Tuesday, April 16. I headed up the Long Ridge Road. It's Easter this weekend. The road's private, but is open to hikers. (This photo is from the 18th. One narrative for the trail in/out seemed better than two.)

Looking up Turner Creek from the near the end of the road. While the Soberanes Fire took out many homes on the Long Ridge Road and just north, the immediate Turner Creek forest looks basically OK. Conifers took the worst hit. Color is from black oaks just leafing out.

The end of Long Ridge Road. The road takes a sharp right down hill and the Turner Creek Trail departs about 100 yards down. There''s no "formal" or marked trailhead though.

The Turner Creek Trail starts off wide open but gets brushier lower down by the stream. Turner Creek Camp is buried in California blackberries (Rubus ursinus). The old fire grate is serving as a fine trellis!

Turner Creek.

It still "feels" forested but it's a mix: some fully healthy trees, some struggling (like that madrone), and some dead skeletons. It looks worse than it is: there will be more cover when the black oaks leaf out fully. The rampantly energized understory -- mostly ceanothus, blackberries, and PO -- sometimes obscured the trail.

Lower Apple Tree Camp. Nice camp. Nice bedsite. Bad placement: right on the creek.

Upper Apple Tree Camp. Nice enough arrangement around the grate. Away from the water. Brighter. Not sure where the flat bedsite is. PO at the margins.

Turner Creek Saddle. The old signs have survived!

While there was some nasty brush on some of the climb out of Apple Tree Camp, it's clear (and mostly healthy green) up here.

But ahead, the Devil's Peak area took a real hit from the Soberanes Fire.

The view from just above the saddle. Uncle Sam Mountain left. VDC, the Window, and Kandlebindr center right.

Lookiing back, lots of dead trees on Skinner Ridge, but not all is gone. Those leafing-out oaks are rather attractive.

The trail up. After a short open but rutted section though just-recovering chaparral, the trail enters burnt forest mostly on a well-defined cut into the hillside. Some is brushy (but easily passable). Much is like this.

More of the trail up. Here a larger swath of grassy hillside. Some of those trees are not-yet-out black oaks, but many are burned out skeletons.

Elsewhere, the trail borders fields of chamise and manzanita, backed by dead oaks with new sprouts below.

Now over the top of Devil's Peak and well down the other side, with a view to the ridges east of the Comings Camp junction. There's plenty of fire damage here, but I don't think it's as extreme as on the west side of Devil's Peak.

The sign survived at the Comings junction too, but what fire hasn't fallen, age and rot will soon.

The trail down was mostly straightfoward. Fresh flags guided the way when the route wasn't obvious.

Wednesday, April 17. Comings Camp. My sense is that while a few more trees are gone, the basic character of the place is unchanged since may last visit in 2012 ... before the Soberanes Fire.

Comings Camp. Just a nice sequence in the early morning light.

Comings Camp. At least one big pine and madrone behind camp are still there.

The old table isn't functional, but it's still there for somebody to rework (once again).

The catch basin for the spring is still full of just slightly murky water, but much more obstructed than on past visits. I opted to go for cleaner water in a rill downstream, but I had to fight the blackberries there too.