Thu, Apr 21, 2011
|
With: | Evan Rasmussen |
Day four of our roadtrip chasing SDC peaks saw us
driving north on SR79 in the early morning hour. I had been to this same
trailhead and used much of the same route a few years
I
Plan B took us back to the original junction and the start of the Oakzanita
Trail. We then followed the fire road about a quarter mile to where it turns
to the northeast, stopping here. Half a mile was as close as we could get to
our summit, and it was now time to
The grassy slopes ended just past the fence, but we aimed for a large area of
Fnding some ducks leading west from the summit, we followed these as the likely
use trail we had hoped to find earlier. The trail led a short distance west,
We spent the next hour and a half driving to the town of Alpine along Interstate
8 and
Having left the van back in downtown Alpine, Evan parked his camper half on,
half off the road on the north side about 50 yards northwest of the trailhead.
I started off first as Evan planned to use his mountain bike once again.
An unexpected difficulty was encountered immediately as I found the trail
blocked by the
The sky was heavily overcast, the same coastal clouds that I had seen
encroaching on Cuyamaca State Park the previous evening. I had hoped it might
clear today, but no such luck. The road soon rounds a bend and starts heading
east toward Bell Bluff, still a long ways off. I hiked for another half hour
before getting
The summit is a jumble of rocks interspersed with less dense scrub, with three
possible blocks
I had already made the delicate move
After picking my things back up and shouldering my pack, we went back to the
use trail and started down. We expected our travails to be over by this time,
as surely the trail would lead back to the truck trail. We got halfway down
before losing the trail in the steep, blocky section on the northwest side.
More recent downfall may have obliterated part of the trail, or perhaps it never
went all the way, but in any case we found ourselves climbing under and through
heavy brush surrounding the blocks in a gully we were trying to descend.
I jogged ahead while Evan changed his shoes. I was more than halfway back when
he caught up to me, surprised I had managed to get as far as I had. I found an
old daypack loaded with trash that I asked
On the two hour plus drive from Alpine a number of options went through my head.
I wanted very much to visit Pleasants Peak, the only LPC peak that I had missed
on a previous visit to the Santa Ana Mtns in Orange County. At that time I had
been stopped by the California Forestry doing a controlled burn
on the way to the peak and they wouldn't let me pass. My first thought was to
sleep at the trailhead in Silverado Canyon and hike the peak in the morning.
This would mean driving north through the LA area afterwards, a bit of a traffic
headache that I wasn't keen on. Then it occurred to me that I could probably
do the hike today, though certainly it would be well into night before I
finished. Researching the route more thoroughly during my stop for gas,
I came to be
reminded that it was a 16 mile trek round trip - no easy hike. After much
deliberation, I decided I needed something tough to motivate me - the last three
days had been fun, but by no means strenuous. Starting a 6hr hike just before
sundown seemed a good way to shake things up a bit. I found both a Starbucks
(for caffeine & sugar) and a Del Taco (high calories on the cheap) near each
other at my exit off Interstate 5 in Lake Forest.
I ate and drank my fill on the drive to
Silverado Canyon where I arrived at 6:30p. I had only an hour until sunset, so
I wasted no time in
The trail climbs steadily for 3 miles, gaining almost 2,000ft from
I reached
Shortly before 9p I reached
I headed off the NE side of the summit, following the old fire road that
continued over the summit and thinking
myself pretty clever for finding a shortcut back to the main road. I only got
about 100ft below the summit when the fire road ended abruptly in a wall of
brush where the bulldozers had evidently stopped. Rats. Back up I went, and
then back
along the same route I had taken to get there. There would be no big shortcut
tonight. There were however,
The return was by no means humdrum. For one, there was some unusual activity
from the animal kingdom to entertain me. Nighttime seemed to draw out an
unusual number of large, spindly-legged
It was 11:30p before I finally
Continued...
started out alone from SR79 at 6:30a, following the good East Mesa
Fire Road up several miles to the east side of
Oakzanita. Evan
followed a bit later atop his mountain bike, his preferred mode of locomotion.
