Hike 2012.050 -- Mt. Wilson Trail to First Water

Hiked Tuesday, July 24.

Another one of those days when I just HAD to go for a walk, even as it grew late. Settled on the Mount Wilson Trail because it's among my closer trailheads

This was also part of my effort to bag some more hikes before my part-time job starts. Yeah, it STILL hasn't started yet. Thanks to this blog, I can look back and see that I was "hired" back on early June. After many trips to get finger printed and tb tested and checked, and then waiting, I got my official approval to start work on the 24th. So it'll be about seven weeks from hire to first working day. Still, what am I complaining about? I'm going to get to work at one of the coolest places in Los Angeles. . . .

But enough about me. Short hike, over land I've covered many times before. Still, I discovered several things about this trail I had never noticed before. First, right at the start, opposite the "No Camping Here" sign, just after you get on the actual trail, I discovered a steep but well-engineered trail heading down to the homes below. It's posted as private property, so apparently someone decided to give themselves a shortcut to the start of the Mt. Wilson Trail.

Also, much further along the way, just after the "lookout," which is just after the second fenced-off section with the "No Trespassing" sign on the fence, which is after the bulk of the steep switchbacks that bypass a washed-out section of trail, I saw another trail. Where the Mt. Wilson Trail continues to the north, this other trail makes a sharp turn back down-canyon.

I thought that this might lead to the ridge trail that I read about on another blog, Whiskey and the Midnight Sky. It was my intent to revisit this trial the next chance I got, which turned out to be two days later. More on that in my next post.

A final new addition to the trail was a sign at first water, pointing to "Bear Spring," and insisting this was "Good Water."

For this day, I just finished my little 3-mile hike and got back to my car. Quite uneventful, unlike my hike before this one, or the one after.

Easy three miles for the day. There's a fairly good altitude gain on this path, but, in the afternoon, it's nealry all shaded. You can make it harder or easier, depending on the pace you set. Lots of dogs, lots of joggers.