On Friday, June 20, 2025 we hiked the Reservoir Canyon Trail Northeast of San Luis Obispo. The trail begins at the bottom of Cuesta Grade and heads East following a stream before climbing the hill overlooking the airport. This is a fairly challenging hike both up and down due to the rocky terrain and loose shale. We broke the hike into two parts. The short version was 3.4 miles with an elevation change of 601 feet taking two hours and 36 minutes. Total UP waypoints 1144 feet. The turnaround was at a tree swing shown in the picture above. It is the site of the Hastings Ranch. Francis Hastings settled at the location in 1924 and was a hermit known as the "Goatman". In July of 2021, Russ took great video of Bob Mott, the founder of our hiking group, giving a short historical lecture at the tree swing. Click HERE to view the video.
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The full hike lasted 5 and a half hours with an elevation change of 1401 feet. We recorded a distance of 6.5 miles. Total UP waypoints 1911 feet. Russ took a short 180 degree video overlooking the south side of the hill. It begins looking West toward the ocean and ends looking East down the Edna Valley. Click HERE to view the video. Don't forget you can freeze the video and any of the pictures can be enlarged on mobile devices by touching them and spreading your fingers.
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Once reaching the overlook location, we took a series of pictures shown below at a stone seating structure. Who built the structure and why is a mystery to us. A few postcards were found there attempting to connect it to the Chumash Indian tribe which probably never numbered more than 500 people at it's peak. There is no evidence that the stone structure had anything do to with them. As we headed West along the ridge line, we came upon another much larger concrete foundation and the remains of a metal tower. It's origin and purpose is also a mystery to us.
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We only encountered one other hiker on the way up. She passed us near the summit and again headed down as we were still headed up. She was a retired nurse in her 50's who seemed to be moving at a pretty good pace. Headed down, we encountered about half a dozen hikers headed up. One was a man in his 50's who said he hiked the trail every week. Of course none of these people could top our Marv pictured below sitting next to Sisler. He set a blistering pace headed down. He did not wear hiking boots or carry poles. He would forge ahead and then stop to do some trail maintenance until we caught up and then do it again. We passed over a bridge on the way down that he said he helped build 10 years ago. Amazing.
