hi, i have a quick question. i’ve been looking at all these different so.cal hike sites for info on hiking up to mt. wilson from the sam merrill trail off lake ave in altadena, but i couldn’t find any.

i know at the echo mountain, there’s a trailhead that goes up to mt. wilson. i was just wondering if you have done that, and if you have, could you give me some info on that? thank you

I haven’t gone up to Wilson from Lake ave simply because it would be a longer than normal hike. There are three other routes up to Mt. Wilson that I prefer. There’s the Bailey Canyon route, Mt. Wilson trail, and the Chantry Flats route.

But if you were looking to get to Wilson from Lake ave, you can take the Sam Merrill trail up to Echo mtn. From Echo you can either (a) go up to Inspiration Pt. via Castle Canyon trail, or (b) go north to the Mt. Lowe fireroad. The fire road meanders a lot more and adds to the distance. Castle Canyon has more incline over less distance.

From Inspiration Pt. take the fire road towards Mt. Lowe. You can either go up and over Mt. Lowe or take the fire road around it. I would go up and over, but that depends on how fit you are.

Atop Lowe on the way down, there’s a fork that takes you back down the way you came, or takes you East. I forget what that trail is called, but on the way down, you want to end up on the East slopes of Lowe. From here you’ll be able to see Mt. Markham, San Gabriel Peak, and Mt. Wilson clearly. Just follow this trail until you get to the saddle of Markham and Lowe. There’s a trail that goes to the left of Markham. Follow this trail until you get back to the fire road.

At this junction, you’ll have San Gabriel Peak to the north, Markham to the south, and a road contouring San Gabriel Peak. Take the road east. Special note though, this may be closed. Mueller Tunnel which you must go through may still be blocked due to a recent rock slide. Get more information here.

After this tunnel if it’s open, then it’s all road up to Wilson.

I did a quick Google maps sketch up. This path is assuming you go up via Sam Merrill, Castle Canyon Trail, and take the south trail up to Mt. Lowe.

Taking this route, I’d estimate it to be about 14-15 miles with about 4000-5000′ feet of gain. Assuming you come back the same way.

Good luck!

We started at the top of Lake Ave at the normal Sam Merrill Trailhead. But instead of taking this 2.5 mile trail up to Echo, we went north and took the nearest ridge to the west of Echo Mtn. Once off the road, the gain is immediate. It reminded me a lot like Rattlesnake Peak where the incline just starts and doesn’t relent until you’re halfway up. This fire trail was created awhile ago during the last brush fire in the area. And now it seems that someone? maintains the cut out steps leading up.

Here’s a video taken by Ofir on his way up the ridge. It’s as bad as it sounds…

This trail continues on with only about a total of 150′ worth of moderate gain. The rest is just steep. But the really steep portion comes at the end. Total up to the road is about 1200′ in a little less than 1.5 miles!

This trail dumps you off at the Mt. Lowe fire road. Heading north along the road for about 200′ takes you to the Echo Mtn. trail. We skipped Echo Mtn. because we’ve all been here so many times before. Up Castle Canyon trail we went. This was pretty uneventful. Easier though.

We had a 15 minute stop here just to grab a bite to eat, chat a little, and just relax. The wind wasn’t terrible. Visibility towards LA was zero because of the clouds slowly rolling in. But at our stay here, 20+ WTC members made their way here and took a break as well. That made for a crowded place.

From Inspiration Point we scouted out our route. We would be taking the ridge that heads straight up to Mt. Lowe. It’s pretty visible and looks like it’s been used a lot lately. We followed the road until we got to the trailhead up. But we skipped the trailhead and made our own path along the ridge which did eventually meet up with the trail. We kept on the ridge though and only used the trail for a short portion.

After leaving the last trail portion, it was all steep and loose rock from here on out. There was really no visible use trail, so we just had to follow the ridge up which isn’t hard to do since it narrows a bit. After slipping and sliding a bit, we came to the really loose chute.

This was pretty extreme. I’m glad the recent rains moistened up the dirt which helped with the traction. But we took this chute and connected back to a more stable rock hopping route until we finally got to the top. The following two videos are on the descent up. This one is heading up over still bearable terrain and then looking back towards Inspiration Point.

The next one is heading up the chute. This was just loose dirt and rocks. The norm for this part is one step forward, two steps back.

Mt. Lowe itself was pretty cool. We were in the clouds and while we were there, and it started to snow a bit. That added a little more excitement to it.

I haven’t taken the western trail down before. It’s pretty nice. Lots of good views of Bear Canyon, Mt. Disappointment, and San Gabriel Peak. The trail winds its way down until you get back to the fire road. Right after leaving the top of Lowe, the skies opened up and we got some sun and a nice view of Mt. Disappointment. Here we took some pictures and just played with the snow a little.

We took the road south back to the the Idlehour trail junction is. Instead of taking the Upper Sam Merrill Trail though, or going back to Inspiration Point, we went up to Inspiration Peak. This was a nice little uphill climb that got the legs burning again.

We weren’t satisfied here though. Sure we could head back down to Inspiration Point and take Castle Canyon down, but what fun would that be? Instead we followed the ridge west along and old use trail. It looked like it hasn’t been used in quite a while, so we got to do some bushwhacking which is always pleasant. But not in shorts though.

