Introduction to Geocaching and Hiking La Jolla Valley in Pt Mugu State Park: Have you ever wondered how those short side trails are made? Probably they end at geocaches! This hike is for anyone who is curious about the sport of geocaching and would like to try it out. We'll take the route described below, stopping every so often to search for hidden caches. We'll hike at a moderate pace, but the duration of the hike will be long for the distance because of the caching stops. 

What better way to spend Easter Sunday than to go on an Easter egg hunt. Uh, make that a Geocache hunt!

This loop hike will take us along some nearby beautiful and isolated trails in the La Jolla Valley area of Point Mugu State Park. We’ll hike up the La Jolla Canyon Trail and return along the Ray Miller (Backbone) Trail. Along the way we’ll pass about 25 geocaches and we stand a good chance of finding all of them! We may also see fields of wildflowers and will have great views of the coast from the Ray Miller Trail.

Statistics: The hike is 8 miles round trip with about 1500 feet of climbing. Expected duration is 5 to 6 hours.

Level:  Intermediate.

Photos: Photos of the hiking area can be seen at VenturaCountyTrails.org. Photos of a previous Introduction to Geocaching hike (on different trails) are here.

Time:  Meet On April 12^th (Easter Sunday) at 9:00 AM to start hiking promptly at 9:15 AM. Check the weather.  Rain and severe weather conditions like wind or fire cancels. After significant rain, we will need several dry days for the trails to dry out sufficiently.

Where:  At the main parking lot for La Jolla Valley off of the Pacific Coast Highway. This Google Map will get you to the entrance of the parking area; continue down the drive to the hiking trailhead (not to the group campground). Briefly,

For those who are coming from Thousand Oaks/ Simi Valley:  Take the 101N Fwy (101S for those who are coming from Santa Barbara/ Ventura/ Oxnard/ Camarillo area) and exit on S Las Posas Road (going towards PCH).  Then go to PCH 1 head south/east. La Jolla Canyon is 4.2 miles from Las Posas, on the left.

For those who are coming from the San Fernando/ Los Angeles area:  Take the 101 Fwy towards Ventura and exit on Kanan Road (make a left turn from the exit ramp). Then make a right turn on PCH 1 and head towards Sycamore Canyon. La Jolla Canyon is 1.7 miles after (west of) Sycamore Canyon, on the right side.

If you don’t want to pay the fee for parking in the lot you can look for parking on PCH.  We'll meet in the parking lot near the trailhead.

Dogs: Dogs are not allowed in State Parks.

Geocaching: We will pass about 25 geocaches along the way. If you sign up at www.geocaching.com beforehand (it's free) you can log the caches we find. If you have a GPS that you plan to bring along, email me and I'll send you the cache coordinates for you to load, but a GPS isn't required for this hike. And if you would like to trade some small items with those in the cache, bring them along. They shouldn't be any larger than about the size of a deck of cards, and not worth more than about a dollar.

Wear / Bring: 

• sturdy hiking boots with lugs and good tread
• long pants and long sleeves recommended to guard against scratches
• water
• light lunch or snack to eat along the way
• GPS loaded with cache locations if you have one, small items to swap, pen or pencil to sign the log sheets