Beyond Limits on Foot!

To get to the trailhead: From Los Angeles take 10 West to PCH North. Stay on PCH for 34 miles. After passing Sycamore Canyon 1.5 miles, turn right onto La Jolla Canyon Day Use Area. There is parking in the parking lot on the left for a fee or you can park out on PCH for free (which is what we did).

Before picking this hike, I noticed that there were many hiking trails. Because of this we were able to put together a loop that hit 11.75 miles rewarding us with incredible views, cool weather and a nice work out on a Sunday Morning.

We started our hike at 0800 in order to get back in time to watch the super bowl. Ray Miller Trail took us up the east side of the canyon, steadily gaining 1000 feet elevation. After 2.75 miles we hit Overlook Fire Road junction. At this point the trail had turned inland towards Ventura County. We had ocean and canyon views as we hit the junction finally running into some people (mountain bikers).

After turning left on Overlook Fire Road and greeting mountain bikers/runners passing us by, made me think about making it out here for a trail run or a mountain bike. It was getting windy by this point, but as we entered the valley some more the wind died down with views of Boney Mountains east of where we stood. These are the highest peaks of the Santa Monica Range, which includes Sandstone Peak (a hike we’d like to complete).

4.5 miles into the hike, you will hit a four-way intersection, turn left turn left toward La Jolla Valley and to the “grasslands”. Around .2 miles after you turn, there will be another junction on the left that can cut your hike down to 7.35 miles going past La Jolla Canyon Falls, but missing Mugu Peak, not recommended.

There are numerous side-trails splitting off on your trek in the valley, with little to no green and absolutely no water in the creeks you pass. Once you walk into a dense wooded area, you’ll notice there are some campsites available ($8/person per night). Stick on La Jolla Valley Fire Road until you come to a junction with La Jolla Valley Loops Trail, staying to the right. At this point we were at 6.55 miles and puzzled on where to go exactly.

From here we took the rest of the loop around where ocean views were back in sight. Looking down after climbing up we had a panoramic view of the coast, taking a moment to take in the view of Mugu Lagoon and Point Mugu Naval Base.

We finally hit the junction that would take us to the summit of Mugu Peak, this 200 foot elevation gain got our hearts pumping. Mugu Peak stands 1,266 feet with an American flag standing on top and a complete 360-degree view from the coast to La Jolla Valley. The entire hike we didn’t see too many people until we climbed up to the summit. Of course a popular destination as there is a small trail just under a mile that heads up to Mugu Peak for those who don’t want to explore more of the area.

We wanted to stay atop the mountain, but it was extremely windy; we ate a quick snack and headed down the mountain descending 460 feet in a little under 1 mile as we hit another junction with La Jolla Valley Loop Trail.

Turn right here and head downhill on switchbacks after another mile and a quarter the waterfall would join us, but we did not join it. There was no waterfall, just the remnants that we did not notice until taking a few steps past it wondering why there were two gentlemen hanging out above the 20 foot wall of rock and moss. This was La Jolla Valley Falls that once had cascaded water through the canyon.

At this point we had very little left to the parking lot, but there were several moments that the views around us put a tiny smile on our faces.

Distance of hike, long, but manageable as the elevation gain was not too difficult. 3 and a half hours later at 1130 we reached our cars.

To get to the trailhead: From the 243 turn onto Forest Road 4S03. Turn right (north), follow the road past Dark Canyon Campground to the trailhead. There is a small dirt parking lot in front of the trailhead. Make sure you place your National Forest Adventure pass on you rear view mirror and you filled out a wilderness permit (free) at the Ranger Station. Wilderness permits are available at San Jacinto State Park headquarters (Highway 243) or at the Idyllwild Ranger Station (Highway 243 and Pine Crest Drive).

Since the last hike, we’ve wanted to summit San Jacinto, but once again time did not permit us to do so. We were unable to start the hike until 1100. There were only a couple cars parked at the trailhead.

The idea: let’s see how far we can get till the next trailhead time-wise and make a decision to summit or not there.

Elevation at trailhead is 6320 feet and to the next junction we would rise 2300 feet and end up at Deer Springs Trail, 3.8 miles later, at an elevation 8620 feet. This part of the trail follows the North Fork of the San Jacinto River and seemed a bit tougher than the Marion Mountain Trail that we did one week ago. Walking through the heavily forested area, we were unable to see the amount of views as from Marion Trail, but did get the chance to cross over the stream 4 times and hit plenty of switchbacks, which offered little views of the surroundings.

Picture: View of Lake Hemet from above.