Well, we went as far west as we could until the ridge started sloping downwards. This should have been a good sign, but the brush at this point was impassable. So we just decided to catch the trail on the north side. This was exciting. No path, lots of loose everything, hail starting to come down, branches, slippery logs…just imagine a steep descent through all of this.

We finally got back onto a trail and took this all the way back to Echo Mtn. This trail is ok. The views are nice, but otherwise, it’s pretty dull. We connected back to the Sam Merrill Trail where we ran into a loitering group of WTC’ers and a Meetup friend.

We hung out here for a good 10 minutes or so exchanging Goldfish that Andy brought. Oh those are addicting! Through some miscommunication, we left here rather abruptly and tried to jog to catch up to another member. But he went off for other reasons unbeknownst to us. So some of us jogged down most of the 2.5 miles back to the cars to catch him. Oh well, that was a good way to end the hike.

Some pics from the day:

Pictures from the rest of the day: My album

Reviews from the Meetup site: Meetup site

Check out Zé’s review. He’s got a lot of cool vids from the ascents: Zé’s report

	#	Latitude	Longitude	Elevation	Distance	Time	Avg Speed
	1	N 34° 12' 12.09"	W 118° 07' 50.74"	521 m	0.000 mi	0s	-
	2	N 34° 12' 38.92"	W 118° 07' 45.44"	821 m	1.000 mi	48m 20s	1.24 mph
	3	N 34° 13' 04.31"	W 118° 07' 23.39"	1029 m	1.005 mi	35m 50s	1.68 mph
	4	N 34° 13' 04.31"	W 118° 07' 05.89"	1026 m	0.996 mi	19m 40s	3.04 mph
	5	N 34° 13' 08.46"	W 118° 06' 35.51"	1302 m	1.003 mi	35m 20s	1.70 mph
	6	N 34° 13' 39.69"	W 118° 06' 23.35"	1498 m	1.001 mi	51m 00s	1.18 mph
	7	N 34° 14' 01.15"	W 118° 06' 41.57"	1563 m	1.003 mi	1h 13m 00s	0.82 mph
	8	N 34° 13' 28.22"	W 118° 06' 34.44"	1367 m	0.996 mi	24m 50s	2.41 mph
	9	N 34° 13' 30.61"	W 118° 07' 14.00"	1337 m	1.003 mi	53m 20s	1.13 mph
	10	N 34° 13' 07.93"	W 118° 07' 12.45"	1135 m	0.994 mi	24m 30s	2.44 mph
	11	N 34° 12' 53.61"	W 118° 07' 23.94"	942 m	1.005 mi	30m 40s	1.97 mph
	12	N 34° 12' 24.76"	W 118° 07' 21.48"	756 m	1.000 mi	20m 20s	2.95 mph
	13	N 34° 12' 14.46"	W 118° 07' 44.02"	562 m	1.004 mi	19m 10s	3.14 mph
	14	N 34° 12' 14.37"	W 118° 07' 50.23"	552 m	0.115 mi	3m 21s	2.05 mph
			Summary	5906 ft	12.124 mi	7h 19m 21s	1.66 mph

The total feet is way off due to the changes in the barometric pressure. Total gain is about 4800′ not 5900′!

Final Stats:

Gain: 4800 ft
Distance: 12.5 miles
Ascent: 1000 ft / mile
Descent: 630 ft / mile

We always seem to find the steep stuff.

Others’ photos and Meetup link here

John’s TR here

GPS track here

KML Google Earth file

Our hikes seem to turn into cross-country trips quite easily. This time our trip focused on ascent of Mt Lowe from the soutwest, but not necessarily in the usual way. Instead of taking the Lower Sam Merrill trail, we ascended the ridge west of Las Flores Canyon. This ridge increased in steepness, culminating in some scrambling for a few hundred feet until we intersected the Mt Lowe fireroad.

We headed down to Echo Mt and picked up the Castle Canyon trail to Inspiration point. Up there we ran into a Sierra WTC group (like 30 people), snacked a bit, and headed on toward Mt Lowe.

Instead of taking either of the east/west trails, we traversed a small ridge that begins around the east trail. The ridge quickly turns into a steep hike / scramble up the SW face of Mt Lowe for the last 600 ft till hitting the SE ridge. The final 400-500 ft were at a 50% grade! This portion was quite fun, and certainly a better way to head up! From the SE ridge, it was a short jaunt to the summitt.

Mt Lowe Cross Country at EveryTrail

We descended down the Mt Lowe west trail, and before hitting Inspriation Point, we headed up toward Inspiration Peak. We then traversed the ridgeline westerly, going over several small bumps along the way. Knowing that the middle Sam Merrill trail wraps around this ridge, we would have liked to descend to the SW to pick up the trail, but with decent fog cover and not wanting to miss the trail, we decided to descend to the north. We hit the trail a few hundred feet down.

From there, we took the middle Sam Merrill trail back to Echo, where we ran into another large Sierra WTC group (they were everywhere, and all spread out). We chatted for a bit, then headed down the lower Sam Merril trail back to cars.

Selected Pictures

Up the first ridge

Ascent up to Mt Lowe

Looking back toward Inspiration Point

Some hanky panky going on?

Civilization peering out

Videos

The final ascent up the ridge west of Las Flores canyon:

Ascent up the SW face of Mt Lowe.

Andy climbing some pole on top of Mt Lowe

Hail coming down on top of Mt Lowe

Stream:

Final portion of descent down to middle Sam Merrill trail. Look for the nice slip at the end.