Holy Jim Trail from Trabuco Creek Rd

(stolen photo from wikipedia)

This is me not riding to San Diego. The original plan was to leave at 230am on Saturday morning, and ride 80 miles down the coast to meet up with the Organic Athlete San Diego chapter for a run. Good training for night riding and Norseman. But at 1130 the night before- far from having my shit ready- I decided against it. Slept in instead. Then finally got around to looking up info about that peak that sticks out of the Saddleback mountains that is visible from all over south county.
Around 330pm I was out of the house for the 6.5-mile run down a dirt road to the Holy Jim Trailhead. I had some aspirations of summiting, but that would of put my total mileage over 30. I fast hiked up to the fire road, probably only 500 feet or so below the top (and 2.5 hiking miles) and turned around. I read that on a clear day you can see into five counties from the top (hope to run the whole thing and summit soon).

I took my time descending and then ran the 6.5 miles back, most of it in the dark, which gave me the opportunity to use my new headlamp.

Tree tunnel!

Looking west out of the canyon on Holy Jim Canyon Road before it hits Trabuco Creek Rd.