Hike 2011.044 -- South Hawkins from Crystal Lake

(Pictured: Drainage of the North Fork of San Gabriel River, as seen from South Mt. Hawkins). Hiked Wednes-day, July 13. I think I'm in denial about how long it's going to take to pack things up for my impending move, because I seem to get so little done, yet it's taking a long time. Lots of little things have been eating up my free time, so I hadn't gone hiking in about a week.

Today, I finally had a chance to do some hiking. Relatively late start, hitting the road by about 9:30am. Photocopied a page from my Tom Harrison map, but then promptly left it at home. That meant I was going to be walking somewhat blind.

My walking today started from the ranger shack at the Crystal Lake camp-ground. To get here, you take the 210 freeway, exit at Azusa (CA-39) and go north. You'll pass the Morris and San Gabriel Reservoirs (the former down about 25 feet from two months ago; the latter is still near the top of the bathtub ring) and the East Fork Road. Not long after the East Fork Road broke off to your right, there's a new sign announcing the presence of Crystal Lake Snack Bar, 14 miles ahead. So after driving the next 12 miles or so, as you're nearing the end of the open section of CA-39, a road (and, probably, a sign indicating the snack bar is open) will be on your right. Turn up that road. After two miles, the road more or less ends. The ranger shack (open on the weekends, I think) is on the left side of the lot. The snack bar is hard on your right. Residences appear to be further down the right. Parking for the snack bar is a soft right, while public parking for non-snack bar users is to your left.

You'll need an adventure pass. If you don't already have one, you can buy a day pass from the snack bar. Or, if you came up between Thursday and Sunday, you could have bought one from the entry station at the bottom of the mountain, or from a number of other vendors.

After parking, leaving my car, then returning because I forgot to hang my permit, I headed up the main road, which is now to your right. A locked gate blocks access to the actual camp-ground and trailhead parking lot, adding about 1/2 mile each way to the hike.

From this lot, I walked back past the ranger shack and turned right (north), up what seemed to me to be the main road. A locked gate was this way, as well, but I walked around it and continued north. In checking a map later, it seems I could also have continued past my lot and around a different gate, to my east--looks like they wind up at the same place, only the latter would be quicker.

Plenty of trees are still green and growing in the camp-ground, although some were affected by bark beetles and/or burned in a fire a number of years ago. Dead trees, standing and downed, become more common the higher you go.

I followed the main road (the one with the double-yellow lines) as it switch-backed up towards Windy Gap (which was visible in breaks between the trees). If I was certain about where the trailhead was, there's no doubt a more direct (albeit steeper) route to get to the trail. But because I wasn't sure, I took the scenic route.

Finally, at a point where the double-yellow lined road seemed to reach an apex, I found the trailhead sign, on my left. A large (but, because of the locked gates, inaccessible) parking lot was directly across the way, and a pit toilet was a bit above and to the right.

The earlier part of this trail starts off under the forest canopy, which, as noted earlier, is a mixture of growing, dead-standing, and dead-and-down trees. Even now, in mid-July, several seeps of water trickled across the stream in places, providing areas of verdant growth and flowering shrubs. With the altitude in the 6,000 foot range and temperatures unseasonably cool, the feel was very Sierra-like.

Windy Gap was up and a bit to my left. Initially, I planned to go to Windy Gap, then run east, along the ridge, to either Mt. Hawkins or on, to Throop Peak. However, when I reached a junction with South Hawkins Road, for some reason, that trail called my name. It's an old dirt road, and maybe I figured it was a surer route for someone walking without a map (although, of course, I have a fairly good idea of the layout of the peaks around here, and you're almost never out of sight of the Crystal Lake area).

The trail/road to South Mt. Hawkins is thus pretty hard to lose, although there are two significant washed-out sections that require a little care in traversing. There are also about a half-dozen places where fallen trees require ducking, climbing, or bypassing.

South Hawkins Road bears easterly, then curves to the south as you gain altitude. Before long, you've got a nice view of the Crystal Lake Basin. Mt. Islip is across the way. When you get a clear view to the south, the now-blue reservoirs behind San Gabriel and Morris Dams should be visible. Today, they were a little hazy, as a marine layer was heavy in the basin and scattered sunlight closer to the mountains.

