Back at Pismo Beach for the weekend, we wanted to get two hikes in. Rainy weather on Friday forced up to postpone our plans for that day, so our first excursion of the weekend was hiking up Hazard Peak in Montana de Oro State Park. In times past, a popular trail ran straight up the peak’s west ridgeline, but overuse has now prompted the park to reroute the trail another mile to the north – it is now three miles to the peak one-way with about 1,025′ of elevation gain. We had read about an option to extend the hike by heading eastward from the peak, deeper into the park, returning via Islay Creek Canyon to complete a 9+ mile loop. Although we were thinking we’d do the whole thing, we decided not to decide for sure until we were on the summit. This area of the park is very popular with mountain bikers, and we were passed by numerous riders coming and going throughout the trip – some were riding slowly and enjoying the picture-perfect day, others were banzai-ing pell-mell down the single tracks. This second class of rider is the one with whom a collision will get you hurt – it seemed pretty busy to us (although we were told otherwise by one rider), such that it may be best to do this hike on a weekday to avoid the crowds. At any rate, the parking lot at the trailhead was quite full, which we quickly left behind as we started up the trail. The route weaves its way north along the marine shelf typical of this area, ducking into a dense eucalyptus forest below Hazard Peak’s western slopes. Leaving the forest, we continued to double back to the south and east around the mountain’s west ridge, treated to some fine views up Islay Creek Canyon as we crested the ridge and began to travel east. Entering a long and broad ravine south of the summit, we could see the trail continuing to ascend above us, the peak not looking very impressive from this angle. It was warm here on the lee side of the ridge, but just below the west side of the summit, we crossed a saddle that brought us back to windward and the cool breeze was actually a little chilling. We took a hikers-only shortcut due east to the summit (bikers and equestrian riders are forced to contour north around the summit and approach it from the east side). The views were fantastic, north to Morro Bay, east of the canyon, south to Valencia Peak – it was beautiful. We sat on a bench built by an Eagle Scout in 2008 and soaked in the scenery as we ate our lunch. The wind picked up a bit while we were here, and we both had to put our long sleeves on again. After about 20 minutes on the summit, we noticed clouds forming to the south (a frequent phenomenon in Montana de Oro – see our second trip to Valencia Peak), so we decided to head out. Without much discussion, we took off east to tackle the long loop back – was there ever any doubt? We immediately began to lose elevation as we dropped into Hazard Canyon to the north, then turning east. At the head of the canyon, we met the Manzanita Trail, turning north briefly before heading east again up the East Boundary Trail. This trail would begin to take us back uphill to a saddle along the park’s eastermost ridge – at the saddle, we turned south on the Barranca Trail that climbs along the ridge in the trip’s last elevation gain of any significance. As we topped the ridge, we could see the steep route down into the depths of Islay Creek Canyon – the views here were as good as any we had seen so far today, and we spied an old barn and some gorgeous green meadows to the east as we descended the trail. We had high expecations for our trip down the canyon – for one, it would be nearly level the rest of the way out, and two, we would enjoy the experience of meandering along a creek swollen by the recent rains. Almost as soon as we hit the canyon floor, we knew we were going to be disappointed. Our interesting and appealing single track was now a broad ranch road, and the creek was buried to the south in a deep ravine and not at all visible through the brush. That, plus we were both starting to feel the distance wearing on our legs and hips. Thus, our tranquil trip through the canyon became more of a slog to the finish, and we were quite ready to have it end at mile 7 instead of mile 9. Jane found that jogging made her legs hurt less – Chris aurgued that stopping altogether felt even better. At any rate, we kept up our pace despite the discomfort and finally emerged at the mouth of the canyon with a pretty view of Spooner’s Cove and a choppy sea. A short walk up Pecho Valley Road brought us back to our trailhead, and it felt really good to get our boots off and sit (it had been nearly six miles since either of us had sat down at all). One real upside of this trip is our conditioning is definitely getting stronger – our average moving speed was 3.2 mph, and more than 80% of our total time on the trail was spent walking. We may well pay the price for our effort in denominations of soreness, but we’re glad to have tackled a longer hike (it is our longest since Moses Mountain in 2010). Given all the possible route variations, we’ll likely be back to explore some of the other trails up to and around Hazard Peak.