innature wrote:AaronP wrote:This past weekend I parked at The Hoist and on the way up Long Ridge Road I was greeting by a local who notified me that that portion of Los Padres has been closed for years since the fire and that I was walking on a private road. I proceeded anyways. I saw no signs at the trail head notifying of closures in the area. Is she correct or just being a local gatekeeper of sorts as to keep away the crowds?
I live on Palo and hiked from the hoist mailboxes to the trail head that goes to turner creek campground.
She was likely trying to be a gatekeeper and most of these locals are misinformed and don’t like to share.
Turner creek and the trails that continue passed it are open, it even says so on the NFS website. However it is completely overgrown with blackberry bush. Not even a site to pitch a tent. I took a look up the trailer and there was a massive downed tree that looked like a lot of work to get passed. I didn’t bother continuing as it looked to be pretty impassable.
I’ll try figuring out how I can post a photo here of what it looked like today 5/31/20.
Oh, also, at the trail head lives a guy with two loud, trying-to-be-intimidating dogs. I don’t advise parking there, as he is unfriendly.
On that particular trip I did pass around to the right of the massive downed tree towards the creek. It's passable if you're willing to bushwhack your way around it. The left side looked impassable. The rest of the way is pretty clear until you reach the next junction with a few smaller deadfalls along the way. On this particular trip we made it all the way to Double Cone which required the most bushwhacking I had ever done in Ventana. I too parked at The Hoist as I had been advised not to go any further up the private road.