You also get a nice view to the west, to the Mt. Wilson area. It's a different perspective from what you see in town. From the east, the flat area of Mt. Wilson is dotted with antenna and observatory buildings. Then, as you scan to the left, the mountain drops off noticeably before reaching the little outpost of antenna on Mt. Harvard. Of course, when viewed from town, Mt. Harvard (because it is closer) appears taller than Mt. Wilson, and the gap between them is less obvious.

Under clear skies, I imagine I ought to be able to see clear out to the ocean.

Along the southward stretch of this trail, I came across a number of flowers, including a cool yellow one I hadn't seen before.


When the trail finally turns to the east, you've got a straight-on view of South Hawkins, and a whole bunch of dead trees. Still, you've got several switchbacks and a bit more climbing to go. At the saddle, there's a trail junction, with another old dirt road heading north, skirting the Sheep Mountain Wilderness and heading towards Mt. Hawkins. Harrison says it's another .6 miles (the sign says .5 miles) to the South Hawkins lookout.

The trail actually circles around the summit, making a 360 degree-plus route to the top. Once at the top, the foundation and some burned lumber indicates where the lookout used to be. Under the lookout, charred glass, plastic, and steel is in several small piles.

Just east of the actual summit is a small radio communications shack with solar panels on the room. Between the shack and the lookout remains is the foundation of another structure. A toilet seat remains, mounted on top of a vault.

South Hawkins gives a pretty good view in all directions, making it a logical lookout location. Of course, views are clearest to the south, overlooking the drainage of the North Fork of the San Gabriel River (pictured at the top of this post). Trees partially obscure the view to the north and northwest, although Hawkins and Throop are visible that way. Baldy and friends are visible to the east. On the trail near the summit, views that way are dramatic, as the drop off from near South Hawkins into the Sheep Mountain Wilderness is dramatic and wide open.

Both the signage along the way and the Tom Harrison trail map give the distance of this trip as 4.8 miles each way, but that would be from the official trailhead. Add roughly an additional 2/5ths of a mile each way to get to the parking area near the ranger shack, so figure 10.0 - 10.5 miles total distance, and a little under 2,000 feet of vertical gain.

Had I gone to Mt. Hawkins instead of South Mt. Hawkins, my trip would have been about 1/2 mile longer each way, and had an additional 1,000 feet of elevation gain. I might try to fit that hike in on Friday.

In addition to the flowers and butterflies pictured in this post, I also saw a number of lizards, at least four species of rodents (grey squirrels, brown squirrels, antelope squirrels, and a chipmunk-looking rodent), lots of lizards and birds, one large deer (sprinting away and knocking rocks around by the time I saw him), and either a large fox or a small coyote. It looked too large to be a fox, but it had a long tail and an elongated body, like a fox. I was too busy digging for my camera to be sure.

Although I couldn't photograph the coyote, I did get a picture of a squirrel, which was calling out a loud and annoying warning as I passed. I don't know if he was warning about the coyote or about me.

Hike 2011.043 -- Idlehour Trail

Hiked Monday, July 4.

Despite an early start, my hike today was under uncomfort-ably hot weather, particularly given the distance (about 10.6 miles RT) and altitude change (about 2500 total altitude gain, including about 500 of that gained on the return from Idlehour to the Toll Road.

The trailhead I took was the Pinecrest access, which you reach by taking Altadena Drive north, a mile past the entrance for the Eaton Canyon Nature Center. Turn right on Crescent and park near the stop sign. Then walk an additional 1/8th of a mile on Pinecrest, to the gated entry. The gate is locked dusk to dawn, so don't park here if you plan to get back to your car after dark.

This is the same place you could park to access the eastern end of the Altadena Crest Trail, the trail to Eaton Canyon Falls, or the Trail to Henninger Flats and Mt. Wilson. For this hike, I followed the Mt. Wilson Toll Road through Henninger Flats, and an additional 1.1 miles past Henninger. There, where the road makes a sharp, 180 degree turn from north to south, is the beginning of the Idlehour Trail.

