Upper Sycamore Canyon Trail to Sycamore Canyon Fire Road

Total distance is 4.38 miles. I chose this because I've never been on the Upper Sycamore Canyon Trail, though have been on the Sycamore Canyon Fire Road. The Fire Road is a well paved road that is popular downhill with cyclists. The Fire Road descends fairly steeply to a steel and wooden bridge spanning the seasonal river bed. Once past the bridge, I took the left turn onto the Upper Sycamore Canyon Trail. Going straight will bring you to a Ranger Cabin and eventually to the beach. So, taking that left turn, the Upper Sycamore Canyon Trail follows the seasonal river bed and winds its way on a gentle upslope. On thing in particular interest is a iron pipe that follows the seasonal river bed. It seems to be in good shape and intact. It got me wondering of the difficulty it was laying that pipe, from point A to point B along the riverbed, as straight as it is.

I found going down hill on that Fire Road was more difficult than going up since you need to be aware and apply your "leg breaks" the whole time. The gentle upslope, then the harder upslope on the other hand I found physically easier. Overall difficulty is more on the La Jolla Canyon than the Chumash Trail. The distance is good, 4.38 miles and took just about 1.5 hours. So you won't spend all day huffing and puffing. There was some good sweat and the temperature was in the upper 80's.

Using this as a conditioning hike for Kauai would work well for the Waipoo Fall's hike because it does have the distance and tolerable terrain elevation changes. Although, Waipoo Fall's Canyon Trail does have steeper areas. Overall, this would fit well.

The gear list was standard: backpack; gps; camera; 1 liter of water (two 500 ml bottles); small gatorade. Those Nike hiking shoes were rendered useless and tossed, so I used 10 year old combat boot's which have served me well. They do fit and I had nothing else to use. There was some foot pain that followed. I'd think new inserts are in order and I'll give that a try.

By the way, I did remember to reset the trip computer on the gps.