Angeles National Forest
Locate the trailhead.
Abbie and I decided to go hiking around Strawberry Peak. There was a small bit of effort to find the correct turn for the trailhead, but it worked out quickly enough. We started out hiking along Big Tujunga Creek with, again, a little bit of effort to locate the proper trail. Many people go just for the creek, so there were many routes that weren't correct. Eventually it sorted itself out and we were traveling along the trail up the mountain.
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| Starting off on a well signed trail. |
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| A little bit of climbing and there's a view through the trees of the creek bed below. |
The trail climbs up through north slope forests with a bit of switch backs, then travels along flat and easy along the southerly slopes. The day was warm, so this seemed a perfect trail configuration.
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| Hills rolling off into the distance. Trails could be seen on a few of them to the southeast. |
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| Trails winding through the valley in the distance and up the mountain side. |
A trail spurs off to the north leading to the Colby Ranch. It seemed to have a fair bit of travel on it as well, but we didn't go down it.
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| A first peak at Strawberry Peak, easily distinguished by the cliff on its north slope. |
Then we came to the Colby Canyon trail turn off, so we turned off. Strawberry Peak trail continues another mile or so before there is a use trail to the actual peak and continues on to the highway. Colby Canyon maneuvers around the peak in the other direction, also eventually coming to the highway and may have a lesser used route to the peak that is a bit harder. Following Colby Canyon, the hike continued along nice and easy.
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| One way or the other, the trails go to the highway. |
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| A bit of scree on the side of the trail. |
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| Abbie and the peak. |
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| Strawberry Peak's most striking feature. |
The flat below the peak seemed to be a popular camping spot. As the trail followed around the edge of the peak, we got more and more views out over the other mountains. Abbie found all sorts of ants to interest her of a number of different species. We continued on until we were a touch tired, then turned to return.
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| The views out over the local mountains. |
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| The mountains get misty looking to the west in the afternoon. |
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| Far in the distance, some roads meander through the mountains. |
Abbie found more interesting insects in the chewed up logs by the side of the trail. Coming down the trail, we heard some badly rendered music coming up the other way playing Kicks, then some kids who looked more likely to flash gang signs than hike or listening to oldies or having anti-drug songs on their playlist came around the corner. Some folks really are in the wrong cover, but hey, they like it.
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| The evidence of an old burn through here. |
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