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.

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.

KML Google Earth file

Santa Anita Ridge & Upper Winter Creek Trail loop at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging