But the route chosen for today was heavily shaded on the way up and slightly shaded towards the top. So the day began at 8:15am at the REI parking lot and from there we carpooled to Chantry. By the time we got there, the parking was extremely full. As we passed through the parking lot, we could see why. Large, and I mean large groups were heading down to Sturtevant Falls. This forced us to have to park past the stop sign where the road narrows due to the slides.

Anyways, here’s the route we took.

1. Start at Chantry and take the Mt. Wilson trail up through Spruce Camp.
2. Lunch at Echo Point with the nice overlook of the burned out areas and the not so burned out areas of Waterman and Twin Peaks.
3. Head back to Chantry via Santa Anita Ridge.

Not sure on the total gains and mileage, but my estimation comes out to 13 miles and about 4000′ gain. The way up was pretty tough, but not as bad as my first time. Guess I’m in better shape.

This was also my first view of the burned out areas. Damn, a lot of forest went up. But I was glad to see Waterman and Twin Peaks. Perhaps a hike there is in order. Maybe when there’s snow…

The way back wasn’t the normal downhill escapade. Santa Anita ridge is filled with a bunch of bumps which accounts for about another 200′ worth of gain. Wouldn’t be too bad, however, it’s just a roller coaster ride of a mix of steep ups and downs. This group I was with also decided it would be fun to run down most of it. I tried, but my joints just weren’t cooperating.

A beautiful day, not so beautiful burned areas…

Final Stats:

16 miles, 5200 ft

View more stats and maps

Set up another last minute hike with the meetup group, and just before 8 am off we were up the Old Mt Wilson trail, or ‘Old Faithful’ based on my hiking past.

The day was very clear, though a bit warm. Starting early lessened the extent of heat and sun exposure, but still the first 1.5 miles of the trail is uncovered. Luckily, we made this in good time and then got to some more shade.

Although I don’t have a picture of it, from the drive up it appears someone made an big effort to create a firebreak on Jones Peak’s SE ridge. And from what Ray said, apparently this continued all the way to Hastings Peak and the toll road.

We continued up, breaking at Orchard’s Camp and then on to Manzanita ridge. Here we saw some lady smoking. Seriously? Are people just that moronic / careless? No wonder these fires start. For some reason I didn’t say anything, but man that’s disappointing.

Up and away to Mt Wilson it was. On the toll road, we got our first glimpse of burned area – the east side of Lowe, Markham, and San Gabriel Peaks.

(I suggest taking a look at my photo album below as I took in more zoomed shots of here and the rest of the burned areas I could see.)

Getting up to Mt Wilson, we traversed across to the eastern end. Here we got some expansive views on a really beautiful day. Unfortunately much of that clarity gave sobering views of the burned areas:

And many more. The whole area is just toast. Waterman and Twin Peaks look alright, Devil’s canyon and the San Gabriel Wilderness are at least partially burned. AW’s west ridge idea now looks feasible . Triplet Rocks area still has brush .

Barley Flats and Lawlor were just annihilated. Strawberry too, although I didn’t get great views of it. The album describes better than words.

The top of Wilson’s Peak was relatively untouched. When I got to the north side, I could smell the charred wood / brush pretty strongly. You could see evidence that at least some fire got right up to the paved road, as some trees’ bases were burnt. But the area was not affected collectively. It looks like a nice job fighting off the fire very close to buildings.

And then we headed back down the same way.

9/19/09: Mt. Yale Loop – Starting from Sierra Madre trail will head up and connect to Jones Peak and go along the newly carved fire break to the Mt. Wilson Toll Road. From there head on up the ridge to Yale. Depending on time or how I feel, may just want to come back down the same way.

9/27/09: No hike – Will be busing/boozing it up with Ze. Will most likely end up biking somewhere with hills to work on cardio.

10/3/09: Mt. Wilson via Santa Anita Ridge – haven’t done this one. Will probably not do this one though if it’s hot. If it is hot, will probably do Mt. Wilson from Chantry Flats.

10/10/09: ?

10/17/09: Hike in the back country. Not sure where exactly. Also depends on what areas are burned out.

10/24/09: Baldy via Bear Flats – The warmup hike for C2C.

10/31/09: Baldy via Register Ridge – sneak in one more weekend at elevation.

11/7/09: The big day!!!

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!

Once at “Graduation Hill,” we ran into Sunny at the base of it about to ascend. We had a brief exchange of pleasantries, and then continued on up it.

Up “Graduation Hill” from john quan on Vimeo.

