About 30 minutes east of Santa Maria on Hwy 166 is the Adobe Trailhead, a sign we had driven past dozens of times on our way to and from Pismo Beach. We had seen hikers on the trail a couple of times, but information about the trail has proved elusive; however, Chris finally found some pictures on the Santa Lucia Sierra Club web site and trail stats at hikelospadres.com, so we put the hike on our to-do list. Our first attempt in February was thwarted by heavy rain, and then Chris’ poison oak battle pushed this trail yet further down the list. So, today was finally the day that we could tackle the hike on our way to Pismo, figuring it wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. We had thought about getting up early to arrive at the trailhead by 8am, but we changed our mind and didn’t get there until about 11am – while we had expected the temperature to be in the 50s, now it was 75 degrees as we parked the car. Not only was it warm and sunny, but we had misplaced our bottle of sunscreen that we normally keep with our hiking gear. Jane didn’t want to get sunburned and we almost killed the hike then and there, but she decided to wear one of Chris’ long-sleeved shirts and we set out. The trail climbs steeply right away, switching back several times up the north side of the Cuyama River canyon – it has not undergone much maintenance this season, as it is barely discernible in some spots where it passes through tall grass. The ridge we were ascending runs north-south, the western slopes exposed to a nice onshore breeze but the east side hot and very still. After about 3/4 of a mile, we crested the south end of the ridge and started descending into a hanging canyon on the ridge’s west side – the trail follows this canyon north to its head and then north and west to the main ridgeline, and the hilltops there were our ultimate destination, some 2 miles ahead. We were surprised to find a grove of trees nestled in the bottom of this canyon, although we had to thread our way through poison oak and stinging nettle on both sides of the trail. We came across some old cattle troughs, one overturned and out of use, and some standing water in the seasonal creek. However, flies and other bugs were very thick and, coupled with the heat and tedium of the overgrown trail, served to compel us to turn around after only 1-1/4 miles. We happily retraced our steps to the car, meeting a young Forest Service fireman near the trailhead – he was heading up to check the trail, so we talked to him briefly about the conditions we had observed and continued on our way (we were also glad we spent the $5 for the Adventure Pass that we had left on the dashboard, since he could have written us a $100 ticket otherwise). This would have been a nice hike 4-6 weeks ago, but it’s too late in the season for it to be much fun now – maybe the early morning would have been more palatable, as the temperature registered 88 degrees when we got back on the highway. We’ll try this again next winter or early spring.