Hiking in Palisades Highlands 4 1/2 miles away

Palisades Highlands hiking trails are about 4 1/2 miles from the artist's retreat. I was up there looking for a landscape scene to paint and stumbled across this deer. It was near the stream (see photo of stream below) and we startled it. The deer ran down stream about fifty feet and started feeding, giving us time to photograph it.

This is the stream that runs parallel to the hiking trail. The trail leads either to a beautiful waterfall or up over the ridge to Topanga and Trippet Ranch

Further up the stream is "Grinding Rock". Chumash Indians used this rock to grind the acorns from the trees that were along the stream bed.(see photo below for a closer look at the grinding stone.) The Indians lived in the area from about 800 years ago up to when missionaries came to the Southern/Central coast of California.

Here's a close-up of the grinding hole. Obviously that is not an original stone for grinding but the hole is. There are a couple of more grinding holes found close-by.

This a photo of the trail wandering further up the trail.

Along the hiking trail there are a number of small caves.

Photo of tree frog that we saw along the stream.