Distance: 1.5 miles round trip on trail
Summit Elevation: 530'
Elevation Gain: 400'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 0.32
Round trip time: 22 minutes
Recommended water: 0 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Turtle Rock Drive
Difficulty: Easy
A Santa Ana ridge hike was queued for today, but the National Weather Service predicted an 80% chance of rain with a chance of thunderstorms. I cancelled the ridge hike, only to wake up and find light cloud cover and nothing that looked threatening. With other arrangements made for the day, there was no chance of doing anything substantial. I wanted to at least do some light cardio, so I found this peaklet in Irvine. I parked at Chaparral Park on Turtle Rock Drive and started toward the back of the park past parents pushing their strollers. At the top of some stairs, I branched onto a dirt trail heading to the viewpoint. The high point was a short distance past the viewpoint. I continued over the high point, down the other side of the ridge to the end of the park and came back. I took a couple of photospheres with a newly acquired Ricoh Theta S. The one click simplicity and reliability of the Theta S is a big upgrade from the tedious multi-shot effort required using Google's camera software. I was only getting good photospheres about half the time with my phone. Getting those on uneven summits when it was windy was sometimes dangerous. BTW, don't get the regular Theta to save money, the resolution is very bad. I returned the lower end model, but I am pleased with the Theta S. Since this hike wasn't much of a workout, I did another jog around the hood when I got home.
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