9/3/2010
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As of Sept 3rd at noon, the Cowboy Fire has burned 719 acres and is 42% contained. The Cowboy fire is burning between Potrero and Campo near the PCT. At this time, Cal Fire is not allowing hikers in the area. At this time hikers should not utilize the trail south of Lake Morena County Park. If conditions change, the park could be evacuated so please contact them if you plan to hike in this area (619) 478-5473.
For more information on fire conditions contact the Cowboy Fire information Line at (619) 590-3160.
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4/28/2010
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HIked PCT section 4/26-27. Trail covered in snow from area above Andreas Canyon to Saddle Junction. Sketchy snow slopes to traverse. Good route finding skills recommended to navigate over snow to saddle junction. Looked like more of the same continuing north towards Fuller Ridge from Saddle Junction. Devil's Slide trail to idyllwild is in great shape minus a few downed trees over the trail. Dont count on water at tahquitz valley trail, because it is all covered in snow. Bring extra water, or extra fuel to melt snow.
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4/27/2010
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http://www.mtsanjacinto.info/viewtopic.php?t=2214
We have had a helluva winter!
Conditions have been pretty bad, at San Jacinto: A late storm and lots of ice accumulated. This year will be a late start for the sane, this local reports... danger-rangers beware!
Looking forward to good times in Idylwild, to points north...
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4/18/2010
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Four of us have just cleared around San Jacinto and over Fuller Ridge. It is a very difficult passage requiring ice axe, crampons and mountaineering experience. It took us 2 1/2 days. Serious exposure and potential danger are commonplace. Anyone attempting to cross must have navigational experience, as the trail is completely buried under snow for miles and miles and miles. I recommend a USGS topo map as required. Forget the half mile maps.
It doesn't look like the snow will be gone anytime soon. I will be at the Kickoff next weekend and would be happy to discuss the conditions and our route with anyone. This report is being transferred by telephone from 7300 feet, high above Interstate 10.
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3/22/2010
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3/20/10 Mexican Boarder to Sunrise Trail head mile 59. 3 miles from Campo ranchers cutting a tree next to the trail warned us of a couple of mountain Lions in the area that had been attacking there livestock. We saw many mountain lion foot prints on the trail to Lake Morena but none after that. No snakes, too early I guess, A few blow downs between Mt Laguna and Sunrise trail head. Snow mostly gone on Mount Laguna only a few patches. Trail was getting pretty brushy starting at about mile 50. Plenty of streams flowing but will probably dry up over the next month.
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2/17/2010
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Hiked from southern terminus, heading for Lake Morena on Feb. 15. Despite the use of GPS, maps, and compass, we lost the trail shortly after the railroad track crossing. There were no more signs and multiple trails branching off so that we could not discern the PCT trail path. With the help of our GPS system we bushwacked in the general direction of Lake Morena, but did not find the PCT trail again until we arrived at the lake.
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1/31/2010
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January 28-29. Mexican Border to Lake Moreno. Trail showed some minor erosion, but was in good shape, with the exception of the segment that descends into to Hauser Creek. The last mile before reaching the creek showed significant erosion.
The springs and drainages had trickles of water. Good water for pumping on the decscent to Hauser Creek from a small waterfall.
Manzanita was in bloom and the valleys were green. Very spectacular, but there was ice on the packs in the morning.
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11/5/2009
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here is some info straight from the forest service fire zone inspection team
the U.S. Forest Service scientists who have spent the last two weeks in the San Gabriel Mountains examining the effects of the Station fire are like forensic pathologists combing a crime scene.
Except in this case, the patient is still alive.
"We're more like doctors, and our patient is ill. We're trying to figure out how to make it better," said Roath, regional director of post-burn analysis and a 33-year Forest Service veteran.
Although the 45-member team's report will remain under wraps for some time, the preliminary findings are in: Don't pray for rain.
Using sophisticated burn maps generated by satellite imagery and factoring in the breathtaking steepness of the now-denuded hillsides, the scientists warn that even moderate winter rain could trigger landslides and catastrophic debris flows capable of inundating many of the San Gabriels' 37 foothill communities.
Beyond that, the scientists concluded that although 250 square miles of the Angeles National Forest burned, the trees and chaparral in the fire-adapted ecosystem will bounce back.
However, much of the wildlife that makes its home in the 655,000-acre forest was killed or dislocated. Biologists say they found an unusually high number of large animals caught by the fast-moving fire. Teams have come across carcasses of bears, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes and gray foxes, apparently unable to find escape routes.
"Deer took a big hit," said Kevin Cooper, a wildlife biologist.
