Stories of People on the Pecho #2 "The Ranch"
Montaņa de Oro

With docent Bill Hilton (web site) October 9, 2001

Description:  See the Spooner Ranch Site from the Ranch House up Islay Creek road to the Dam. From the Chumash to the Spooners. Meet at the Visitor Center, Montaņa de Oro State Park. Bring Water. (Moderate) 3 mi., 3 hrs. 

The following are a few photos taken during this outing.  Click the thumbnails below to enlarge.

Our excellent docent was Bill Hilton, bill-hilton-docent.jpg (84834 bytes) a veritable fountain of knowledge regarding local history. Five participants thoroughly enjoyed this outing.  Lorraine lorraine-maceb.jpg (21428 bytes), who was a resident of Los Osos from the 1930's to the 1960's, provided much additional oral history and anecdotes to supplement Bill's presentation.   Overlooking Spooner's Cove overlooking-spooners-cove.jpg (31471 bytes) to the east, and the hills to the west view-looking-east.jpg (16342 bytes), participants Larry larry-miller.jpg (10978 bytes), and Ken and Diane LR-larry-miller_ken-and-diane-schultz_bill-hilton_lorraine-macabe.jpg (57613 bytes) listened intently and asked many questions.  We ran across these animal prints, believed to be from a coyote coyote-paw-print.jpg (139122 bytes) (If you know better what animal made these tracks, please e-mail Mike Baird - Update 24 Sept 2012,  Frank Asaro says "We believe the tracks you have shown here are raccoon.  Possibly possum.").  The old dam marked the end of our excursion old-dam.jpg (69478 bytes).  We met many other happy singing campers on our return to the Visitor's Center camp-keep-happy-campers.jpg (36560 bytes).