One of my new things is to decide to do a hike and have multiple options as far as what I am going to do during the hike. The original thought of this hike was to get to a viewpoint of the Cuyama Badlands. Much of this has been closed by the Forest Service since they don't want to fix the road that led to the Dome Spring Campground. The area has been closed for seven years and apparently no one cares so they keep it closed. The formations in there appear to be quite cool from older pictures but we don't get to experience it. My entry way in, was through the North Fork Lockwood Trail.
I assumed that I would see no one but there was a group starting just before me from the LA Hiking Meetup group. They were a pretty strong group and it took me about two miles to pass them up. The route around the waterfall is narrow but in good shape. I arrived at Lilly Meadows and took off xcountry in an easterly direction. I checked the ridge to the south and it seemed pretty climbable so switched directions and went straight up. I was really close to Peak 7,022 so as oppose to side-hilling along the ridge I went to the top. There was no evidence of people ever being there. The summit was a little too well rounded to get any good views and was a mix of forest and shrub. I continued along the ridge that had some massive rock formations that I checked for pictographs. I dropped down to a saddle between Peak 7,022 and 6,994 and realized that I had missed the steep ridge that would take me down to the overlook above the badlands. It was going to be a steep 600 foot hike down so I decided the view wasn't worth the effort and continued to 6,994. 6,994 had a bit of a view but also a little too well-rounded. There was a nice log there where I relaxed and enjoyed the absolute quiet of being deep in the wilderness, all by myself.
I finally reversed my direction and dropped back to the saddle and then the drainage that would take me back to Lilly Meadows. There is some rocks around here with pictographs but I was unsuccessful in my search for that location which was a third goal of this hike. I finally reconnected back to the trail and headed back down. At the waterfall there were three ATVs that I guess came from the Boy Scouts Camp. There was very little water so not sure how much of a waterfall they saw.
The whole hike was about 10 miles in about 4.5 hours with about 2,000 elevation gain. As expected there is no pictures.