At this point, you will have traveled about 3.8 miles total from the trailhead and gained about 1700 feet. That's already not a bad short-day of hiking. Ahead of you is a slight decline, then a climb of about 300 feet over 1/4 mile. From there, you decline over the next 1.25 miles, your trail either follows contours or declines into ravines, eventually dropping you a total of about 1,000 feet by the time you reach Idlehour Camp.

At times, you've gone nice views of Mt. Wilson, to the north, and Mts. Lowe, Markham, and San Gabriel (Peak), the the northwest.

This section of trail is relatively narrow, though well-defined. There's also quite a bit of poison oak, so you'll want to keep your eyes on the trail as you walk. In several spots, flowers were thick with bees and butterflies. On drier areas, lizards scittered about

Idlehour Camp has several metal stoves, where fires are normally permitted, with a fire permit that you would have had to get at the Henninger Flat ranger station. A creek splashes noisily to the west. This is all part of Eaton Canyon, so if you were to bushwhack down this stream, you'd eventually wind up at the the top of one of Eaton Canyon's waterfalls. I made no attempt to do this, of course, because that hike would be long, tough, probably full of poison oak, and probably not possible without several dangerous rappels.

Alternative-ly, if you continued up the Idlehour trail, 3 miles and 1800 feet later, you'd reach the rail bed, right across the road from where the Sam Merrill reaches the railbed. A short hike from there would take you to Inspiration Point or Mt. Lowe (depending on which way you went).

This wouldn't be a very fun hike on a summer day, however. I was already feeling burned out by the time I got to Idlehour Camp. I just wanted to see what this area (which had been in the Station Fire Recovery Order) looked. It looked fine, by the way. I didn't see any evidence of significant fire damage. I'm sure that would change if I went further, because the upper section of this trail (in the West Fork of the San Gabriel River's headwaters) goes right through an area that looked like a moonscape last year.

I returned, hot and thirsty, to my car. On the way down, I saw (but did not photo-graph) a large buck, lurking in the shade of some trees, above the toll road, not far from where the Idlehour Trail reached it. It seems like I see deer in this area more often than not.

On the way up, just past Henninger, I passed a gopher snake. When I reached him, he had his head in a gopher hole. When he heard me, he pulled out his head and flicked his tongue in the air a few times. Then he slithered into the hole, which is how they get their name.

Off-Topic: Murray, Kentucky

Looks like a fairly high probability I'll be moving to Murray, Kentucky for the next school year. On the off-chance anyone who reads this has information they might want to share with me about the area, I'd welcome the feedback.

Probably leaving within three weeks, so I may be down to my last few hikes out here in southern California for a while.

There's a large national recreation area (Land Between the Lakes) near Murray, so I expect I'll be able to post those hikes in early August. Once the school year starts, hiking will be a little tougher, but I do hope to have time for some weekend trips around my new temporary home.

Chantry Flats Road Closed for Holiday

Just came across this story, reporting that Chantry Flats Road will be closed until Tuesday, July 5. Fire worries. I think they're afraid some moron will take their fireworks up there and set them off. So if you're planning to hike to Mt. Wilson Sunday or Monday, do NOT plan to start from Chantry Flats, regardless of how early a start you get.

Hike 2011.042 -- San Gabriel Peak

Hiked Thursday, June 30. Forty-second hike of the year, meaning I'm somewhat behind schedule if I'm going to make a second year of 100 hikes or more. I spent the last week getting ready for an interview, then flying out, interviewing, and flying back from the Nashville, TN area. It would certainly be culture shock to live and work there, even if only for a school year. But it would beat continued unemployment!

Because it's been another week without hiking (and several days of sitting in airplane seats or airports or rental cars, driving to and from my destination), I was itching get my boots on the ground, but didn't want to try something overly ambitious. So, even though I was up at 4am today (I had been waking up at about 4am PDT the previous two days, and got up at 6am PDT on the day of my flight out to TN), I stayed another 2 or 3 hours before getting out of bed, eating breakfast, and thinking about what I might do today. A recent write-up on the Nobody Hikes in L.A. blog got me thinking about doing San Gabriel Peak, the easy way.

The easy way is to drive up the Angeles Crest Highway, rather than hiking from the front range, past Mt. Lowe, and on to San Gabriel Peak.

