Carin, and a co-worker, 
Erin.
Darija was giving the
presentation on her canyoneering trips to the Inyo Mountains. Other commitments
had me in San Jose until 7p the night before and I needed to be back by 8a on
Monday morning. Though not a whole lot of time, I managed to squeeze in a bit of
peakbagging Sunday morning. Tom and Zeus joined me for a few short hikes in the
western San Gabriel Mtns just above Sylmar. Neither Sugarloaf nor Limerock had
much in the way of prominence (just over 300ft for Limerock), but they were named
summits in the San Gabriels that I had yet to visit and on the way to Los Angeles,
so they fit the bill. I'd spent the night near Pyramid Lake sleeping in the back
of the van, so had less than an hour's drive in the morning to meet Tom at 6:30a.
Sugarloaf is less than half a mile from our
starting point on Lopez Canyon Rd, a
small bump to the west of where we started. The surrounding land has been
purchased by the Santa Monica Mtns Conservancy for parkland, though the short
section to Sugarloaf is not currently open to the public. The
old road we followed is rather 
overgrown, forcing us to wade
through tall grasses and brush, Zeus doing his best to jump through or over the
obstacles that dogged him (pun intended). We made a roundabout approach to the
summit as the direct route up from the road looked too heavily overgrown for Zeus
and probably for all but the most determined humans as well. Luckily there was
an 
old fire road running up the
ridge from the south and although heavily overgrown it was better than tackling
the chaparral head-on. The 
highpoint
turned out to be the southernmost of two
points shown on the top with equal contours, though the northern one was the
larger of the two rings. We expected to find nothing at the summit and were not
disappointed - just a brushy lump of earth rolling gently over on the sides.
Though it was still quite early, not even 7a, 
the haze
over the San Fernando Valley and LA was already considerable. Even the
view east into the heart of the San Gabriels was hazy.
We were back at the car fifteen minutes later where Zeus was
rewarded with a bowl
full of water. He lapped it up in quick fashion and began looking about as if to
ask, "Ok, what next?" He was happy to learn there was more on tap.
On the opposite side of the road is 
the start
of the old Kagel Truck Trail. This section of the road is no
longer open to vehicles (the rest may be closed to OHV travel as well), but the
Conservancy allows horse and foot traffic. We followed this into a residence (it
appears to be used by a conservancy ranger, judging by the truck parked there)
where it wasn't clear if the trail/road is intended to go around the property or
simply through it. In either case, we found our way to the back side of the
residence where the road continues a short distance before devolving to
a narrow trail,
somewhat overgrown with the Spring renewal. Most of this area had burned
over completely in the Station Fire of 2009. Three years later the brush is
growing back vigorously and there was little obvious evidence of the fire.
Fifteen minutes after starting out we met 
the junction
with the Kagel Canyon Rd
that come up from the Glen Haven Memorial Park just below. This is actually a
shorter starting point to reach Kagel Divide, but it didn't seem worth bothering
with the extra driving to reach it. Along the way,
Zeus found a muddy 
puddle of water to cool
himself off in. It was not even 8a and it was already growing warm. By 7:50a we'd
reached 
Kagel Divide
where a large concrete water collector/tank is located. We
paused to see if Zeus wanted more water, but he barely touched it, more eager to
get on with the adventure.
Rather than continue along the road that 
leads up
to Kagel Mtn and Little Tujunga
Canyon Rd, we turned south to start up 
a firebreak leading
to Limerock Peak. It
started off well enough, but soon degenerated into a
mild brush-fest as we'd found
on Sugarloaf. There was the pop-pop sound of gunfire to our right - a large
shooting range is found on the southwest side of the peak. Initially there sounded
to be a single shooter, but this increased to half a dozen half an hour later.
The distance to 
the summit
was not far off, about 3/4 mile from the divide,
and by 8:15a we'd reached the highest point. There was a broken down
picnic table and some 
free weights nearby that someone had
bothered to carried up. 
The views were better
than on Sugarloaf, though of course the 
hazy conditions
had not improved any.
Though he wasn't complaining, Zeus was taking one for the team with perhaps a
hundred thistles buried in his fur. Three weeks earlier and the grass would have
still been too green, but it was the beginning of summer with the seed delivery
systems ripening and Zeus was a prime transport mechanism. We spent some time
going through the fur to remove the stickers while Zeus seemed to like the
attention. As soon as we'd reached the summit we'd spotted a much better trail
running off the southeast side of the mountain. I recall seeing this steeper
trail on the satellite view and suggested to Tom that he and Zeus could go down
that way while I went back to get a vehicle to pick them up. I walked a short
distance down this trail to make sure it continued as expected and came across
two gentlemen on 
their way up.
The two were 
local firemen doing the hike from the
hard side of the mountain. They told us the fire crews were set to come up in the
next week or so to clear the firebreak. Luckily Zeus doesn't speak English or he
might have given us one of those hard looks to say, "Really?"
I jogged most of the way back down the trail, stopping to take a few pictures of
the 
many yucca that were now 
in bloom.
Back at the cars before 9a, I took Tom's
Element around the mountain to pick the two up on the other side. I found them
resting in the shade along the side of Little Tujunga Rd. We then drove up the
road a short distance to Gold Creek Rd which I thought might allow us to drive to
the top of Yerba Buena Ridge, the third peak I had in mind for the day. Though it
started off promising, we ended up at a gate across private property with three
miles to go. Neither of us were too excited about hiking the distance in the
increasing heat and Tom didn't like the idea of trespassing, so we turned back.
We did note a trailhead for the Oak Spring Trail which climbs to the ridgeline,
about five miles one way to the highpoint. That seemed a better route than the
dirt road I had planned. We would keep that in mind for a future visit when I had
time for a short hike.
We spent the next two hours driving back to Tom's home in Palos Verde, then taking
the van up to the top of San Pedro Hill a few miles above his house.
With almost 1,400ft
of prominence, it was the most prominent peak in Los Angeles County that I had
yet to visit. A large 
FAA facility is found at the end of the pavement,
surrounded 
by barbed-wire. Tom declined to breach the perimeter which
turned out to be 
much easier
than it seemed at first glance. I ran up to the top, climbed two stories
up the structure holding 
the largest
of two white domes, snapped a few pictures
and returned. Fog enshrouded 
the coast
to just below the height of the summit, so
views in that direction were lacking. On a clear day one could probably have a
fine view to Catalina. And of course the LA haze made views to
the north not so grand either.
We napped back at Tom's place into the afternoon, then drove to LAX and the
Proud Bird restaurant in the evening for the DPS banquet.
The coastal fog was just right for
allowing us a fine view of the
solar eclipse without needing special glasses.
Though we observed it for less than five minutes, it was the highlight of the day.
Bob Wyka,
the outgoing DPS chairman presided over the banquet, introducing new
officers, handing out 
awards
and other officious duties. 
Gordon MacLeod and
Barbara Lilley were both in attendance as they were for the SPS banquet earlier
in the year. The food was good and the program 
presentation on the Inyo
Mtns made my own hikes of recent date in the Diablo Range look rather tame.
The banquet lasted until just past 10p, and it would be nearly 4a before I had
driven home to San Jose. This was one loooonnnngg day...