The fire road follows the north side of
Descanso Creek Canyon as it
gains elevation steadily. Before the first hour was up
Evan passed me
by, only a few minutes from the Oakzanita Trail
junction where I
found him waiting. We turned onto the Oakzanita Trail,
following it southwest for about a quarter mile in search of the other roads
shown on the topo. These lost roads also appeared on my GPSr, but they were no
longer viable routes as we found ourselves in the tall, damp grass of a meadow
west of our goal. The
way ahead
looked far too brushy and we decided this was not going to work out.
stash the bike, don gloves and get
on with
the bushwhacking portion of the program. The location was chosen as much for
its proximity to the summit as for the more open terrain indicated on the
satellite view. After an initial bit of getting through some
dense downfall, we found
ourselves in more open grass areas. This led across a
barbed-wire fence
marking the boundary between the State Park and the adjacent National Forest.
Our peak lies not far outside the park boundary where contemporary grazing is
quite evident (lots of cow pies)
though there were no cattle to be seen while we were there.
rocky slabs
that served better for making progress than the surrounding scrub.
There was a minor creek to cross and a non-trivial amount of poison oak to
evade.
Luckily the brush wasn't that thick since we needed to find our way
through some of it on the
final push, and by 8:30a we had reached
the summit.
A pair of red nested tins was sitting next
the benchmark.
There were no useful
markings on the benchmark, but the register placed
in 1999 indicated "Sugg Peak"
which although not a very interesting name in itself, is certainly better
than the more boring "Peak 5,243ft". The summit provides views of Pine Valley
to
the southeast,
Gutay Mtn and
Bell Bluff to
the south, Oakzanita to
the west,
Cuyamaca and Stonewall Peaks to the
northwest and as far as the Santa Rosas well to
the north.
The view east is
taken up by the higher terrain of the Laguna Mtns, a wide swath of
chaparral-covered terrain mixed with pine trees in a number of places.
then down
the west side of a northward draining gully between Peak 5,243ft
and the lower summit to the west. We were unable to follow it all the way back
to the dirt road, losing it about 1/2 of the way down. We used the same slabs
to reach the base of the peak, then found more open terrain back to
the road
that avoided the downfall we had scampered over at the beginning. Evan jumped
back on his bike while I jogged the downhill portions, trying in vain to keep
him in sight. He was well-rested and looking somewhat smug when I
got back
40 minutes later, around 9:45a. No doubt this bike thing had benefits.
the trailhead
for Bell Bluff, the last SDC peak on the trip's agenda.
This summit, too, had a reputation for heavy brush and the requisite
bushwhacking.
The "trailhead" is hardly that, barely an opening in a fence between two
suburban homes in the rolling hills found here. It marks the start of one
segment of the California Hiking and Riding Trail. I haven't been able to
actually find a map showing what the entire route looks like, but I've stumbled
across various sections in Cuyamaca State Park and in Joshua Tree National
Park. Whether it is a continuous trail planned across the southern part of the
state or just the reuse of a common name is unclear to me. In any event, it
seems that this one is not really advertised at all. There is no parking nearby,
no trail maintainence, and almost no signage of any type - one would think they
were trespassing upon first encountering it. I was fortunate to have gotten
some beta from others who had been to Bell Bluff. My first effort to approach
it from the east during the winter was a bust when I encountered gated private
property. This
approach appears to be all on public lands within the Cleveland National Forest.
Sweetwater River less than 100yds from the start. I
pulled off my boots and socks, carried them
across
the knee-deep water, thinking to
myself, "This ought to slow Evan down a bit." A faint trail led up through the
grass on the opposite side, soon emerging on a wider cut in the hillside, and
more what I expected from the map that shows a dirt road. This is the
Bell Bluff Truck Trail,
though no trucks have been on it in years from what I could tell.
a view
of the summit, only to find its top shrouded in clouds.
So much for the views. It took more than an hour from the trailhead to reach
the start of the cross-country, a brushy-looking half mile effort on the
northwest side of the summit. I was waiting around perhaps ten minutes before
Evan
finally arrived.
