Hi Mountain Lookout

Today the San Luis Obispo Gem & Mineral Club conducted a field trip to the Lopez Lake Recreation Area in search of a marine fossil deposit a first-time visitor to our most recent club meeting suggested we check out.

We all assembled at about 9 AM in the front entrance area.

Those present were myself along with club president Noah Doughty and his wife Julie and their young child plus club treasurer Mike Shipsey and club secretary Lynette and long-time and esteemed-member Helen not to mention the aforementioned visitor and her friend.

As we drove into the park past the entry gate after paying $7 per car we immediately found ourselves confronted by crowds of campers who had overrun the park for the Summer weekend. I was struck by how many people were there and how densely packed they were to each other. The place looked like Coney Island and I marveled how anybody could enjoy camping outdoors packed in like sardines. Then it occured to me: they are used to living that way in every other area of life so why not while on vacation.

We arrived at the end of the primary road through the park and parked our vehicles.We immediately discovered a deposit of fossils in a small roadcut nearby but they were nothing to write home about as they can be found all over San Luis Obispo County. We walked down that same primary road beyond the gate where most folks are prevented from driving upon and headed down to Lopez Lake Drive without our scout seeing anything familiar as it relates to her fossil collecting years ago.

We all jointly decided to head back to our autos but enjoy the beautiful scenery. Me and Noah and Julie and their child all headed up over High Mountain Trail so as to walk back a different route for a change of scenery.

The trail had been recently scraped by a bulldozer and there was plenty of fresh dirt.At one point we picked up a very recent trail of black bear paw prints which was quite cool.

Instead of driving home to Atascadero with our tails between our legs we decided to make a bit more of a trip of it.
We followed club president Noah Doughty and his wife Julie to a couple of other fossil-bearing locations nearby along Lopez Lake Drive with club treasurer Mike Shipsey joining us. We learned of a couple of new locations from Noah and Mike shared with us that his is investigating yet another nearby location for some other cool mineralogical material that hopefully our club will gain access to sometime in the future pending discovering the property owners and being able to get their permission to visit their property and hunt for it.

That all collectively didn't take long and after parting ways with them we decided not to simply head straight home with our tail between our legs but make this trip into even more of an adventure so headed up Hi Mountain Road into the Los Padres National Forest. My intent was to drive back home via Hi Mountain Road to Pozo Road to Highway 58 to El Camino Real and on home to Atascadero but with a catch: take a quick detour up to Hi Mountain Lookout on the way.

Outside the national forest boundary we passed Arroyo Grande forest fire station.That is home to Copter 527 which is a USFS Type-1 helicopter replete with a helitak crew.That morning there was no sign of it anywhere as it was probably off fighting the nearby lightning-caused fires or up in Northern California fighing the big lightning-caused fires up there.

The drive out Hi Mountain Road is beautiful all the way, but after the pavement ends a bit outside the forest boundary the road gets progressively more rough and slow-going. At one point after we entered the forest we noticed a good many "interesting-looking" hunters at one location. Dueling Banjos and bad teeth certainly came to mind. ;-p
At yet another location either on private property outside the forest boundary or within an inholding of private land within the forest boundary we saw a dry creek with lots of white mineral deposits staining everywhere the water had run in a clear sign of a mineral spring. I had noticed this feature the last time I drove through there but had forgotten about it.

The final climb up Hi Mountain Road to the saddle at the top of the ridgeline Hi Mountain is situated on is rather tortuous and ponderous but we made it with my old truck despite all the potholes and rocks not to mention the steepness.

We hung a left on the road up to the top of Hi Mountain where the lookout is located and headed up it and soon passed by Hi Mountain Campground which upon cursory glance by me while mostly keeping my eyes on the road seemed quite full and continued on up to the parking area adjacent to the gate up to the lookout, which was open (something I had never seen there before). We parked and got out and admired the view all around, especially the southern half of the horizon which afforded us a view of the Nipomo Mesa, Santa Maria Valley, Casmalia Hills, Lopez Lake, Guadalupe Dunes, Huasna Valley, Sierra Madre Mountains, San Rafael Wilderness Area, part of the Five Cities Area and a good chunk of the coast of the Pacific Ocean, some of which is pictured below.

Southwesterly view from the gate to Hi Mountain Lookout.

Rustic sign at the gate to Hi Mountain Lookout.

We then headed on up the short quarter-mile hike to the top. The view was incredible but I was disappointed to find there was no interesting fire-watching to do of the nearby lightning-caused fires which seemed pretty dead from our vantage point.

Our first view of Hi Mountain Lookout.

Upon rounding the final bend on approach to the lookout noticed a Forest Service SUV parked there and a couple of people on the tower with one being a woman (Karlien Lang) who immediately waved to us. This was yet another first for me up there as I had never met anybody else up there the other times I had visited Hi Mountain Lookout. The gal waved to us in a manner that struck me as seeming surprised to see us and a bit curious who we were.

View looking South-Southwest with Lopez Lake at center.

As we closed in on the lookout we noticed the dusty back window of the Forest Service SUV had the outline of a condor finger-traced onto it in somewhat humorous fashion. We were immediately met by a nice young college-aged guy named Pat White who proceeded to give us the grand tour of the site including its tiny Interpretive Center center on the first floor of the tower beneath the observation deck. We found this to be very interesting and informative.

Entrance to the Interpretive Center

Southeasterly view from the top of Hi Mountain.

When you are up on top of the mountain you feel you are rather high up and yet when you look at Hi Mountain from a distance it doesn't seem as if it would be that high up. Part of the reason for that beyond the simple visual/mental illusion that happens like that with all hills and mountains is that Hi Mountain doesn't have the more classic pointy mountaintop that protrudes into the sky but is more gently sloped and rounded which enhances the illusion from below that it is not that high up.

Northeast view looking at Black Mountain.

After giving us a tour of the Interpretive Center Pat then gave us a tour of the grounds which was really nice of him and eventually Karlien joined us for part of the visit. We learned they are both Summer interns with the local Audobon Society and the Forest Service had loaned them the SUV as they both had no reliable transportation to get to Hi Mountain. We also learned they were up there on weekends over the Summer to electronically track California condors.

Another South-Southwesterly view from the top.

After a relatively short, but sweet visit with Pat and Karlien we headed back down off the mountain feeling privileged to have had such a wonderful visit to the fire lookout and mountaintop.

Pat and Karlien bidding us farewell as we left.

On our way back down as we passed Hi Mountain Campground going the other way this time I noticed a couple of Department of Fish & Game wardens questioning folks in the campground. I then realized many of them were inbred-looking bumpkins and I was glad the wardens were there. ;-p We proceeded past that campground and got back onto Hi Mountain Road and headed north to to Pozo which actually seemed a significantly shorter drive than ever before and then on home.

Pozo Forest Fire Station

All in all that was a great little adventure and I hope to go back up to the lookout again in the future. I both HIGHLY recommend a visit to Hi Mountain Lookout for folks of any and every age.