I didn't actually leave home until about 10:00am, and, by the time I finished some errands I had to run around town, I didn't reach the trailhead until well after 11am. Worked my way up to the 210 freeway and exited north, on to the Angeles Crest Highway. About 12 miles up, I reached Red Box Junction, where the road to Mt. Wilson splits off from the ACH. A short 4/10ths of a mile up that road, and the paved (but unsigned) service road to Mt. Disappointment was on the right. I actually went past it, then had to make a U-Turn on Red Box Road because I wasn't sure if that was the road I wanted or not. So here's how to be sure: Once you get on the Red Box Road, if you see a paved road on your right, THAT'S the road. :D

Today, the gate that would normally prevent driving any further was open, but I was pretty sure tourists weren't supposed to drive there, anyway. However, if I were on a mountain bike or horse, riding up the paved road would be the only way up. The trail is for hikers, only.

The trail is less than obvious, unless you're looking for it. It's across the road from the parking area, and heads steeply up the hill, soon ducking behind one of many oak trees. This particular area, in fact, seems to have mostly escaped the Station Fire, and many oak trees, manzanita "trees," and a few conifers and other perennial plants are still thick here. The trail is narrow in spots, but otherwise easy to follow 1.3 miles, until it officially dumps you off on the service road.

It also approaches the service road about half way up to that point.

In other words, you could walk up the pavement rather than the trail. It would be somewhat longer, but less steep than the actual trail. Can't actually tell you how much longer, as the map I have does not seem to indicate either the road or the full trail. The sign where the trail formally joins the road, however, says that way is 1.3 miles. And it has "JPL" on the sign, so I assume if the JPL guys can measure distances to other planets, they can measure 1.3 miles of dirt to the trail.

Once you rejoin the service road, you go left (south). Mt. Disa-ppointment is to your right, with antenna and buildings atop it. San Gabriel Peak is ahead and to your left. Follow the service road for about 1/4 mile. Where the main road makes a sharp turn to the right, and you can see the road leading to the top of Mt. Disappointment, you turn left, along another paved road. A rocky outcropping would be visible just in front of you as you turn. A concrete building pad (the building is gone) is in front of the outcropping.

Matilija poppies were also common near this turn. Except, instead of large bushes, 5-7 feet tall (like near Echo Mountain), these guys were mostly single stalks, maybe 2-4 feet tall. They're probably just a year or two old, and will take years to grow as large as their relatives near Echo Mountain.

Having made a left turn, the slope of San Gabriel Peak is now right in front of you, as are a lot of large, burned, dead oaks and conifers. This is one of the places where, were it windy, you'd have to keep your eyes on the lookout for falling branches.

Below and beyond the dead trees, purple flowers (don't know the species) and Spanish broom were both in full bloom. The trail you want to take leaves the pavement on your left, right around where the road turns to the right, towards the non-existent building on your right. It descends briefly before beginning a short but steep ascent. The trail here is very narrow and not as clearly defined as the lower section. Obviously, no mountain bikes or horses should continue towards San Gabriel Peak. They should be satisfied with the concrete pad, or heading up the pavement in the other direction, to Mt. Disappointment.

On this last stretch, the purple flowers are thick. They're also thick at the summit. Few perennial plants in this area survived the flower, although I did see one yucca in bloom. That probably means that, in about twenty years, the hill will be covered with yucca, nearly all with the same ancestor plant.

Once you get to the top, you're 6,161 feet above sea level. That's about 350 feet higher than Mt. Wilson, which will be just a bit south of east from here. The parking lot is at about 5090, so net gain for this hike is about 1,100 feet. Total mileage is about 4.5 miles, total.

In addition to the antenna and telescope domes of Mt. Wilson, antenna atop Mt. Disappoint-ment, and antenna far away (possibly on Mt. Lukens?), you've also got a distant view of Mt. Baldy and his friends. I could also see Mt. San Gorgonio, although I can't see it in the photographs I took. Markham Peak is pretty much due south.

Meanwhile a view to the northeast overlooks a large chunk of the burn area, with the Angeles Crest Highway cutting right through it.

Hike 2011.041 -- Sunset Ridge

(Pictured: Saucer Branch Falls). Hiked Tuesday, June 21. The first day of summer brought above-average temperatures into the San Gabriel Valley for the first time in quite a while. My plan, then, was to hike early and relatively short, so I would still be rested enough to get some work done in the afternoon.

