Sheephead Mountain
October 30, 2021
Miles: 3.3mi
Elevation Gain: 790ft
Gaia Track
100 Peaks Challenge #96

It’s funny that I’m reviving the blog with this hike, since it was so unremarkable. We haven’t been intentionally procrastinating on this hike; we just have not quite gotten around to it. Finally here we are – it’s the last real hike for Tara and me (I need to do Point Loma, which is a drive-up peak; and the remaining 3 hikes we have planned as our big finale event). Otherwise our focus is to get Kali and Casey caught up. So, this was it!

Sheephead is tricky because there is a short but critical section along a “private” road. The whole area is within National Forest, which got me thinking about the private land question. I don’t know this for sure, but I THINK the private land is a holding within the national forest; and the road to access the private land is an easement – so we can walk within 50ft of the road. I also looked at a map of the private land parcel ownership, and to me it looks like the gate marking the private land is not in the right location. In other words, the “private property”sign is placed too soon on the access road.

Who knows. What we ended up doing is hiking (bushwhacking) alongside the road on the way out, until we took a right turn (southwest) steeply up the mountain. The climb was short mileage-wise, but was straight up. Finally we arrived at some boulders with the benchmark and the peak register – but it was obviously not the highest point on the summit. So we continued a dozen or so more yards to the boulders that were clearly the highest point. Climbing up was a bit tricky but doable, and after some trial and error we managed to get to the top of the highest boulder. There was a laser-cut “Sheephead Mountain” sign which was neat, so we took our pics with that.

From there we plowed back down the peak. It was a short hike in the end, but was warmer than we expected, so we all appreciated being done well before noon. Also the fall colors were gorgeous, so it was nice to get into the mountains.