Montebello Ridge Road: Quest for Grass

Taking another shot at this old road that shows up on the 1895 USGS historical top map, this time armed with both hill shade and aerial imagery maps!
This was my 4th time on this old road, but only the 3rd time I made it up to the bench area.
Using the aerial imagery made it much easier to navigate to and find the large grassy meadow up on the side of the ridge. Even when I was perhaps 10 ft. from the grass, I could not see it through the dense brush, but sure enough, it was there.
A frequently asked question is why don't I just use a drone? Well two or three reasons:
You can see how dense the brush and tree cover is in the areas I'm exploring, good luck flying one up here, not to think of trying to find it after it gets tangled in the undergrowth!
Drones not permitted in the MidPen Open Space Preserves
I've got enough stuff to pack on the bike to get up here, don't need more stuff!
If anyone has any information regarding this area, post up in the comment section below. I've been trying to track down a copy of "History of Black Mountain and Monte Bello Ridge", 1959, George Morell.
Aerial imagery and hill shade maps:
apps.nationalm...
OsmAnd app:
osmand.net/
About the USGS HTMC:
www.usgs.gov/p...
View/download maps on the TopoView site:
ngmdb.usgs.gov...
More to come...
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And as always, thanks for watching

[@dougtipton8710]

i will always say the two things i find off trail consistantly are baloons and old pull top beer cans , hamms or coors usually

[@The4Crawler]

I find lots of old pull tab beer cans but I've only found one Mylar balloon in this area. I think that's mainly because the predominant wind direction here come off the Pacific ocean and there are not many developed areas between the ocean and here.

[@The4Crawler]

Here's a Google Maps link for the location of this incredible meadow: maps.app.goo.gl/XeapmoBLLhPQEtig8

[@vin374]

Does this road start off the pavement part of Stevens Canyon? Or after the gate to the start of the trail?

[@The4Crawler]

It's starts after the first creek crossing. There used to be a junction around there where the old canyon road continued up the north side of the canyon and this road headed up to Montebello Ridge.

[@vin374]

@@The4Crawler so the first real creek crossing had an iron bridge over it. Is that the creek crossing you’re talking about? Or is it the one with no bridge that you have to walk across? Also I’ve noticed an area right by the iron bridge that kinda leads to no where. There is actually a MidPen sign there. There is small game trail that I haven’t explored. Single track and steep.

[@The4Crawler]

@@vin374 This road is where you have to ford the creek. I'll need to check out the game trail off that spur road at the bridge. I've looked around there a few times but never saw that trail. This was part the property MidPen acquired in the early 2000s, there used to be some cabins on it that were torn down around 2014. I did hike the creek bed from that area up to where the landslide is and actually hiked down the creek from the crossing back to the slide area.