With the Angeles National Forest still mostly closed off, the Santa Monica Mountains are the place to be this weekend. With some cooler temperatures in the forecast, it’s the perfect time to bundle up (SoCal style) and hit a trail in the mountains.
The longest stretch of the Backbone Festival is tomorrow, Saturday the 14th, at Will Rogers State Park. The Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter will be leading a 14 mile loop hike from Will Rogers to Temescal Canyon and back. If you want to join, meet up with the group at the park kiosk at 8:30AM. Call 310-398-6344 for more info.
The group is also doing a shorter section on Sunday – a moderate 8 mile trek in La Jolla Canyon at the Ray Miller Trailhead at 9AM – one of my favorite areas of the Mountains. 818-773-4601 for more info.
If you want to take a more leisurely trip into the Mountains this weekend, head to the Thousand Oaks Visitor Center on Saturday for the announcement of the winners of the Spirit of the Mountains photography contest. From 1:30 to 2:45, photographers Tom Gamache and Van Webster will critique some of the entries, and give a short lecture about photography before they announce the winners. Call 805-370-2301 for more info, and good luck to any Modern Hiker readers who entered!
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Great tip on the Backbone Trail. I saw the Sierra Club at Dead Horse parking lot on 11/22/2009, but we were wanting to hike as a smaller group so we didn’t stick with them. I hadn’t heard of the hike before, but now my brother and I are planning to do it all (in segments). I haven’t been able to find a GPS track of the whole trail – do you have one? Oh well, by the time we’re finished, I’ll have all the segments posted up on Everytrail.
Ends up the Dead Horse parking lot was locked at 9a, and apparently was never opened (we were back there about 3p and it was still locked). Rumor was that it was supposed to open at 10a. The Sierra Club moved their start over to Trippet parking lot. I’ll bet with the fire closures, Santa Monica mtn parks are getting a lot more revenue from the refugee hikers. Will Rogers SP wants $12 to park now – whew! Meanwhile, my one year ANF Adventure Pass is going to waste.
Andy, I know how you feel about the Backbone – hopefully, I’ll be able to take a few days off of work this spring and hike the entire trek, because the Backbone sorely needs a full GPS route done … especially with those few small sections of unfinished trail.
If you want to put your Adventure Pass to work, maybe try trekking out to the Mount Baldy area before the snow settles in? There are some great hikes out there!