We did not take a break till we hit Deer Springs Trail, breathing heavily and having to layer up when we reached the junction. It was 1245; 1 hour 45 minutes for 3.7 miles and 2300 feet up; the summiting of Jacinto seemed out of our grasps yet again. After playing with some numbers, we decided to instead head back down the mountain to our car. We would not have summited till 1500, which would probably have put us at our cars past sunset. Not prepared for an event like that.

Disappointing for not summiting, but the hiking fix settled in and we were still content laying on the flat rock in the sun near the junction eating our much anticipated lunch. We hadn’t seen a person until we stopped here, a couple backpackers that summited overnight. We headed back down through the dense woods, not running into any living soul.

Note to self: Stay overnight close to the trailhead to get an early start; don’t let the sun run you out of the mountains, unless you like hiking in the dark.

To get to the trailhead: From the 10, drive South on Hwy 243 from Banning for about 19 miles. Turn left and follow the signs for Marion Mountain Campground. There are two trailheads one next a small water tower and the other just up the road.

Goal for the day: To do all 12.4 miles up to 10,800, but little by little that dream went away as 1. I forgot my annual adventure pass in my own car, 2. We had to sign up for day permits, 3. We had to pick up food along the way. Plus I had to show off the mountains close to LA to my visitors as they were from Switzerland. I couldn’t compete with the Alps, but tried to.

Even though we left LA around 6:45 am in the morning, we didn’t start on the trailhead until 10:00 am, it being “winter” sun would go down around 4 and didn’t give us enough time to get up to the summit.

Mt. San Jacinto wilderness requires you to have permits on the trail. You can get a self-service permit at the Idyllwild Ranger station. This threw us off on time as well because it took us 5 miles further than the trailhead start. At the station bought a topo map and permit and headed finally to the trail.

Pack lightly: No! Warm clothes, lots of water and food were the essentials. I happened to throw in a headlamp and some other camping things in case we would take longer than needed. The trail uphill seemed easier than when we did Mt. Baldy and Mt. Baden Powell. Almost every 15 minutes there were be a view worth resting for.

We hit 3.7 miles and decided to take a lunch and decide whether to go further or not. Lunch by a frozen waterfall, why not. We had to dress warmer since we stopped and literally put on everything we had in our day packs.

After lunch we headed on our way down, this is where I realized how much uphill we did do. We started at 6,300 feet after 3.7 miles hit around 8,900 feet. 675 feet per mile, you figure it, butt-kicker or not? About a mile down the weather changed; beanies and jackets off. After much descending and toes feeling the slight bit annoyance we got back to the cars in half the time it took us to get up.

Note to self: Remember adventure pass.

To get to the trailhead: From the 5 North, take the 126 east for about 22 miles. Take 150 North (right) for about 5.8 miles and you will hit St. Thomas Aquinas College. Park outside of the school as it is illegal to park inside. You will have to walk on a paved road and follow the signs to the actual trail, but it’s well worth it.

First mile or so, yes we spent it on a boring old paved road. But, the view of the school was quite nice and walking by a cute little pond with ducks swimming in it (oh wait, until we saw the sign that said “Treated sewage water, please do not drink”). And of course the avocado trees that surrounded us were guarded by two dogs that barked for no more than a second as we hit a couple oil pumps. The trail goes to the left on the edge of the fence and continues on to Santa Paula Creek.

Once we hit the creek and Santa Paula creek, there must have dropped about a 20 degree drop, but of course this one time I didn’t bring a jacket (recommended to especially during the “winter” months). Though after some more trekking we didn’t really need the jacket as the canyon couldn’t make a choice of cold or hot. Quite interesting as soon as we hit a shaded creeky area the drop was immense, but as soon as we stepped a little away from the creek it was the normal 70 degrees that day. We hit so many swimming holes and the color of the trees were a normal fall color that you don’t often see in the city.

After losing the trail many times, we decided that no matter what stay by the creek and well every single time we ended up on “the trail” even though there are many little random trails that all go to the same place. I still recommend a map, gps (if you have one), compass anything that will keep you on the right track. We ended up going up to Big Cone Camp and on way down kept going instead of down to the falls. At Big Cone Camp, you can overnight it, but need to get a fire permit at Ojai Ranger Station down the hill.

The trail gets even worse as you head up and after a couple miles in we decided to finally turn around. We had to jump over the river a lot, many scratches were acquired and we passed a couple small little campfire pits/campsites.

After heading back down we saw the sign for the falls and headed down only to find a couple teenagers just hanging out. We made ourselves comfortable and they proceeded to leave. At this point I could only hear our voices echoing. This definitely gave me my hiking fix as I heard that this place normally was completely full of people. I recommend anyone who doesn’t want a crowd to come during “winter” as this worked for us.

