Castle Rock is great. It covers a damp, dark, oak woodlands and runs over to the ridgeline chaparral. If you take the southward loop, you'll soon run into these giant boulders covered in moss. They remind of slumbering giants waiting to be awakened to take revenge on the world.... right. So this is a pretty good bouldering spot. If you travel on the trails, there's actually be spots that you can top-rope. There are waterfalls and by far the view from the ridge is the best of the trip.
NORMAL people stop after about 10mi. We (and by that I mean JohnE) wanted to save an extra day of work so we passed this point. Unfortunately Lane camp has no water. We took a detour to get water which was supposed to lengthen our trip by only 2mi. So instead of 3 miles downhill, we had 5 steep uphill. We barely beat out the sun, covering 22miles in 9 hours.
Laughably, we drank a lot of water in the last gasp. We probably had the same amount as if we came straight.
We ate SO much at night. And as usual, when tents say 4 people, they mean for Stephanie Park/Sharon Nam/Oompa Loompa sized people. Since it was too cold for bugs, I slept outside. Great choice since everyone inside woke up covered in "human dew" (David: Yeah, I noticed my sleeping bag was wet. Ed: Dude, it's just dew. Me: Yeah, HUMAN dew.) or condensation from people breathing.
The next part covers my most favorite places to hike - old second growth redwood forests. Gigantic trees, some that fall over the trail, fields of clovers spreading to the river. It just has an old feel to it. Sounds deaden here and makes you want to whisper as the trees stand as sentries in these ancient cathedrals. (by the way if you don't want to kill yourself, you can park for $10 and just start here).
17mi or so on day 2, we crawl to our car. We thought about going to be beach, but it would be an extra 2 miles. I drove there just to touch the water. It was awesome. The next trip might be a 7 day 50-60mil trail ending in Mt. Whitney.
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