This overnight hike starts at Castle Rock State Park. Its relatively small car park gets busy early, so plan to arrive early in order to get a place. This area has plenty of poison oak and signs of some snake population. The loop trail taken was planned using AllTrails and uncovered one of the hazards of planning with hikes using a topographical map. Whilst the map clearly showed a trail leading from the junction of Kings Creek Truck Trail and South Skyview Road, after a 2500 ft climb, the trail leads to signs warning of trespassing. Bizarrely (at least to me) there is a tiny section which goes through land which is not part of the state park. There is no indication of this at the bottom, however, there is indeed a 0.2 mile section of the Kings Creek Truck Trail which passes through private land – just before reaching McPherson Mount and Skyline Blvd. Clearly, I can not recommend this hike. I do, however, find it pretty ridiculous that a hiker has to climb 2500 ft before being notified they are on a dead end.

 Key Statistics

• Trail Start / End  ()
• Start Time –
• End Time –
• Trail miles according to AllTrails – 16.3
• Elevation Gain according to AllTrails – 4485

Maps

Castle Rock maps can be found here.

Photos