The BAER team (for Burned Area Emergency Response) worked 14-hour days to complete its work, retreating each night to laptops at the "BAER Den," a Residence Inn conference room in Burbank.
Specialists were on the ground in every part of the 160,000-acre burn area, measuring, photographing and testing. The team included soil scientists, hydrologists, archaeologists, botanists, wildlife experts and a hazardous materials crew. The fire peeled back a layer of cover to reveal unknown Native American oven sites, scores of illegal dumps and a stash of 50-gallon drums filled with an as-yet unidentified liquid.
One day last week, Roath steered a white Forest Service SUV up the Angeles Crest Highway, which was closed to the public but nonetheless busy. Crews used graders to clear boulders, semi-tractor-trailers hauled debris and workers with chain saws cut trees that threatened to fall across traffic lanes.
Overhead, helicopters carried water-dropping buckets or ferried dangling loads of replacement utility poles.
For the most part, the landscape was devoid of color. Gray-white ash has banked in places, like dandruff on the shoulders of the mountains. Roath, a soil scientist who began his Forest Service career on the Angeles, is still awed by the immense natural forces once marshaled to lift this mountain range that is still rising and settling.
He noted that debris cones -- accumulated rock and sand at the bottom of sharply defined ridges -- are sprouting up everywhere, as though the mountains are shedding dead skin.
The San Gabriel Mountains have the potential to unleash calamity under normal circumstances, without the overlay of fire to complicate things. They are mountains on the move; the rock is fractured and disintegrating.
Roath said that as BAER team members collected their data, they could hear the rattling sound of mountains falling.
"In some cases boulders are coming down from gravity alone. They don't need rain," Roath said.
Vegetation plays a critical role in shoring up hillsides. When rains come, the drops hit the plant canopy first, which slows the water and distributes it more evenly into the soil. Absent vegetation, rain pounds down and washes away topsoil, sand, small rocks and burned plant material.
Thus begins a process that scientists call "entraining" -- the terrible freight of broken mountainside that gathers energy as it roars inexorably downhill.
Storms cause sediment to back up in ravines already loaded with fire debris. The flow bulges and spreads, picking up larger stones, then boulders. It gains speed as it descends, blowing obstacles out of its way. That debris, too, joins the train. As highway culverts become full, the entire river of rock flows over the roadway, collapsing it.
The broken asphalt then becomes a passenger on the cascading wreckage.
Trees, automobiles and houses scarcely slow the torrent.
"Debris flows are a little hard to control," said Sue Cannon, a debris flow expert with the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, adding that the San Gabriels present a "classic setting for major debris flow."
Along the upper Big Tujunga Road, fire appeared to have followed the drainage, burning trees that straddled the creek, leaving "a pretty well-toasted riparian area," said Jan Beyers, a Forest Service plant ecologist.
Cooper, the wildlife biologist, noted that the Station fire took out trees along the streams, such as white alder. Large trees are like straws, sucking water from rivers and streams, and in their absence, he said, there has been a measurable increase in stream levels in the Angeles National Forest.
Elsewhere along the road, a row of roasted pine trees offered clues to the fire's behavior. Their brown needles point sideways, petrified at an acute angle, like a heavily gelled hairdo. This, the scientists explained, is an example of "fire freeze," the result of a hot wind blasting through, wringing the last drop of moisture out of the tree.
Where some see withered plants and scoured hillsides, Beyers sees decades of patient aspiration come to fruition -- the "shooters and seeders."
Trees that have lost limbs to fire will grow new, sturdier arms. Plants that have been annually depositing seeds in subterranean "seed banks" will be rewarded with young growth rising out of soil rejuvenated with nitrogen-bearing nutrients.
"There are seeds in the soil here that have been waiting decades for this chance," she said wistfully.
Indeed, for some growing things, fire is a bonanza. Certain species of conifers require heat to release seeds from their tightly closed cones. Some plants need the fire's heat to crack hard seed coatings in order to sprout. Some plants thrive on the chemicals produced from ash leaching into soil. Smaller bushes, crowded out by larger neighbors before the fire, flourish afterward in their newfound elbow room.
The seed caches of ground-dwelling rodents will be disinterred, and the still-viable seeds dispersed by ants and birds, everyone pitching in to repair their habitat.
In the San Gabriels' chaparral system, more plants survive fire than most people think, Beyers said. That's explained, in part, because of "fire residence," or the length of time that flames and heat linger in a particular spot. Chaparral plant communities don't produce a lot of leaf litter or vegetation that accumulates on the ground, which would become fuel for fires.
Then there is the profusion of wildflowers that will debut in the spring. The fire followers: purple lupines, morning glories, California poppies, larkspurs, wild sweet peas and snapdragons.
