One day of hiking in the San Bernardino’s: San Gorgonio Peak. One day of hiking in the San Gabriel’s: Strawberry Peak, Mount Lawlor, Barley Flats. Total weekend stats: ~28 miles, 8,270 ft elevation gain.
Day 1
On Saturday I was supposed to hike up Vivien Creek trail with a group, but they all had to cancel. Since I had been looking forward to it I decided to just hike it myself. The impact of the current hiking permit waiver became apparent right from the beginning as I started at 7:20 am from an already packed parking lot. I’ve never seen this many people on this trail or the peak.
I quickly settled into an exertion level that I felt I could keep all the way to the top over the ~8.5 miles without taking a break. The only brief stops I planned where for fueling with a musubi every hour. It was reasonably cool and I moved along well, passing more people than I could count and getting passed by one runner. Amazing how people can run up steep trails at that elevation. I arrived on the peak at 11:35am to be greeted by a couple of dozen people, most had camped on the trails. I hung out for about 1h 15m chatting with some people and just enjoying the views. On the way down I ended up moving in lockstep with a group of young guys and we got to the parking lot in 3h flat. Since I had some time before meeting Srisuda, who was attending a conference in the LA area, I stopped by our friend in Forest Falls to say hello. The hello quickly became 2.5 hours of chatting with a group of Forest Falls residents on the deck under the trees, hard to imagine a better way to enjoy the celebratory after hike beer.
Stats: ~17.2 miles, 5,580 ft elevation gain
Day 2
Sunday morning Srisuda and I left the LA area and headed for the Red Box Gap parking area in the San Gabriel mountains. Our goal was to hike Strawberry Peak and if we felt like it also bag Mount Lawlor and Barley Flats. The hike up to Strawberry was very nice with great views of the LA basin even though it was a little hazy. On the peak we took a nice break enjoying the 360 views and our Sunday brunch. On the way down to the pass between Strawberry and Lawlor Srisuda decided she had the energy to do the other peaks also. So we headed straight up the rocky, steep ridge to Mount Lawlor where we enjoyed some more of our ice water. Up to here we had a great hike…. My research had shown that people continue the ridge on to Barley Flats and then down an abandoned road towards Red Box Gap. The ridge looked open enough to us with the potential for some sections of bush whacking, so we decided to go for it. For the most part we were right, but there were a couple of spots where we had to push through some really dense stuff. Barley flats is not that great a peak, except that it offers a great view of Strawberry and Lawlor. That abandoned road, which was supposed to be fairly easy, turned out to be a real nightmare! It took us over 1.5h to cover just 2 miles. There were uncountable numbers of yucca plant barriers to negotiate and where there was no yucca there was dense thorny brush and where it was clear of vegetation there were rock falls. Oh and it was hot. We where glad to make it out of there with just the little blood we drew… Srisuda called it “The trail of blood”. At the car we cleaned up a little and headed straight home experiencing a few delays with the typical LA traffic.
As nice as the mountains are in that area, we had the constant background noise of cars and motorcycles racing up the Angeles Crest Hwy (S2). On weekends there are always groups of people in sports cars and on motorcycles racing up that curvy road. Not all of these people get out unharmed. We heard/saw ambulances on at least 3 separate occasions and saw rescue helicopters descending to the road twice.
Stats: ~10.5 miles, 2,690ft elevation gain.
Note: Click on any picture in the gallery to enlarge and see slide show
Here …what would you do when you come to a point where on the right side is a thick thorny brush about your shoulder height and on the left is a big healthy yucca plant. Both meet in the middle and there is no other route….I would definitely say that is “a trail of blood!”
Sounds like a great weekend. As I was reading through your description of the trails I was thinking & waiting to see a picture of you two at the end of the hike dripping blood ;)! Good adventure!