While staying for President’s Day week in Pismo Beach, we decided to finally get some hiking in.  Jane got some new boots, so we decided to keep things simple and short the first time out so she could break them in.  South of the city of Los Osos is the Morro Dunes Ecological Reserve, a piece of the contiguous greenspace connecting Montana de Oro State Park with Morro Bay State Park.  Though the reserve is criss-crossed with trails, we opted for a lollipop loop that heads due south from a residential neighborhood, splits and heads up one shoulder of a ridge overlooking the area, then turns back north and downhill to reconnect with the main trail – 2-1/2 miles with 800 feet of elevation gain.  We found the trailhead easily enough and immediately proceeded south of the gently sloped trail, treated to some fine views up Los Osos Valley to the morros near San Luis Obispo to the east.  The brush thickened as we climbed higher, obscuring the views a little but cutting the wind down a lot – despite the cool and breezy weather, we both shed our outerwear as we warmed up.  After heading straight toward the ridge, the trail briefly traverses the slope eastward before turning uphill again to a three-way junction.  Chris knew that the return trip would bring us back down the right-hand fork and the left fork looked like it was going the wrong direction, so we chose the middle fork – wrong.  It led to a very steep and narrow wash that looked like a very unpleasant thing to climb, and we scrambled up a faint lateral trail to see if there might be another easy way around – wrong again.  Chris pulled up the trail guide on his phone, discovering that the easy route was indeed the left fork but that the steep section led to the same place.  Thank goodness the weather was dry, as the wash would have been nearly impossible if wet and muddy.  Anyway, we made it up, rejoining the main trail and quickly ascending up another steep staircase of exposed rocks to a broad shoulder near the ridgeline.  We were rewarded with a cool and shady path through a eucalyptus grove, emerging to a view south across Hazard Canyon to the ocean and the rest of Montana de Oro.  After a short break on top, we began our descent around the other half of the loop, alternating between the familiar views of Morro Bay and deep ravines with narrow, sandy pathways.  Eventually, we recognized our arrival at the same junction where we had taken the wrong turn before, now turning north back down the hill to the trailhead.  Jane was disappointed that our average speed was a little low at 2.3 mph, so she tried to improve that mark by running ahead – of course, Chris was the one wearing the GPS, so Jane’s efforts went much for naught.  Still, we managed to get the average up to 2.5 mph by the time we got to the car.  A beautiful day and a nice hike to tune us up for more adventures this week.