades past is now a concrete foundation covered by taggers.

The 360 degree view is still great though.

And we found the (lidless) cache.

Years ago I’d been here, DNF’d the old cache (since archived), and turned back because there were no more caches ahead. Today, we continued NW along the ridgeline for a series of 5 caches. The single track trail is definitely not for inexperienced hikers. Though it’s not overgrown there are many “which way are we supposed to go” choices and some rock scrambling. We passed by some interesting formations.

Christine looked, and found no cache in here.

Here’s me with my work location, Warner Center, at center left in the background. I’ll be back at my desk there in a few hours.

Here’s a rare open area on the ridgeline.

We worked our way toward Cloud City (GC35A5) at the “X.” It was a cache I’d found and reached from the other direction in 2008.

From Cloud City, this was the look back to the ridge. 2D photos just don’t show the steepness of our descent.
We reached the Calabasas Peak Motorway and walked to my car which was parked at the bottom.

The drive back to Fabrizio’s car at our starting point took less than 5 minutes. From there we found several caches on the Backbone Trail. One of them, Hid It By Some Fossil Shells (GC2JN6J) was aptly named. I’d hiked this trail before and never noticed the fossils.

We hiked a total of 5 ½ miles and found (11 Christine, 8 me, 5 Fabrizio) caches and celebrated with lunch at Wood Ranch in Agoura. My holiday vacation total was 9 hikes for 48 miles and 76 caches found. Thanks Siss and Fabrizio for hiking with me today.