At least he wasn't looking relaxed and smug, his khaki
shirt wet with sweat. After changing his shoes we started off.
The summit
looked as daunting as the reports I had been given on it. A thick
carpet of brush envelopes the summit, punctuated by large granite blocks that
pockmark the northwest side. The initial going went relatively well, giving us
premature, hopeful expectations that were soon strangled among the brush that
surrounded us over head level. Evan would
try one way
then another, I would try
my own ways through the thickets before getting stymied. This diffuse strategy
led to us getting separated more and more as we went on exploratory tangents
that were eventually out of earshot from each other. I was further east, aiming
for the
large blocks
that I hoped would offer a way out of the mess. My troubles
were only beginning I found. First off, the blocks were far bigger up close than
they had seemed from afar. Most of them were simply too big to climb. Secondly,
the wetter slope on this side of the mountain was decidedly more to the liking
of poison oak which now popped up in abundance. I high-stepped over the stuff,
watching every placement of foot and hand, and started scratching my way up the
slots between boulders and making
slow progress
that I expected would lead to
open slopes above or just as likely, a dead end. At one point I found myself
squeezing through
a narrow hole, head first and facing upwards, most
uncomfortably. What the heck was I doing? This wasn't supposed to be this
hard. Off-route for some twenty minutes or so, I eventually moved further west
and found some
ducks
marking the use trail we had been looking for. No sign of
Evan, but I guessed he'd done a better job and found it much sooner. Another
ten minutes of following the narrow path through the brush, well-marked now,
brought me to the summit where Evan was waiting, smiling of course.
vying for the highest point. The summit
register was located in a cairn next to
the benchmark on the
lowest of the three blocks.
The block
that looked highest was on the north side, an intimidating class 5 affair that
I had been adequately warned about. I sent Evan
halfway up to get a picture of
the block with him for perspective. Where he stopped was as high as he planned
to go. I did a check on the other sides to see if there were alternatives to the
serious class 5 crack on the SW side. It might work on the east side I
decided, but not easily, and I moved around to join Evan on the southwest side.
The crack that had been described to me looked very hard, more than 15
feet high. The crack itself was off-width in an open book, about 6-7 inches
wide and vertical, actually slightly overhanging.
I really didn't think I could get up without the help of a rope. I
stepped back to examine the rock better. I climbed onto the side block that
Evan was occupying, eyeing the south side of the summit block closely. Though
certainly more exposed, it looked like it might have better holds and be easier
than the crack option. I handed Evan my camera and decided to give it a try.
onto the south face of the block when Evan
announced he couldn't get the camera to work. It was a very simple point and
shoot and I couldn't understand what the problem was he was trying to convey.
After all, Evan is an accomplished photographer and should be generally
familiar with almost any camera, I expected. It was tough trying to concentrate
on what he was saying while balancing on a thin hold with 25 feet of air
underneath me. It turned out the main dial was not locked on a particular mode
and it was this problem the camera was reporting (Mode Dial not in proper
position). He figured it out soon enough, snapped a photo, and
up I went to finish the block atop. I
sat there somewhat
uncomfortably, knowing I had to
reverse the delicate move back to the subsidiary block. It was easy enough to
get back to
the thin ledge, but getting down to the subsidiary block
took some finger strength as I let my body
slide down the rough rock
and within reach of
my toe. All of this unroped climbing was finished in less than two minutes, but
of course it seemed a lot longer. It was with a good deal of relief that I felt
the safety of the lower block
under my left foot.
Poison oak
appeared again, making things a bit trickier. Luckily we were looking for
it and did not absentmindedly plow into the stuff. With perhaps 75 yards of
difficulty in the
worst of the brush, we eventually emerged onto the easier slopes
with thinner chaparral and got back to
Evan's bike
and the road at 2:10p.
Naturally
the summit was clear of clouds now that we'd left it.
Evan to shoulder the rest of the
way back. Really it was just an excuse to slow him down a little. Up to this
point the road was not in very good shape for biking, with deep ruts, loose
rocks and encroaching brush that were easier for bipeds than for two wheels.
