We had talked this morning about maybe doing a hike after church, but couldn’t really come up with a good option that didn’t involve a two-hour drive which would limit the amount of daylight we’d have. However, we got a wild hair about 4pm to go walk somewhere before it got dark, so we scrambled to get our stuff together and made the 20-minute drive across town to the Kern River Bluffs. Over the past several years, the city has installed atop the bluffs a bike path, picnic areas, and lots of park benches that take advantage of the scenic views overlooking the Kern River and the oilfields to the north. Jane has walked around this area several times with her friend Patty, but Chris had never walked any of the trails here before. Thus, we had no plan to speak of, only a desire to do something hilly and to do it fast – Chris was looking forward to sunset views and photographs. We parked in a small lot at the corner of Panorama Dr. and River Blvd. and quickly donned our boots and headed west just before 4:30pm. The late afternoon sunlight cast a nice glow on both the bluffs to our west and the river valley to the east, and we quickly covered several hundred yards westward to one of many canyons that offer access down to the river below. Jane led the way about halfway down the canyon on a broad path before angling eastward down a steep pitch, then climbing up to a ledge on that side of the gully – from there, we took another path back to the canyon floor before ascending another steep pitch to a flat area with a river view. Chris wasn’t sure (and still isn’t) that Jane knew where she was going, but it was fun finding our way about together. We headed further west from this point up a wide incline to its apex maybe 100′ above the river, then made the corresponding drop down the other side – here we found a grove of native trees and shrubs that were planted as an Eagle Scout project several years back. A path meandered further west through the grove, and we followed it under a dense canopy of cottonwood trees for a quarter mile or so, emerging onto the lower paved bike path that follows the canal lying between the bluffs and the river proper. Here we turned back east, looking for some steep and narrow switchbacks that would lead us back to the top of the bluffs – Jane had walked these before but couldn’t recall exactly where they were. We continued east on the paved path, the metal tips of our trekking poles clicking away loudly as we walked, past some bridges that led north and eastward across the canal – although some trails led up the bluffs from here, we continued east on the south side of the canal in search of the so-far elusive switchbacks. It was getting pretty dark at this point and we still weren’t sure how far east to go – Chris looked up our location on his phone, and the satellite photo revealed that the switchbacks weren’t more than two hundred yards ahead, so we continued in the dark to the base of the narrow trail. Often not more than 12″ wide, the trail winds steeply upward through 15 switchbacks until topping out 200′ above the river – it’s too bad visibility was so poor since the photos might have been impressive. Once at the top, we were about a quarter mile east of the van, to which we returned down the upper bike path. All told, we covered just under three miles in just over an hour, the only lengthy stoppage time being when Chris tried to get the camera to take a long exposure photo when we got back to the top of the bluffs. This was a nice way to end the day – like down in Orange County last weekend, there were lots of people around whether walking, riding bikes, even some on horseback, and we’ll be sure to come back here frequently through the winter when the higher elevations become inaccessible.