After Graduation Hill, all of the serious gain is over. Just a few little bumps stand in the way. So back up to the bench was no problem. But once we finally got there, we ran into a group of Korean hikers who were cooking up some Ramen. Oh that looked and smelled especially good on this cold day.

At this point, half of the group split up. The others went down Winter Creek trail and back to Chantry Flats. The rest of us pushed on towards Mt. Wilson. We took the trail since the ridge portion after the bench looked a little slippery. The trail wasn’t as bad as we thought. There weren’t too many hikers so the snow didn’t thin out too much to get the trail muddy.

The Toll Road itself must have been covered in a good foot of snow. But the path up was already beaten by previous hikers. It was already well worn and compacted which made the journey a little easier. We didn’t take the path up to the Mt. Wilson parking lot though. We just followed the road all the way up to the locked gate and had lunch there.

After about 30 minutes, we set back off down the road. We took Winter Creek for a 1/4 mile until we got the Santa Anita Ridge junction. We decided to take the ridge back down since the Winter Creek trail runs about 5-6 miles back to Chantry Flats as compared to the ~3 miles along the ridge.

Here’s a video of us walking back along the Mt. Wilson Toll Rd.

The View from john quan on Vimeo.

You can see more photos at my Picasa album.

Meetup reviews here.

Here’s a few webcams that record live images of various spots in the San Gabriel mountains.

Looking east toward Mt San Antonio, Cucamonga, etc… from Mt Wilson

From Josephine Peak, looking west toward Mt Lukens (I think direction varies)

Mt Wilson

Mt Baldy / Thunder Mt

Now my interest is peaking and my research into where exactly where the filming locations for these movies are located has been turned on…

Star Trek: First Contact – Charlton Flats area was used for filming.
Star Trek: Insurrection – San Gabriel Damn.
Duel- Most of the filming took place on the 14 just north of the ANF. Although, Soledad Canyon Road which borders the ANF was used.

Researching this, I found other places that were interesting (Hollywood Escapes):

Short Circuit – The first turnout up the ANF.
Switzer Falls – “Located on this site many years ago was a rustic resort called “Switzer-land” (get it?) that, according to historian John Robinson, hosted celebrities such as Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Shirley Temple, and Mary Pickford.”
Gun Crazy; Now, Voyager; Shattered; Delirious – Mt. Wilson Road. This is the road that starts at Red Box and takes you up to the towers of Mt. Wilson.
K-PAX, Armageddon, Deep Impact – Mt. Wilson Observatory.
North by Northwest, The Young Lions, Paulie, The Animal – Charlton Flat.
The Vanishing – Newcomb’s Ranch Inn Cafe. The one with Keifer Sutherland. This movie had me scared.
Dante’s Peak – Buckhorn Campground.

I also wanted to throw Vasquez Rocks in this posts just because it has been in so many tv and movie adventures. Just check out the fight scene below. Gorn moves at such a slow pace that it’s just as good as a picture.

1. Check out the snow level.
2. Get up to Wilson in 3.5 hours and be done with the entire hike in 7 hours.

We kept a quick pace throughout stopping very little for breaks. The normal stops that are normally taken weren’t. First Water, skipped. Orchard Camp, just a blur. Manzanita Ridge however we had to stop. It’s very tempting not to stop at a place with a bench. Also, some of us included myself needed some food in our stomach.

After a 15 minute stop, we headed out and made our way along the ridge to the Toll Road. This was quite a different site. Last week the entire road was covered with about 1-2 feet of snow all the way up to Mt. Wilson. Now hardly a foot left.

Walking along the road, a lot of it on the road had turned to ice which made walking at times a bit challenging. A good safety measure for us though was that the road was plowed so the side embankments had a nice 3 foot high mound separating us from the steep declines.

We got to the trail connecting the road and the trail leading up to the parking lot. This part was still decently covered in snow which was at times slightly iced over. The ice here though was mixed with some snow which gave some traction. We kept trudging along, and soon enough we reached the top and enjoyed the snow for a brief time before lunch.

Looking back now, I suppose I should have taken a shot of the actual view. I was just too preoccupied with snow and food to remember.

The way back down we decided to make a mini-loop of this hike. So we continued along the Mt. Wilson Toll Road to connect with the Hastings Peak ridge trail.

We took the connector trail down back to the Mt. Wilson Trail. From this point, some of us decided to jog the rest of the way down. We did pretty well and stopped briefly at First Water before taking the technical portion full on.

This day was a pleasure because we beat our goal by almost 30 minutes! 6.5 hours for the entire trip, and to the top, 3 hours 10 minutes. Fantastic day with great company and after hike food at Lucky Baldwin’s for some chicken pot pie and Guinness.