My First Valencia Peak Ascent

Today I carpooled with my buddy Blake Burgess down to Montana De Oro State Park perched along the coast of San Luis Obispo County between the south end of Estero Bay and the Irish Hills and just north of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant and just south of Morro Bay and Los Osos-Baywood. This was hardly my first time at this park but before today I had never hiked up into the Irish Hills let along Valencia Peak. Coastal stratus clouds were forming as moist marine air was passing from the ocean onto the landmass so we were in a cloud most of the time we were on the mountain and the entire time we were on the peak's top. I'm without a camera at present so I used my iPhone to take these low-quality images so at least you can see what I saw in general. Due to the coastal stratus I was unable capture decent images of Valencia Peak itself. I felt like pinching myself today being in such an amazingly gorgeous place in such splendid weather for this time of year made all the more precious by the inclement wintry weather of late across much of the rest of North America.

View looking northward up the coast with Morro Rock and Morro Bay visible in the distance as well as a fair amount of Estero Bay in the background and Montana De Oro State Park in the foreground.

View looking west-southwest from the first slope on this hike.

View looking southward down the coast towards Point Buchon. All images by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).