no shakedowns in California

[Mad Hatter 08]

Well, I was planning on doing a shakedown trip the week before thanksgiving. BUT..............all of the areas i was thinking about going to are now char-grilled. I just thank GOD that the wind calmed down last night and today and the santa ana should be over with tonight or early tomorrow. This will give our awesome firefighters an upper hand on the fire. In the last 4 days San Diego county alone has seen over 20 individual fires the largest of which were the witch creek fire and the harris fire. But basically we had fires from LA all the way to the border of mexico and in some areas they even evaced all the way to the ocean. So for my actual question WHERE SHOULD I GO HIKE???? I can't head east so i can save money for my hike next year, and I really didn't want to go north of LA.

[Pacific Tortuga]

Hi lizincali, I was evacuated from my home in Silverado and have not been able to go back for 4 days.
Joshua Tree should be nice this weekend and up Ortega Hwy. there are a few places to go. Not sure where your close to but anything in Cleveland NF is pretty much toast. What kind of terrain and climate do you prefer ?(except ortega area)

[Moon Monster]

Related story about PCT southbounders and the fires: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...la-home-center

[Mad Hatter 08]

I live in san marcos. I'm thankful we didn't get evacuated. I'm on my own but my grandparents live nearby here and they are both in their 80's. We were pretty close to the cornado hills fire and supposedly the witch fire was headed our way but with all the wind dying down some and switching between on shore and off shore flows, didn't come close. I was going to go and do some of the pct, may near horsethief canyon and was planning on staying out for 5 days.

[The Weasel]

liz---

How long a shake were you looking for. If 2 days/20 miles or more, consider Crystal Cove State Park behind my house in Laguna Beach. It's got 2 nice, massively underused back country campsites (no water, duh! although there are a couple of ponds in the Wilderness, yukky water tho), and is adjacent to the Wilderness, so that you can plug in probably 30-40 miles with almost no overlap. Some of the trails come close enough to Laguna Canyon Road (the 133) that you could cache water.

TW