JAUNTS : Overcast Days Are Best Time to Explore Sulphur Mountain : Hikers and bikers can take in the misty glens and wildflowers, avoiding the relentless head and dust of summer.

During this season of heavy marine layers and persistent overcast, outdoors lovers have had one word on their lips: bummer.

The sky is gray. The water is gray. There is no horizon and the whole coastal strip looks monotonic and mournful. Taken all together, it seems like a great time to work on your Scrabble game.

But conditions are also ideal to hike or bike up Sulphur Mountain Road, just north of Casitas Springs from the turnoff at California 33. The unmaintained county fire road is nearly unbearable later in the season because of heat and dust. It has virtually no shade and, for nearly five miles, it follows the southern slope of Sulphur Mountain under a pitiless sun.

During the next few weeks, however, instead of squinting down at dusty arroyos, you will be able to gaze across misty glens, where the grass is heavy and the cows are fat. It’s like Ireland up there.

Although the poppy blooms are thinning out, the mustard is head high. If you make it five miles to the top, where the trial switches over to the north flank of the mountain, you will find lupine and Indian paint brush. That’s one way you can tell you’re not in Ireland.

“This time of year it’s greener and less dusty,” said John Mellein, a Ventura bicyclist.

In summer, when fire warnings are posted, the road surface turns into fine powder, making hiking and riding like chewing a stick of chalk. Even now, it’s probably best to go in the morning when the dew reduces the dust even more and there are fewer bikers, Mellein said.

People used to take four-wheel drive vehicles to the top and then down to California 150. But the road has been closed to unauthorized motor vehicles for years. The same rains that brought wildflowers and thick grass also caused washouts, reducing the road to a trail at several points. But that should not be a deterrent to hikers or bikers.

It’s the sulfur smell at the bottom that is more likely to keep people out. There’s a natural oil seep that looks terrible and smells even worse, but you get above it after 200 yards.

If the smell doesn’t drive people off, the steepness of the first quarter of a mile often does. The incline soon relaxes to less than a 3% grade before another leg-breaking climb, a pattern that’s repeated up the mountain.

There are 1,200 feet of vertical elevation between the trail head and the best scenic overview, 4.7 miles up the road. If there’s a break in the clouds, the view covers the Oxnard Plain all the way to the Channel Islands. Even if there are clouds, you can get nice panoramas of Oakview from just over three miles above the trail head.

If you’re going to hike, pack a high carbohydrate lunch and set aside the better part of the day. A hiker can make the trip up in about two hours; a cyclist can do it in 45 minutes.

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* DIRECTIONS: From California 33, turn east on Sulphur Mountain Road just north of Casitas Springs. The trail head is half a mile down the road at an imposing white steel gate.