Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Challenging ascents lead to spectacular vistas atop Skinner Ridge.
Trip Description
The
Skinner Ridge Trail
begins along a singletrack path (2080') and quickly climbs
north above
Bottchers Gap
's oaks, madrones, and bays to a mosaic of chaparral. As
you climb, look north to pick out the
Palo Colorado Fault,
which forms the
Little
Sur River
drainage to the north and the
Mill Creek
drainage to the south. The gap is
a saddle where the fault crosses a ridge separating the two drainages. West of the fault
lie metamorphic rocks such as schist, marble, and gneiss, while quartz diorite lies to
the east.
There's no mistaking
Pico Blanco
to the south, an enormous marble outcrop that
towers over the Little Sur like a great pyramid, separating the north and south forks.
Pico Blanco
(Spanish for white peak) holds one of the West Coast's largest remaining
deposits of pure limestone and marble. Some 525 feet thick and 2.5 miles long and
containing an estimated 640 million tons of limestone, the deposit is privately owned.
Fortunately, there's strong opposition to any attempts to quarry here, due to the ad-
verse environmental impact it would have on adjacent national forest and state park
lands.
