Five Oaks and A Thousand Sagebrush

My brother and I went in search of Five Oaks this afternoon at Aliso Wood park in the OC. We had the sketchiest of directions: "take the first street uphill from Canyon Vista park". OK, so we did. Came to a park and saw a steep trail uphill toward the water tank (see pic at right). A guy was there walking his dogs. He thought there was a trail up around to the left of the tanks. So we went for it.

At the top, we started looking for the trail. We went up onto the top of the ridge and down a trail we later found out was Bong Drop. Very steep and ending in 10 foot drop. We weren't up for that, so we lowered our bikes down. From there, we couldn't really find a trail so we ended up bushwacking betwen thousands of sagebrush until we got to a fire road that went back up to where we started. Went down the little singletrack and street back toward Canyon Vista Park, when we saw two riders going up to Five Oaks. This time we followed them and they showed us the entrance. It was unmarked, although in hindsight the trail is easy to spot on the ridge.

Anyway, turned out to be a really fun downhill (see pic at left and below) Went up Rock It, Down Lynx, then up and down Cholla to finish the ride. A few scrapes and ticks from the bushwacking, but all in all a great ride. And I'll definitely never forget where the entrance to Five Oaks is.