Portuguese Bend Reserve Hike

So I went hiking with one of my close girlfriends, her younger brother, and cousin"-in-law" (<= not sure if there is such thing, it's her cousin's wife) yesterday in Palos Verdes at the Portuguese Bend Reserve and had a nice and peaceful hike. I don't get to see my friend, Caroline, often because she's been studying far away from home for the past few years but it's always nice to see her, and it was extra special to me because we generally don't do daytime activities like this. Instead we typically eat dinner and then go drinking with my other close girlfriends.

At the beginning of the trail, we bumped into a couple of high school classmates and their dogs and it felt awkward, even though I really made an effort to be friendly and pretend to care to see them but there is always something awful about seeing high school people, don't know why... The girls we saw yesterday are very nice and so similar to us but I guess any reminder of high school is awkward to many of us LOL Too bad, because it would have been nice to get to know them better if it didn't feel so unnatural to see them.

Anyway, we started the trail lost at Del Cerro Park and parked on the side of Crenshaw Blvd because it seemed like parking was already full. The trail is actually straight towards the end of Crenshaw Blvd, past a gate and a map of the Portuguese Bend Reserve so there was no need to actually walk into the park on the right hand side. There was a marine layer just evaporating slowly and I hate that type of semi-cloudy/sunny day. I love blue skies or just super gray cloudy days but after a couple hours, there was a glimpse of the beautiful blue sky. The hike also has a gorgeous view of the ocean far ahead but because of this awful marine layer, I could only see what looked like smog to me.

We originally wanted to hike starting through Burma Rd, left to the Ishibashi Trail, left onto Paintbrush Trail, then back down through Burma Rd to Crenshaw but we accidentally passed the Ishibashi Trail and ended up making a left onto Rim Trail instead. Our hike totaled about 4 miles. Burma Road is a well maintained and obvious trail downwards where you pass several smaller trails which we were very hesitant to go through since snakes are a common site in this reserve. Plus an experienced hiker with his rottie on-leash and his other big dog off-leash warned about snakes and such... Plus, I read poison ivy is predominant in this area... I'd hate to get that on any of us! And Robert, my friend's brother, spotted some nice green poison ivy quite close to us.

http://www.pvplc.org/_lands/docs/PBTrail%20Map2011.pdf

Upon first sight, Rim Trail seems like a beginner's trail, pass a wooden tiny bridge but once we started going uphill, it was a bit scarier because it seemed like it was quite steep and slippery from the rocks that have created this hill. For me, this was the funnest part of the trail because it was more exciting and stimulating while the rest of our circle was just so peaceful (for a lack of a better word).

Here, we reached the highest point of our circle and it was where we were about to start turning back down onto Paintbrush Trail:

This little trail decorated with a bed of yellow flowers was part of the Paintbrush Trail and it's also near where we saw the poison ivy on the right:

 The trail is generally pretty dry and surrounded by million dollar homes:

Iris, my friend's cousin-in-law, spotted the cutest little bunny eating these purple flowers and he even showed us his fluffy white tail... Adorable rabbits but they are pooping machines and their urine smells pretty bad...

As I said earlier, this marine layer just covered the gorgeous ocean that would have been visible on a clear day. Although the ocean was looking rather dirty even far away but it was still a very nice scenery:

Caroline went back today and will probably go tomorrow before heading back to Berkeley but I have a back log of things to do and I am trying to stick a schedule of being "productive" or whatever people call it ;P So far, I'm making great progress!