Friday, July 22, 2011

San Gabriel Mtns 7/17/2011

Our first hike in the San Gabriel Mountains.....big, steep and beautiful. My daughter Barbara, my brother Rob and I started our hike at the Vincent gap trail head with 9,399 foot Mount Baden Powell towering above us and 10,064 foot Mount Baldy across the way on the other side of the canyon. We set out to take the Mine Gulch trail out to the Buckhorn mine but about a mile down the trail we decided to traverse a rocky chute down into the East Fork San Gabriel River Canyon. We must have descended between 1000 to 1500 feet down into the canyon. what an experience hiking down on the loose scree and rock. From time to time the water would flow above ground intermittently as we made our way down. These are the very headwaters of what will eventually become a river miles downstream. Once we made it into the canyon we searched and found the switchbacking trail which led us back up to the trail head. We seen three deer on this hike. Once we were about a mile or two up the canyon we ran into a guy who gave us directions how to find Vincents Cabin, an old cabin way back in the woods built on a flat area overlooking the canyon. We checked out the cabin and then made our way back up to the car. Really cool hike. We then went down to the town of Wrightwood and ordered a large pizza and some drinks and played some good music on the jukebox as we filled our bellies out on the patio picnic area. Then we went and got some candy from the candy store to munch on on the drive home.












Palomar Mountain 7/3/2011

Hello, I have been neglecting my blog site lately but I haven't been neglecting the mountain adventures. Linda and I went for a hike up at the Palomar Mountain state park area the day before Independence Day. We started at Doane pond and hiked the Cedar Trail up to the Chimney Flats area. This trail was very steep and we probably gained 8 or 9 hundred feet of elevation by the time we reached Chimney Flats. Although stunning views all around as worked our way to the top we had to really keep our eyes on the trail. We hiked about a mile through ankle high to waist high poison oak with the thin trail winding right through it. I think this is the most poison oak that I have ever seen. We intersected the Chimney flats trail at the top and the poison oak decreased and turned into meadows of waist high bracken ferns and fields of purple lupines, totally incredible scenery. We then followed Doane creek all the way back down the mountain and ended up meandering through the meadows and back to Doane Pond. Ive hiked on different trails in this area many times but the flies this day were out in full force. We really had to keep moving to keep them somewhat at bay. All in all a great hike though. By 2:30 we were back at our house by the beach doing some bike riding and hanging out with friends by the water.