.jeri.

Since this is almost unable to be found online, let me tell you: there's a wilderness preserve right next to Whittier Area Community Church off of Colima. Who knew, right? Sorry, we didn't take our camera, so I don't have good photos for you like the last post.

The Arroyo Pescadero Park is located at 7531 South Colima Road in Whittier. From our area, we drove up Colima past Mar Vista and turned left in a little left-hand turn lane opposite the baseball diamonds at Murphy Ranch. There are a couple of trails there. Parking is free, but limited. There is a map when you get there, but you can also download it here.

The Arroyo Pescadero trail is two miles and goes in a loop. It has an optional extra loop called Deer Loop that adds about a mile onto the hike. We took this trail last weekend and it was a good walk. It's easy enough for first timers, I think, but not just a flat trail. It's got plenty of ups and downs, but they are proportionate to each other so that it's easy to continue without having to stop. The road is mostly an asphalt trail, although I think there might have been some parts that were only dirt. There are tons of plants and trees too keep a person entertained while walking through it. We did hear a little bit of water trickling, so I'm assuming that in rainier weather, there might be a little creek. The signs were pretty easy to follow once we got onto the main trail (from the parking lot, it was a little confusing). On a Saturday morning, we probably walked past about two other parties. We couldn't even hear the nearby traffic at some points, although a helicopter did come hover for a while, which Ric found annoying. Overall, it was a nice walk, and at the top of it all right near our parking, there was a nice view of the city. I'd rate the trail as easy and give it a 7 or 8 for what it is.

The Arroyo San Miguel trail is about 1.4-1.8 miles (it depends on which map you use) from end to end and a hike on it gives you 3 to almost 4 miles when you double back on it. Ric and I took this trail on Saturday. It takes a steep downhill from the parking lot and goes under Colima. This time of year there were tons and tons of mustard bushes in bloom, which meant the bees were all around. We didn't get stung, but if you're deathly afraid of bees, you might not want to go past the halfway point on this trail. We did see several rabbits as well as evidence (berry-filled poo) of other animals. The trail goes up and down easily for a good while, and then the last leg is all uphill. That last leg is also pretty deserted. It looks like no one has gone through to clear the road (which was all dirt) for hikers in quite some time. The mustard plants grow in the middle of the trail and we had to step around a few of the bushes here and there. That put the bees in close proximity, which made Ric a little nervous because he seemed to be a bee magnet. By the time we got to the end of the uphill, we were pretty relieved. It was nice to turn around and have a long period of downhill to cool down. When we came back under the bridge, there was a steep uphill which gave me a good kick since my back was tired. I liked how deserted the Arroyo San Miguel was and how deep it went into the land, but the narrower and unkempt trails were less inviting. I'll probably return to it many more times, though, because I liked its distance and variety. I would probably rate as an easy-to-medium difficulty trail, and I'd give it a 7.