Moments in Dirt and Ink

Angeles National Forest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Click for map. My last hike for the day of a Hundred Peaks Section listed peak is out to Winston ridge. I hiked Winston Peak already one afternoon , but had not realized that I was "supposed" to continue on to the ridge beyond. They are a logical pair. Now I go for the ridge and will probably stop by the peak on the way back. First around the side. The road is a single gentle slope down to the saddle where use trails start out to the high point of the ridge beyond the saddle. The Pacific Crest Trail winds and dips and climbs so that it is both longer and steeper. I have been on both and know this, but the thought of taking the road when the trail is available seems wrong. Besides, it should have a bit more shade in the warm day. So, with my water filled up again, I turn down the trail right of the road at the side of the turnout to wind along the trail. Angeles sometimes has these dinky little w...

Angeles National Forest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Click for map. My second little hike of Hundred Peaks Section listed peaks for the day is actually the high point of a ridge. The usual approach for this is from Vista Picnic Area or the old ski resort east of the high point. Not for me, though. I once went exploring up a mystery road just slightly east of the Buckhorn Campground to find use trails climbing both ways on the ridges once at the saddle above. I liked the spot enough to paint it later . I later explored the road further to find myself at the top of Waterman Mountain for the sunset . Today I will explore those ridge routes with a little more idea of where I will end up. First off to the east to grab the ridge high point then off to the west maybe as far as the Waterman benchmark. (This is not quite as far as Waterman where the benchmark reads "Twin".) Something about this gate makes me think this road has been very thoroughly abandoned...

Angeles National Forest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Click for map. Speaking of list padding, next up is Mount Lewis. Okay, so apparently it is the high point of the Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness, but it is also a brief jaunt up from the road at Dawson Saddle. Trails from the same area climb south a bit longer and a bit higher to Throop Peak. I was up on Throop once upon a time feeling thankful I threw in an extra dinner ( but that story has already been told ) and not noticing the peaks to the north of it particularly. I made plans for three little hikes to grab three more Hundred Peaks Section listed peaks while I was in the neighborhood and this is the first as determined by being the next one along the road. There is a big turnout and a couple little ones to provide parking near the saddle. The only official trail is near the east end of the big turnout, but there seems to be a second trail heading south nearer to the saddle. The unofficial trail up Mount Le...

Angeles National Forest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Click for map. I thought I'd spend the night over by Vincent's place. The cabin is supposedly built by a Civil War veteran, so it has some years on it and I will certainly not be staying in it. It is a little way down the Mine Gulch Trail, one of the five trail routes and four road routes to leave Vincent Gap. It is not the hardest to find. That one goes northwest and is a National Recreation Trail, so should get better treatment, but currently has not so much as a sign. The Pacific Crest Trail wanders through from the northeast to the southwest (for the northbound direction) and gets quite a lot of traffic going up Mount Baden-Powell. I ignored that and skirted a permanently locked gate on an old road headed south. A short way down, it is signed for Big Horn Mine along road on the right and Mine Gulch along trail on the left. I hung the left. The right is quite a popular destination and I could hear pe...

San Bernardino National Forest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Click for map. I seem to be on some sort of kick to climb a bunch more Hundred Peaks Section listed peaks . I signed up for an official outing to climb three peaks clustered north of Mount San Antonio, better known as Baldy. The section will let anyone come along, free of charge, although they do like to know something about you for the harder hikes so it is best to sign up for something easy first. This one mentions some "loose and exposed Class 2 terrain" as a reason it is "not for beginners", so probably counts as a harder hike. But they know me by now. At some point years ago, I had taken note of Pine Mountain, the North Backbone Trail that crosses it, and the Blue Ridge Road and put them in the list of things I wanted to experience, so an outing doing Pine Mountain and a few others seems like a perfect way to do it. Meeting at the turn to Blue Ridge at 6:30AM to beat the heat a lit...

Angeles National Forest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Click for map. I hung around the area to go climbing one more peak in the morning. Very early in the morning, I noticed my stars vanishing, and by sun up they seemed to be doubly gone with the slightest bit of moisture coming down. The weather has changed. Traveling to my planned hike, there was a moment looking out over the clouds, which was quite nice, but then I was back in them. At the trailhead, I seem to be under them ever so slightly. I live in hope as I stuff puffy things and the emergency poncho into the pack in case things get quite cold and wet. Maybe this peak is high enough for that over the clouds view. Signage at this trailhead in the middle of the Silver Moccasin Trail. This is not the shortest route to the peak, but it is the shortest drive. The trail gets on with climbing quite quickly with a few switchbacks. What I can see of the view is surprisingly colorful, full of all different reds and...

