I did a loop hike on the Sespe from Piedras Blancas, to Sespe Canyon, up the Johnston Ridge trail, along Piru Creek, up the Cedar Creek trail with a brief dip in the Fishbowls, up and over to Pine Mountain Lodge and back down through the Piedras Blancas.
The loop is about 40 miles total. The side trip to Fishbowls adds another 3 or 4 miles or so. You range from a low of about 2400′ to a high of over 6000′. You get chaparral, riparian and pine forest. Either way you do the loop you’re going to suffer. Johnston Ridge is a brutal climb in the hot afternoon. The climb from Piedras Blancas to Pine Mountain Lodge is very steep. I’ve normally done this trip clockwise to get most of the climbing done in the beginning but this time I did it counter-clockwise to save the prettiest parts for last. Either way is good.
Sespe Creek has nice water right now, lots of places to take a dip. It is hard to believe that in summer this creek can be bone dry. Hiking down the Sespe is extremely popular.
I noticed a lot of this Spanish Broom growing along the creek. This is an invasive plant, an escapee from nursery plants commonly used for landscaping. I hadn’t noticed it in the Sespe creek on previous trips. Maybe I missed it being in full bloom on those previous trips. It has a very strong sweet fragrance.
The Sespe Creek trail is very popular and the broom seemed to coincide with some of the popular campsites. Almost every place that looked good for camping had multiple tents in it.
There are more pictures posted on my imgur page here.
Or if you like videos, I made two 20-minute videos of the trip on youtube.