BUT, there was soooooo much griffiti & trash around. This was the first hike where I decided from now on I will be bringing a trash bag in to carry out trash that was left by those people that don’t appreciate what’s out there for us! Apparently the forest service also cleans off the graffiti, but somehow it always returns.

After eating lunch we decided to head down and get back to the cars; mostly because the sun was slowly going down behind the canyon and it was getting colder. Took us less than 1.5 hours to get down and this was the second sign of human life as we could hear some kids having fun by the creek where there were a couple swimming holes.

Note to self: Bring a suit as you could swim in the water; it was definitely clean enough as it is running water.

To get to the trailhead:  From the 1 take Topanga Canyon Blvd to right onto Entrada Road, if you are coming from San Fernando Valley turn left. Keep turning left and stay on Entrada until you arrive at the State Park. If you can’t find parking, you can park on the side of the road. Trailhead is at the end of the parking lot.

Before I begin, we definitely did not get to see the falls. But, it’s okay because there was no water anyway. In response, we didn’t make much of an effort to find the falls. We’ll have to come back after the winter (if we can get any rain out here) to explore. Before hitting the actual trail to the falls we did get to see “the beach”. Nice view I must say and then we headed down down down into the dense wooded area, thinking to ourselves “oh man, we have to climb this route up”.

Okay, I shouldn’t make it sound that bad! The area is definitely worth going to, just enough open air to not hear how many people were actually there (the parking lot and road side were completely full). If I could recommend anything out of this hike, be very very careful because there is an abundant amount of poison oak ready to give you an itch that you do not want, wear pants!

Something different: we did find some kind of skeleton bones. Hmmm… What kind of animal could it have been. After some random exploring, we decided to head up. Way up, definitely a breather, but just enough to make you smile if you wanted some kind of workout on a random Saturday afternoon. 

Note to self: if i’m looking for a waterfall, do not come here until it has rained enough to know there is water.

To get to the trailhead: Take the 15 North from San Bernadino. Head west on the 138 for about 8.6 miles; turn onto the CA-2 West. Stay on this for about 14 miles until you hit Vincent gap. Don’t forget to buy an adventure pass or if you have your annual pass make sure it’s displayed.

The drive was long, but we still got a 9:30 AM start-time. Something interesting: 40 switchbacks to the top. The top of Mount Baden Powell is 9,407 feet and is the 4th highest peak in the San Gabriel Range. The last hike we did was Mt. Baldy, which summits at 600 feet higher, but this hike was just as challenging and beautiful.

From the beginning we started counting 40, 39, 38… switchbacks left. We began at an elevation of 6565 feet at Vincent Gap, which divides Mount Baden Powell from Blue Ridge. We were obviously heading toward Baden Powell’s summit and continued on counting down the switchbacks, which felt endless. A lot of the area is full of Jeffrey, Ponderosa, Londepole and Limber Pines (some are said to be more than 2,000 years old).

37, 36, 35, legs, legs, my legs. That’s right you’re not going to get much rest on the legs as it is all moderately uphill. We passed a small bench about a mile in, to stop or not to stop. We didn’t stop until hit only 25 left. Before the 15th switchback there was an off-trail to go to Lamel Spring. Some people turned off here, but we kept trotting up the hill. At this point we started feeling the elevation while breathing. After a short break more up and more up, heaving breathing, spectacular views, but we still managed to make it to the top a little under 2 hours. CHECK!

But before we hit the top we stopped at 3.9 miles to check out one view after another after another. Starting with an ancient grove of limber pines that have been there for more than 1,000 years, then Pine Mountain Ridge and Mount Baldy, then a drop in the ridge you are standing on and then take a stop at the Waldron Tree (an interesting looking limber pine more than 1500 years old).

We found a little shaded area, where the bees wouldn’t leave us alone and soaked up the cool afternoon breeze while eating our cold sandwiches and drinking a “refreshment”.  At the top we were able to see the Mojave Desert and the Southern Sierra.

Something that makes me want to do this hike again: Every single switchback has a view and it’s always a different kind of view. This makes it even more pleasant than it is already. In 1957 the Boy Scouts of America placed a marker at the summit with a plaque dedicated to Lord Baden-Powell.

The way down took half the time as it hurt on our knees to go slowly, so we jogged down the switchbacks all the way down to the parking lot. It felt endless, but we managed to finish the hike with no headache, no exhaustion, just a little soreness on the legs. Must do hike for anyone who wants to train for a backpacking trip.

Note to self: Water, water, water.