Angeles National Forest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Click for map. There is still enough light left for something, at least for a silly little thing like Mount Akawie, AKA Buckhorn Peak. It rises a little above the campground and is most easily accessed by a road east of Cloudburst Summit and west of the picnic area. It does not seem to appear on maps and is blocked by a thin yellow gate. The spot has a huge parking area for those times when there is a grand party up on the peak, I suppose. For no good reason, I want to go up the little peak west of the main peak as well, so although the road is wide and easy and clearly the main route, I scramble upward to follow the ridge. Getting high for a view, a peek at peaks east through a wide gap. They do tend to be taller over there. In the small saddle before the little peak, there is a scattering of weathered planks. It looks rather like there was once a simple structure in the somewhat flat area. A scattering of r...

Angeles National Forest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Click for map. A new day and new peaks to bag, but this time I will join a planned outing of the Hundred Peaks Section for some company. I have been really wanting to do the traverse of Pleasant View Ridge from Burkhart Saddle to the other side of the closed bit of the Pacific Crest Trail, especially if there is going to be a car shuttle. Unfortunately, this is not that. This is heading up to the saddle and then turning the other way to grab a couple nearby peaks. Still, it gets me into an area I have enjoyed visiting before, then out to some new spots. First, it is a little over a mile downhill on well used trail to Cooper Canyon, past various falls and with the sun thinking about getting down into the depths of the canyon. There is a lot of vertical to the land as Cooper Canyon empties out into Little Rock Creek. Past the Cooper Canyon waterfall that marks the end of previous exhibitions in this direction,...

San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Angeles National Forest Map link. A couple people from the group who do the Wednesday night Sierra Club conditioning hike decided they would get back into doing Hundred Peaks Section hikes by joining a triple list finish. Like the conditioning hikes and the Friday social hikes, the HPS hikes are open to the general public. It is as good an excuse as any to poke around a part of the forest I have not seen much of and to visit the brand new San Gabriel Mountains National Monument requiring almost no planning on my part, so I joined too. Besides, I seem to be on an effort to tick off these peaks of recent and what better way to do so than on an official HPS trip with three people finishing off their lists while bagging four new peaks? The group gathers slowly in Monte Cristo Campground. The air is almost frosty in the shady bottom of the canyon, but quite pleasant a little higher in the sun. We are already an hour after the start time ...

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead and the end of the trail. After hiking over to Big Horn Mine, I stopped at Buckhorn to look for a camping spot so that I might hike around one of the many trails in the area again the next day as well completely neglecting that it was a three day weekend and the campground would be a madhouse. The sites were overfull with people packing three cars and over a dozen humans into sites that only allow two cars and eight people. I walked down the trail a short way to read for a bit, then turned to go home and found the sun to be at a level that completely blocked my vision when going in the direction the road goes. In the campground, I could just stop and get a view of where I was going, but I wouldn't want to miss a turn at speed. I decided to really see where the road at the end of (what is now) Buckhorn's exit really got to. I parked in the turnout in front of the old road and made my way up its water rutted route to near th...

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead and the end point . I found the Cooper Canyon Falls hike and have been wanting to go on it for quite some time. It is well outside of the burn closure, so I went for it one time, only to find the 2 was still closed at La Canada so I would have to drive all the way around, which wouldn't be so bad except the 39 is also washed out shortly before the 2. Now the 2 is open again, so when wondering where to go, I thought of Cooper Canyon again. It was even more attractive when I noticed how high up it is since it has been quite hot the last week. I double checked that it is not in burn area and noticed another closure near my destination. The hike calls for a loop with a shuttle going from in at Buckhorn Campground to the Pacific Crest trail and coming out at Eagle's Roost, but this second bit of trail is actually closed soon after the junction with the PCT. Another loop is possible by continuing the other direction on the PC...

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. Today's grand escapade was found about 27 miles up highway 2 just the other side of Upper Chilao Campground. Well signed and even with a bathroom, we came to... Here be Devils Canyon. Well, on down the trail a while, actually. Devils Canyon! Um, trail. The actual canyon is at the end of the trail as most of it is going down a tributary. And so we headed out into the San Gabriel Wilderness. Also we met our first set of backpackers. The San Gabriel Wilderness starts just the other side of the road from the parking.