 | Participants on this wonderful day of hiking through the Santa Susana Mountains are, left to right, Steve McArdle, George Dunne, Stephanie Kyriazis, Sandy Jewett, Jerry Stinner, Gene Fritsche, and Sue Fritsche, who took the picture. Sandy was our shuttler for the day, having met Sue and Gene in the morning at the end of the hike where they left their car, and then driven them to the beginning to meet everyone. We left here at 8:15 a.m. Our goal in the next two hours is to get to the tiny little radar sphere seen through the notch on the ridge in the background.
 | For the first two hours it was mostly uphill. The radar dome at the top of Oat Mountain is definitely getting closer, however.
 | We came upon a small herd of cattle as we approached the top. We looked at them and they looked at us before we both went our separate ways.
 | The leader of the herd was quite an impressive longhorn bull who watched us very closely.
 | We made it to our goal, the Doppler radar tower on the top of Oat Mountain, in about 1 hour and 45 minutes. This is the highest point in the Santa Susana Mountains.
 | As we walked along the top ridge of the mountains, we saw lots of these dandelion-type seed heads ready to scatter their seeds to the wind.
 | The Aliso Canyon oil field is under the southern slope and top ridge of the Santa Susana Mountains, so we saw lots of oil well pumps like this one.
 | On the north slope of the mountains, oak forests are more common than on the south, and we walked through several cool, shady areas like this one.
 | A typical oak forest on the north slope of the mountains.
 | Looking south from the ridge top, one can see the Porter Ranch development in the center of the photo, Northridge on the valley floor behind that, and the Santa Monica Mountains in the background.
 | This oak tree has more woodpecker holes in it than any we had ever seen before. Each hole contains an acorn put there by a woodpecker. When the woodpecker returns at a later date, it hopes to find a worm or two inside each acorn.
 | We had our lunch at the intersection of the Oat Mountain Motorway and the East Canyon Motorway. Most of our day's hike was over and it was mostly downhill from here on.
 | Looking back across the north slope of the Santa Susana Mountains, you can see the Doppler radar tower at the top of Oat Mountain from whence we had come.
 | Primroses were in bloom in several places along the trail.
 | The Pearly Everlasting shown here was rare along the trail, but we enjoyed seeing it.
 | The Jimsonweed flower is pretty, but beware of the plant. We saw several of these.
 | As we approached the end of the day's trek, we found ourselves overlooking the Sunshine Canyon landfill, where most of our trash is buried.
 | Here's Stephanie, Steve, and Sue on the last leg of the hike. We had many pleasant conversations as we walked along during the day.
 | After crossing the I-5 on this bridge, we had only about a mile to go.
 | Here we are walking along the Old Road toward the I-5/Highway 14 interchange.
 | At the bottom level of the I-5/Highway 14 interchange is a main railroad line.
 | We arrived at the end of the day's trek at 2:50 p.m. and found our car still waiting there for us. It was a good day.
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