Monday after work a friend and I headed back to Stoney Point. This time we walked all the way around to the Northern side of the base of the mountain. Back there we came across a railroad track. After walking along the tracks for a few minutes we came to a tunnel. My friend said “we’re going to walk through the tunnel.” I laughed and told myself he had to be joking. Then I looked up and saw that the tunnel wasn’t actually that long, maybe only 100 yards to the other side. We started walking through.
Halfway through the tunnel my friend turns and says “you know, we better hurry up because I just remembered there is actually a train that comes through here around this time.” This particular friend is always joking around and saying things like that to get a reaction – so naturally I didn’t believe him. When he started jogging up the track ahead of me I was more inclined to believe him.
When I was a few hundred feet from the mouth of the tunnel and I heard a train whistle behind me I really started to believe him. Once reaching the end of the tunnel I turned and snapped a quick photo of what could have been my oncoming doom.
After running up the hill just in time to watch the double-decker metrolink train buzz by us we turned south (the tunnel had run west underneath Topanga Canyon Avenue) and headed back to Stoney Point. This time we didn’t go back through the tunnel – we jaywalked across Topanga Canyon, a feat no less dangerous with people coming off the 118 freeway still going 75 miles per hour down the four lane street.
Once we reached the base of Stoney Point we began our climb. I’m somewhat proud to report that I climbed over a slightly tougher rock this time. You can’t see it in the photo – but underneath that rock is about five feet of nothing – so you have to somehow get up to the rock – and then force yourself over it.
I still wussed out when faced with a more challenging obstacle later on (going over a jutting rock over a fifteen foot drop – I climbed to the jutting rock and turned around).
From there we took a fairly easy route to the top of the point and then skittered down an “animal trail” to come to the south side. We actually hurt ourselves more on the perilous animal trail descending than “bouldering” our way up.
