Poppy Hill

This weekend I did a day hike with The Man in the Figueroa Mountain area. This is supposedly prime wildflower season but it appears it is not really a good year for wildflowers. We got a lot of rain, then a hot of heat, then a ton of rain. It probably stressed out the seedlings.

This hill is normally covered in poppies and lupine. There were mostly just poppies. It was a cool and cloudy day so the poppies weren't open. It was a little disappointing for those who drove all the way to see it. Fortunately, I drove all the way to go hiking and I enjoyed the beautiful spring green instead of the gaudy flowers.

The Man and I did a nice loop hike. We parked near the poppy hill and hiked out along the Catway road to the Willow Springs trail. We followed Willow Springs and went down toward Davy Brown campground. Then we picked up the Davy Brown trail. There are two spots you can pick up the Davy Brown trail from the Willow Springs trail and we chose the lower of the two. Then we hiked up the Davy Brown trail to Figueroa Mountain Road. Then we walked the road for 3 miles back to the car.

There were lots of people out driving the road to see the meager flower display. There were lots of people hiking the Davy Brown trail, many of which wore Barefoot Ted huarache running sandals. One of them had a handful of banana slugs leaving slime all over his fingers. Gross. Nobody was on the Willow Springs trail. It's quite overgrown. I picked up a tick who got me on my stomach. That's two ticks in two weekends. A bad year for flowers but a good year for ticks.

I had asked friends of mine if they wanted to go backpacking with me this weekend. One didn't respond. The other said he had all kinds of plans with his work and it wouldn't be a good weekend to go backpacking anyway because there was supposed to be a big storm coming in with snow. I got an email this morning from him. Turns out the two of them went backpacking together. Nobody wants to go backpacking with me.

Fine then. I will never ask anyone to go backpacking with me. I will do everything I want to do alone. I hate people.