The trailhead for this hike was above Altadena, off of Chaney Trail. To get there, I took the 210 freeway to Lake Avenue and headed north. Lake terminates in an L-turn, with the trailhead to the Sam Merrill Trail on the right and Loma Alta Drive heading off to your left. Approximately one mile east of Lake (about 1/3 of a mile after crossing Fair Oaks), a small and nondescript road called Chaney Trail heads off to the right. There is a street sign that gives the name of the street, but no indication that this road, unlike the others you've passed, heads into the Angeles National Forest.

Just over 1 mile north on Chaney Trail (which quickly becomes a narrow and winding, but still paved, road), and the road reaches what seems like a crest. A sharp left turn would keep you on Chaney Trail and take you down to the Millard Canyon picnic area. However, since the trail to the waterfall is still closed, there was no reason for me to drive down there.

Instead, I went straight where the road made the hairpin turn. About fifty yards in front of me was a locked gate, and 3 or 4 cars parked near (but not blocking) the gate.

I'm moderately sure an Adventure Pass is needed here, but it's possible you don't actually need it until you drive over the crest and down into the canyon. Also, today (June 21) was a fee-free day on all the federal lands that charged entrance fees. Nonetheless, since I already own an Adventure Pass, I hung it on my rear view mirror before leaving.

The road here at the gate was labeled as 2N50.

After 3/10ths of a mile up this paved road, two trails intersect the road. First (and less obviously if you're heading up hill), there's the dirt trail that came up from Millard Canyon, on your left. About 20 yards after that is a more obvious trail that also heads to the left. There's also a trailhead register right between these two trails, on the right side of the main road.

Either the paved road or the actual Sunset Ridge trail (12W18) actually take you to pretty much the same place, and in roughly the same distance. If you were on a mountain bike, it would therefore make sense to just keep riding up the pavement. Hikers might prefer the trail. It gives a better view of several waterfalls down in Millard Canyon.

The trail is somewhat narrow, and it's difficult to impossible to walk it without rubbing on the plants that line the way. Keep an eye out, because some (not a lot) of those plants are poison oak.

Plenty of flowers are still in bloom. Spanish broom seems the most common. I also saw phlox, primrose, scarlet larkspur, cliff aster, and several flower species I did not recognize.

About 1.5 miles after the second "trailhead," the Sunset Ridge Trail runs immediately adjacent to the paved road. If you get off the trail and make a hard right, you'll be in the midst of a picnic area, with several benches and pine trees to give you some shade. If you were to get on the pavement and turn left, you'd reach hit the same paved road you got off of 1.5 miles previously. You could return that way, or continue up the pavement, if so inclined.

If you stay on the trail, instead, it's another 2/3 of a mile or so until you reach the rail bed, just below The Cape of Good Hope. There are also potential routes from along the Sunset Ridge trail that would take you (the long way) to Switzers Falls, although I think those routes are still within the Station Fire closure order.

Once I reached Cape of Good Hope, I no longer had the motivation to continue towards Echo Mountain (That would have been an additional 1/2 mile according to the trail sign, or 8/10ths of a mile, according to my Tom Harrison map). It was getting warm and the bugs were starting to get on my nerves. Also, I've been to Echo Mountain often enough that I didn't feel the need to visit it again. Besides, as I said earlier, I had stuff I wanted to work on this afternoon and didn't want to get too tired hiking.

(Pictured: Millard Falls, from quite a distance). On a somewhat related note, I had a flurry of job-related contacts yesterday. The bottom line is I now have two phone interviews set for Thursday, and an in-person interview scheduled for next Tuesday. The bad news is that all three are far out of the local area, so a move would be involved, no matter what. Also, only one of the three is for a permanent position. Too convoluted to get into all the details, except to say that, from what I have been told, I'm a pretty good bet for one of the temporary positions, but one of many candidates for the other two jobs. Obviously, I'd prefer a permanent position to a temporary one, but I'm not sure if the guys hiring for the permanent position will be able to extend an offer before I'd have to say yes or no to the temporary position. Of course, I've been confident before, so it's definitely within the realm of possibility that none of the three will pan out.