I had spied Magic Mtn on a hike to Mendenhall Peak earlier in the year. It lies near the midpoint of a long ridgeline running from Bear Divide to Mt. Gleason, forming the western crest of the San Gabriel Mtns. It seemed like a worthwhile objective, though not appearing on any of the peak lists. Further east, and about 100ft higher is the unnamed Snow BM which has a prominence of almost 800ft. It wasn't the most impressive of days and I was a bit surprised that Tom agreed to join me for it. Though as he put it, any day out hiking is better than sitting in the office.
We met at 6:30a, just north of Bear Divide at
the junction with the paved road
heading to Magic Mtn. At one time Magic Mtn served as a NIKE missle base, one
of a dozen that surrounded the LA area to protect it from bomber strikes during
the Cold War. The site has long been abandoned but microwave relay and cell
towers have taken its place. The road had been open in the past to OHV travel
to Mt. Gleason, but has been closed since the Station Fire in 2009. Only
recently has the road been open to non-motorized traffic, though areas south of
the road are still within the closure zone. This route is most easily done with
a bike, but since Tom didn't have one, mine stayed in the van and we hiked it
instead.
It is not a difficult hike. The biggest danger is that of falling off a small
cliff where the road has
eroded away in several places. This seems unlikely
however, unless one is paying no attention to where they are going. After an
hour and twenty minutes hiking we left
the paved road to start up 
a fire break
as a shortcut to reach the summit of Magic Mtn. The chaparral has not
appreciably grown back on the fire break making for relatively
easy travel,
though steep in places. Twenty minutes later we reached the crest where an
old gravel road near 
Pt. 4,785ft
led to the top of Magic Mountain where we arrived just after 9a.
There were two old, massive 
water tanks
at the highpoint, rusting relics of
the NIKE missle base. Nearby was
a microwave relay tower enclosed by a high
fence, located on a slightly lower flat of land. The water tanks were perhaps
30ft high and drew my attention. On the backside we found a ladder with the
lower nine feet missing, but this could be climbed by jumping
to reach the lowest rung, 
hauling myself up, then
climbing to 
the top. I had given Tom the
camera to take a few pictures, so I didn't have it to snap a few from atop the
tanks which provided a nice viewing platform. Back down, we looked around for
a benchmark or register but found neither. Lower on the north side we visited
a few of the 
launch platforms for the NIKE missles. Little was left
besides the concrete floor housing 
the blast tunnels,
built to redirect the exhaust away
from the launch pad. All the openings had iron plates welded shut to keep the
curious out.
We next turned our attention east, hiking down the paved road off the summit
to a junction with the dirt road continuing east
along the crest. It is an easy
hike with some up and down along the way, enjoyable views off both sides. The
land if fairly dry here, in the rain shadow of the front ranges, and mostly a
collection of chaparral and grass-covered mountains with trees found sparingly
about the summit ridges. Some of these had been 
burned in the Station
Fire while 
others survived without being harmed at all.
We stopped off at an intermediate highpoint just to find the
CUB benchmark that
was indicated on the map. There's not enough prominence to count it as a summit,
but it provided some modest diversion from the hike along the road. It took
another 45 minutes of hiking to reach the highpoint of the ridgeline, at the
place marked "Snow BM" on the 7.5' topo map. We found an LA County surveyor's
reference mark,
but no benchmark marked "Snow" or otherwise. 
The top is rather flat
and grass-covered, plowed over several times in the past to form the
fire break, likely losing the benchmark in the process. There is a fine view
looking 
east to Mt. Gleason and the intervening saddle, both some
miles away. There's also a good view 
north into Soledad Canyon with
the Sierra Pelona Mtns across the way, the Mojave Desert barely visible behind
them.
We had originally considered setting up a car shuttle to hike one-way to Mt.
Gleason, portions of which were along the PCT. But besides from this involving
many hours of extra driving, Tom had heard from rangers that there is a good
deal of 
poodle dog bush along the route,
a toxic plant similar to poison oak that neither of us wanted to investigate.
It had been a fairly long hike, more than 10 miles from Bear Divide. It would
take us more than three hours for the return, getting us
back to our cars just before 2:30p. There would have been
extra hours to explore some of the other
nearby summits if I hadn't exhausted them all the day before. Tom decided to
stop off and visit his mom in the Sylmar area before driving back home to
Palos Verde. I would spend the next few hours driving west across SR126 to
Santa Barbara where I met up with my two older brothers, one of whom lives
there. I had several options for a hike with my oldest brother
on our way back to San Jose the next day which we would discuss over dinner...
Continued...