We head up the hill toward Radar Hill, we notice an old concrete wall and remnant of a building.
A small detour through the boonies brings us back to the road. Ewok emerges from the bushes.
Almost to the top of the hill is an opening to a sunken platform. Sparky, Ewok, and Thor stand on the top of the steps, while Rexplorer and CC go down to the platform to inspect.
The sunken foundation has sloping walls on all four sides. We are not sure what function this structure serves.
At the top of Radar Hill, behind Ewok, is the abandoned radar station.
Strewn on the ground, like a bunch of dried seaweeds, is this bundle of old tapes. Makes one wonders what is on the tapes.
Built in the 80's, this is Reagan's Star War installation of a strategic missile defense system. It created a number of jobs, and the building of a nice road from just north of Fiesta Mall. Nowadays the road is one of the favorite rides for bikers. The station is abandoned and rusting away. The location has seen some crimes committed.
They discover something on the ground.
Rexplorer holding a nut, we want to know what it is and whether it is edible.
The nut cracked open and shows the "edible" part.
Sparky decides to try out the nut. Fortunately he only bites off a little bit, then spits it out. Apparently it does not taste that good.
We begin our hike into the trail just north of the radar station.
A crack between the rocks offers a view down below.
The trail, thick with jungle growths, begins on level ground, although Rexplorer, Ewok, Thor, and Sparky have to carefully step over hidden rocks covered by the undergrowth and fallen leaves.
Soon the trail starts to descend over boulders and slippery rocks. Here the going gets a little rough, but we are able to follow the ribbons and find ourselves back on the trail to Marker 1 of the Laderan Tangke trail. We decide to skip the LT and head back down the road to the car park.
Instead of going down the main dirt road back to the car park, we take a detour into the boonies on the opposite side, this area is very pretty with a lot of these red berry bushes.
We also encounter several of these posts along the way. The trail is marked and is very pleasant, and it soon leads us back to the main trail.
Back by the car park, Rexplorer, CC, Ewok, Thor. and Sparky in our traditional group photo.
Rexplorer takes this photo of us.
RunKeepers records our hike, as a short distance, but with a very interesting routing. This is one of our shortest hikes, but very enjoyable. CC burns just enough calories to eat a "small lunch"!
While it was a good hike, there were only 5 pairs of shoes to begin with and in view of the distance and the relative difficluty 3.5 sneakers seems like an appropriate rating.
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