"Ten years from now," Beyers said, taking in the charred hillside and smiling, "you can come back here and never know there was a fire at all."
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10/27/2009
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previous closures are being lifted in certain areas.
The station fire closure extends from Islip Saddle on Hwy 2 to Acton. but the eastern part from Islip saddle on highway 2 is open for the PCT the hwy is closed but the trail is open.
The trail switches over to the southern side of Hwy 2 through little jimmy spring to Throop Mtn to Mount burnham to Mount baden Powel to Blue Ridge to Wrightwood.So it stays out of the closure area.
The short section after Wrightwood which follows the ridge between Lytle Creek and lone pine is closed, but lone pine canyon is open down to the pct.
You can enter the PCT from Either the Burkhart trail in juniper hills by devils punchbowl ( that's just east of where I live) or to the south fork of Big rock creek to Islip saddle, then continue on to Blueridge where you drop into Wrightwood down the still snow-less Mountain High ski slope roads, into Wrightwood.
The best route is to walk up Escondido canyon to soledad canyon, to sierra hwy, to angels national forest to mt Emma rd to ft Tejon to Valyermo,rd to big rock creek then hit the trail to south fork trail to hwy 2, then back up into high country.
I live in this area, on Pleasantview ridge, so contact me for information, trail angel help, transport help, or emergency evac, at Canoeman@qnet.com
cell phone 661-317-1078 Perry
Please be careful when traversing the section from Cheseboro rd to Big Rock Creek, as it is all private property.
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6/16/2009
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Walked the sub-section from Fobes Saddle to Devil's slide June 13-14, 2009 and the hike was magnificent with spectacular wild flowers all the way. Trail had very few,easily traversed obstacles and two crews were doing a great job of spiffing up the trail.
Apache springs was flowing but no other water until near the Saddle. Great dry camp at top of Apple Canyon.
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5/12/2009
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TEMPORARY ROAD AND CAMPGROUND CLOSURES
CLEVELAND NATIONAL FOREST
San Diego, CA –May 11, 2009…To protect public health and safety, the Cleveland National Forest (Cleveland NF) has closed some roads and a campsite. The Fred Fire on the Descanso Ranger District of the Cleveland National Forest (Cleveland NF) is approximately five acres in size and has been 90 percent contained. The fire began on the evening of Tuesday, May 5, approximately six miles east of Pine Valley, when dry vegetation was ignited by the crash of a Marine AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter. Two marines were killed in the helicopter crash.
Munitions that had been carried by the attack helicopter and were scattered as a result of the crash have made it unsafe for firefighters to fight the blaze from the ground, so suppression activity has occurred via helicopter. Military explosive/ordnance specialists are scheduled to detonate the remaining munitions in the area on May12. Residents within 10 miles of the site may hear explosions when the munitions are detonated. Clean-up of remaining debris will continue. The Cleveland NF will have adequate fire resources near the site to fight any additional fire starts.
Military explosive/ordnance specialists are inspecting the area to make sure it is safe before allowing firefighters to enter and extinguish the flames. The wreckage was discovered about two miles north of Interstate 8 near Kitchen Creek Road, near a road accessible only by four-wheel-drive vehicles. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
Descanso Ranger District
The Cibbetts Flat Campground is closed until further notice.
Kitchen Creek Road - Road closed from south entrance at Interstate 8. Road accessible from Sunrise Highway for 1.5 miles. Road closed at this point.
Thing Valley Road is closed at Sunrise Highway at north entrance and from the south off Old Highway 80.
The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) has been closed in the area of Kitchen Creek. PCT traffic will be re-directed to follow Kitchen Creek Road to Mt. Laguna.
The closures may remain in effect until further notice.
Individuals or organizations holding special use permits for sanctioned activities within the Cleveland NF should contact their local ranger district office for access information.
Check before you go for updated information.
o Forest offices are open Monday - Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
o For the Cleveland National Forest Supervisor’s Office dial (858) 673-6180.
o For Alpine, Descanso, and Laguna Mountain Area contact the Descanso Ranger District at (619) 445-6235.
For Palomar Mountain, Henshaw, Ramona and Oak Grove areas contact the Palomar Ranger District at (760) 788-0250.
o For the Ortega Hwy area, San Mateo and Corona area, contact the Trabuco Ranger District at (951) 736-1811.
www.fs.fed.us/r5/cleveland.
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4/1/2009
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went to walker pass, water off at campground (of course). Canebreak creek a steady foot-wide flow... not gonna last forever, though.
chimney creek campground looks great. limited snow on trail between walker pass and campground.
kennedy meadows snow-free and glorious. snowy peaks visible in distance, yee-haw!
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Before Trip
