I couldn't help myself, and after a few steps, I asked loudly: "Are we there yet?". It took us a while to get organized, but we finally took off from the trailhead around 10am. The view of Boney Ridge with Sandstone Peak on top and Serrano Valley below They always asked for a few people to volunteer to use their vehicles for carpooling, and then they were driven back to their cars at the end. This practice would be the norm for all hikes.
After everybody parked, we piled into as few cars as possible and drove all the way around to the Ray Miller trailhead. We woke up at 5am, drove to Rancho Sierra Vista and waited for the gate to open. Segment 1 - Ray Miller Trailhead to Danielson Ranch Her knee healed pretty quickly, we did a few short hikes to make sure it doesn't blow up, and as it didn't, we happily went to the first segment on January 14. We were very much in doubt whether she'll be able to do this. We were a bit concerned, too, Em had a pretty bad knee injury in the middle of November, and she was still limping at this time. We went through all the information we needed to know, mostly geared towards those who are inexperienced: keep hiking to build up some strength, break in boots, prepare for long days, bring food, etc. They introduced Mike Theune, the ranger, and the team of volunteers who will lead the hike. We all came together in a small conference room near the King Gillette Ranch (which later opened as the main visitor center) for cookies and coffee. It all started with a meeting in December. I set a reminder for myself and sure enough, in October, I was lucky enough to secure two spots. The regimen of these hikes every two weeks was a pretty good start. We were fully aware that this was something way more serious than we ever did before, so we knew we have to start training early. After our mini Trans-Sierra in August we decided to do a week-long trip to Mt. We can organize our own hikes, but to meet new people and learn a lot about the local environment from experts is a unique opportunity. Em and I both agreed that this aspect is what makes is most attractive to us. It also said that while on the hike, you'll be able to learn about the place's ecology, geology, history, etc. It will be split into eight segments, one hike every second and fourth Saturday of each month between January and April.
I also found a Park Service website, announcing that come October, a limited number of people can sign up for a hike of the entire BBT, led by rangers and volunteers. So we learned that this trail starts at the Ray Miller trailhead, north of Malibu, and - mostly keeping to the high ridges- goes on for 69 miles, all the way to Will Rogers State Park, just off Sunset Blvd. That trailhead features a nice big "Backbone Trail" marker, and as it made no sense whatsoever to us, we decided to look it up.
We drove by that trailhead that's just south of Piuma Road in Malibu Canyon quite a few times and always talked about going for a hike there, and finally did it in the summer of 2011, while training for the mini trans-Sierra trip ( gallery | trip report). So I wasn't surprised at myself when I found out about the Backbone Trail only in July of 2011. I'm pretty good at not knowing about well-known things. The Channel Islands as seen from the Backbone Trail Intro
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