Our group met up at 7am, packed into two cars, and we made our way to just south of Temescal Canyon. We were on the trail by 8am, getting occasional views of the city, ocean, and surrounding hills as we hiked. About 90 minutes into the hike, we made it to our half-way point, Skull Rock. To our pleasure, it did indeed look like a skull. (Maybe the rock to the right should be called Capibara Rock? Yes? No? Anyone?) From there we hiked a little further to a local maximum and peered out over Topanga State Park.

The return journey was much more leisurely, perhaps because it was downhill virtually the entire way (the first half was uphill). Due to the late hour of 10am, there were many more hikers on the trail. They looked a lot more tired than we did, which may have had to do with the fact that they were heading up hill and we down, but perhaps that just doesn't give us the credit we deserve for our speedy descent.

All in all, it was a great hike. We finished in just over 2 1/2 hours and covered about 5 miles of trail.

Summary composed by David.