The rest of the road from here, perhaps another mile, was a cinch. It was almost
3p by the time I returned to the trailhead and
found him barefooted on the back
step of the camper. We'd pretty much cleaned out all the SDC peaks I had come
prepared for, so we decided to call the trip a success and drive back to
San Diego. Evan would head for home in nearby Solano Beach while I had more
than eight hours to San Jose. As I still had another day available, I decided
to stop in Mission Viejo and consider my options at a Starbucks there.
setting off.
the canyon to
Bedford Peak.
Unlike the San Diego area that was socked in, there was a good
deal more clearing here though
clouds lingered as both
low fog and higher
stratus.
Sunset came around 7:30p while I was still making my way up
to Bedford and I stopped often to take pictures of the
orange sky
that developed as the
sun sank lower in the sky. I had my
first view of Pleasants Peak
I reached the upper portion of Bedford's SE Ridge along which the trail
meandered.
Pleasants looked a long way off still, with clouds wisping
up from the intervening canyon between Pleasants and Bedford.
Main Divide Road
just after sunset. The well-graded dirt road runs
north-south along the divide of the Santa Ana Mtns, often open to 4WD vehicles.
A gate at Bedford Peak was closed, however, so I don't know the current status
for access. I would see no one anywhere on the trail or road all evening. The
route to Pleasants follows a large arc counter-clockwise, up and over several
intermediate points along the way. I would jog the downhills and hike the
uphills and flats. There was a cold onshore wind blowing over the divide
forcing me to don fleece and balaclava to keep reasonably warm. Clouds were
swept slowly over the divide at the low places, reducing visibility as I dropped
through the saddles along the way. There was a faint glow from the setting sun
to the west where otherwise all was mostly dark, but to the east were an array
of city lights from the urban sprawl of El Cerito and Riverside. As the road
turned more northwest, there were even more lights to be seen to the north
where the Inland Empire spills out from the LA Basin.
the gate
on the northwest side of Pleasants Peak.
The road had taken me around to the backside, making for an even longer journey
than it had appeared when I was near Bedford. The gate marks the junction
here, a maintainence road leading to the radio facilities on the lower SW
summit. I had my GPSr loaded with the USGS coordinates for the summit, but
these took me to
the heliport located west of the SW summit which was
obviously not the highpoint. I passed through
a second gate on the way
up to the SW summit, then went on to
the highpoint at the NE summit
after dropping a bit through a saddle, climbing steeply up an old fire road.
Oddly, there were no facilities on the higher summit and it
offered a fine 360 degree view, though at night most of the visible action
takes place to
the north and northeast. The outline of the towers on
the SW summit was just visible in a nighttime shot. There was no
benchmark nor register that I could located.
smaller ones
that I utilized on the return. In
several places there were paths open to foot traffic that bypassed some of the
longer curves where the road goes around one of the intermediate summits.
spiders
that I found frequently walking
across the road. Perhaps they had shunned the daytime hours to avoid predators.
Periodically I would find tiny, beady eyes staring back at me from the ground
ahead. These turned out to be small birds that would fly off as I approached.
Whether they were napping on the road or were looking for late-night spider
snacks, I couldn't tell. But if the early bird gets the worm, around here the
late bird could have all the spiders he wanted. The chilly air kept me awake
and city lights provided some visual entertainment. The fog level had dropped
and was no longer swept over the low saddles.
returned
to the van. The first order of business
was a rinse. Having no warm water on tap, I drove the van to the creek crossing
near the trailhead where I took a midnight dunking in the very cold waters
of Silverado Creek. This
both cleaned and perked me up, helping to keep me going for the next hour. In
order to avoid the morning traffic I drove north across the Inland Empire late
at night. I planned to hike a few LPC peaks in the San Gabriel foothills in
the morning and found a suitably flat place to park in suburban Monrovia, at
the mouth of Santa Anita Canyon. It was after 1a before I bedded down in the
back of the van - it had been a full day, and the soreness I felt was not
unwelcome as I drifted off...
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