Monday, June 22, 2009

Castle Rock

Tina and I went camping at Castle Rock State Park a couple of weeks ago. We got a bunch of backpacking gear from REI as wedding presents, and this was our first chance to use all of it at once!

Castle Rock is just South of Hwy 9 on Skyline. Here's a map to the parking lot where you can park overnight:



View Larger Map

The State Park website has a nice brochure that contains a map to the campground. Camping plus parking was only $10 for the night. What a deal!

We drove into the parking lot on Saturday afternoon, got a little orientation from the ranger stationed at the entrance, and started on our hike. The campground is about three miles away from the parking lot, and the scenery is beautiful the whole way. It starts out with a canopy of tall trees that blocks out enough sunlight that there is very little underbrush. Large sandstone boulders are popular with rock climbers.


About a mile into the hike, the view really opens up:


We arrived at the campsite well before dark. It was empty except for a small group of Boy Scouts. We picked a secluded site and set up camp. During the evening and night, the rangers came by multiple times to make sure that we had not started a campfire. The fire danger in the area is very high, so they were extraordinarily cautious.

In the morning, we took an alternate route back to the parking lot. Along the way, we discovered the largest forest of poison oak that I've ever seen.



All of the low, leafy plants in the picture are poison oak! Tina didn't like the idea of walking past it, but we didn't have a choice. Amazingly, we didn't catch any of it.


In all, we had a great time at Castle Rock. I highly recommend it for a day hike as well as for backpacking overnight.

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