Homer's Travels: Hiking Ventura County #6: Lizard Paradise Rock Falls

Friday, March 02, 2007

Hiking Ventura County #6: Lizard Paradise Rock Falls

When it was time to choose a new hike, I found two easy hikes in the same park in Thousand Oaks, CA. The Lizard Rock and Paradise Falls trails leave from the same trailhead in Wildwood Park. Looking at the trail maps I realized it would be easy to connect the two loops to make a longer, moderate hike. This hike is another urban hike but it was far enough away from the freeway that I could not hear it.

I arrived at the trailhead at about 9:30 am and started out on the Lizard Rock portion of the hike. The wind was cold but the sun was warm and the skies were cloudless. I took a spur to do a couple of Geocaches. There was another cache on the trail but I misread the map and thought it was on another spur. When I realized what I did, it was too late (i.e. I was too lazy to retrace my steps). After doing a third cache, I passed by some cacti (OUCH!) on my way to Lizard Rock. I climbed up to the top and sat on the Lizard's head and relaxed in the chill sunlight. It felt good. The views were good only being spoiled by the houses ringing the park and the sewage treatment plant barely hidden in wildwood valley.

After taking in the sights I headed down the trail up over Stagecoach Bluff (another cache) and crossed over to the Paradise Falls trail. On the way to Paradise Falls and another cache I came across a Teepee. I looked like a cool place to hang out. I did a cache and stopped by the falls. Indian Creek was running fairly well despite the lack of rain and the falls were flowing well. I love the sound of waterfalls. I got back on the trail and visited an Indian Cave and followed the creek back past one more cache before returning to the trailhead. The total hike was 5.36 miles. More pictures here.

The caches that I did on this hike are:

  1. "At Last": A quick micro cache on a spur off the main trail.

  2. "Box Canyon Cache": Another small quickie in a nearby box canyon.

  3. "Papillion": This was a large ammo can on a ridge on the way to Lizard Rock.

  4. "4x4'n Wildwood": This was a clever hide. The cache was a small container with a washer and a bolt head attached to it. The contained was inserted into a hole in the end of a weather 4x4 piece of wood. It looked like the bolt was screwed into the wood. The bolt head and washer were both rusty an looked like they had been outside for years. Very well done.

  5. "Tru and Narls' Most Horrible Consolation Cache": Another small quickie hidden near the base of a tree.

  6. "ROCK-N-ROLL": A film canister hidden in a fake rock. The rock looked a little fake but it was still a good hide.
This was a pretty good hike and I feel like I am getting stronger. I'm not as tired after the hikes as I was when I started a month ago. The next hike I'm planning to do is the Aliso Valley Loop north of Santa Barbara. I'm looking forward to it since it's not an urban cache.

2 comments:

  1. I'm definitely going to have to give that trail a look-see. An Indian Cave, waterfall and faux teepee on one jaunt. Coolio. Have you been to the petroglyphs on Camino Cielo? And what are you using for a trail map?

    BTW, I'm linking to you at my blog, www.wildrye.com and I wouldn't object a bit if you posted a reciprocal link.

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  2. Phil,

    Thank you for reading Homer's Travels. Wildwood park does have some good trails.

    Yes, I have seen the Chumash petroglyphs. I've been there a couple times. I like the area.

    I have been using a list of hikes in the Ventura County Star website. Here is the address:

    http://web.venturacountystar.com/hike/index1.shtml

    Each entry on the list has a link to a basic trail map.

    I'll check out your blog.

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