Eventually, I wandered back into the road, brushing off a tick. The main lesson was don't leave the road, no matter how cluttered and difficult, because it was worse off the road. I spotted the road cut going up to Iron Mountain. It took some bushwhacking to get there, then was a mix of open and brushy sections. Near the top of the ridge, the brush fell away. After a false summit, there were three mounds that appeared about the same height, but the farthest was Iron Mountain. At the summit, I found a fallen wooden pole that I righted. There was no benchmark, and no register. Good views of Lake Berryesa were on display. The lake was much longer and larger than I imagined. The best views were not from the summit, but along the trail on the ridge. Cedar Roughs, the high point in the local wilderness, looked too far for me to get in my time window. A line of vegetation marked where a past fire had halted its advance half way up the mountain. I left the summit and returned the same way, trying to stick to the road. It was not an easy day, but I was satisfied to get up and down another Iron. 7.8 miles round trip, 2475' gain. As an historical aside, Lake Berryessa was the site of one of the early Zodiac Killer attacks (https://www.zodiacciphers.com/lake-berr ... ttack.html).
false summit
summit
