Take a Hike in Southern California

Shortly before we strapped our packs back on I took a lit­tle look around to see if I could spot the trail for­ward. I did, but it looked like it was head­ing into brush and I couldn’t find any other trail. So I went back and we picked up our packs and headed for the trail. I was right, we could clearly see the trail at our feet, but we had to beat the brush back with our hands in order to move for­ward and keep it out of our faces. We came to another stream cross­ing and the brush was just as thick on the other side. By this time we had already spent 10 min­utes beat­ing away and it didn’t look ahead like there was any relief in sight.

Our turn­around time was 3:00 and since it was 2:30, we decided to quit the brush beat­ing and head back to the car. Even though the brush didn’t look like poison-oak, we weren’t sure so when we got back to the camp­site, we used some extra water and our poison-oak soap and washed our arms, hands and faces off good. We decided that we needed to get a bet­ter han­dle on exactly what poison-oak looked like for future hikes. I told the boys that I would get some good pho­tos off the Inter­net and get them lam­i­nated so we could carry them with us on our hikes.

We packed back up and headed back to the car. Shortly out of the camp­site we came to the long incline up that was under all the shade. You know what that meant…little flies again. They were espe­cially nasty on our trek up. It must have been our exer­tion and sweat­ing, but they started fly­ing into our eyes and mouths. We were really glad to be at the top of the hill and out of the shade. As soon as the shade disappeared—so did the flies. Along the way in we noticed this very strange tree con­fig­u­ra­tion that we hiked past. I decided to take a photo for your curiosity.

Strange, one-sided pine tree in ‘lit­tle fly’ area.

Because of the brush that turned us around, we started talk­ing about trail main­te­nance. Up until that point, we thought that the trail was very well main­tained. Along the way Gar­rett asked me who took care of the trails. I told him it was the for­est ser­vice, var­i­ous hik­ing clubs, and local vol­un­teer groups under for­est ser­vice super­vi­sion. We also got into just what was meant by trail main­te­nance. The most obvi­ous item I could point them to was the trail ‘drains’ that we had to peri­od­i­cally step over on the inclines. I told them they were put into place to help direct fast flow­ing rain water over the sides to help min­i­mize erosion.

— —  —  —  – photo of ‘trail drains’ here

Trail build­ing is a lot more work and involved, but any­one can vol­un­teer and help with trail main­te­nance. I would highly rec­om­mend doing this to any­one that hikes and wants to help pre­serve the nice trails we have today. If there are any hik­ing clubs out there that could use help with trail main­te­nance, please post a com­ment here and maybe you will get some volunteers.

Nice view, but you wouldn’t want to start the slide down.

On our way back, we tried to find where we came up from the ‘wrong’ trail and couldn’t spot it. This worked well with our idea that, if we found that wrong trail, we would try stay­ing on the cur­rent trail to see if it even­tu­ally became the ‘oth­er’ trail. It did!  Plus, we never did find where we came up to the trail. So we hiked the rest of the way out to the car.

As we approached the park­ing lot we noticed some beau­ti­ful Man­zanita bushes. They were the largest ones I’ve ever seen. I don’t know why we didn’t see them when we arrived in the lot. Either the sun was shin­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion or we were just too excited about start­ing our hike.

Large Man­zanita grove.

This was a great hike and one we want to come back to. I called the ranger sta­tion at Ozena the next day and I was told that a crew was head­ing up to the bush area the next day and that the trail was being cleared for ½ mi. I also looked at the map I had at home and noticed we didn’t even come close to our goal of Pine Moun­tain Lodge camp­site. That was pretty dis­ap­point­ing.  We had hiked 5 miles to Beartrap Creek camp­site and we had to go another 7 miles to get to Pine Moun­tain Lodge camp­site. Next time we’ll have to start ear­lier or do an overnighter in order to make it all the way. I’ll also check with the rangers ahead of time to see if the brush is cleared away.

More Man­zanita.

Has any­one else hiked the Piedra Blanca in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia? How did it go with you?

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