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San Gorgonio
Wilderness
Last week starting out on Thursday, June 26th, Jeff and Julie and myself
spent two nights and three days hiking the trails of the San Gorgonio
Wilderness, summiting a little after noon on Friday. The weather was
perfect, and the scenery fabulous.
Starting from the Vivian Creek trail head at 6,080 ft, we hiked 4.7 miles to
High Creek Camp (9,200 ft) to spend the night. The first mile 1.5 miles of
this trail is very steep and somewhat strenuous with a pack. There was
several creeks along the way from which to replenish our drinking water.
Being warm we were drinking quite a bit. The evening was cool and clear,
with the temperature dropping down into the low 40's or a bit lower during
the night. We were able to get into the Palomar repeaters from camp, but
needed full power (5W) and a full size antenna - rubber ducky wouldn't do
it.
After a late start on Friday morning, we hiked to the summit, arriving a
little after noon. The hike up was great, fantastic scenery once you are out
of the woods after the first mile. Its 3 miles from High Creek camp to the
summit with an elevation gain of 2,300 feet. San Gorgonio, at 11,499 ft, is
the highest mountain in southern california. You can see many peaks from the
summit, San Jacinto is the closest, with Baldy and others a bit further
away. Palomar Mountain, with its observatory, and Mt Cuyamaca could easily
be seen.
There is no water from High Creek Camp to the summit, consequently we were
carrying all that our containers would hold. But even so, by the time we
reached the summit, it was obvious that we would be running dry before we
reached our destination for the evening. But as luck would have it, we ran
into several guys that were carrying 5 gallons each of drinking water (40
lbs) as a training exercise. Since it was their objective to dump it at the
summit, we were the beneficiaries of all the water we could drink and wanted
to carry.
We started back down from the summit a bit late in the day, probably a bit
after 2pm. Our camping spot for the night would be Dobbs camp along the
Momyer trail, 7.3 miles away with an elevation loss of 4,300 feet. Again
the scenery was fantastic, sparse open forest giving way to lush heavy
timbered slopes once we got past Dollar Lake Saddle (9,960 ft.) With the
late start from the summit we really had to push to make camp for the
evening. But as it turned out, we arrived a good hour before dark (Jeff, of
course) beat Julie and I by at least an hour. (I won't get into the details,
but he astonished at least one backpacker while cooling off in the stream
waiting for Julie and I to arrive:) The last three miles of the trail to
Dobbs is very lush with lots of big trees, ferns, and other bushes. Water is
available at three creeks in this last three mile section.
Dobbs is at the confluence of two very scenic creeks, with large trees, and
dense vegetation all around. Again the weather was great, but with Dobbs
being at 7,200 feet it was noticeably warmer than High Creek. Probably
didn't get colder than about 50 degrees during the night. With all the
water, Dobbs is plagued by mosquitoes and other flying nuisances-you
definitely need mosquito repellant at this campground. Thankfully after
dark, with the cooling temperature, the insect activity dropped
considerably.
In the morning we hiked down-stream from the camp to a series of about five
or so very nice water falls, again these were all gems - extremely nice with
ferns and flowers all around. Getting to the falls requires some boulder
hopping and scrambling along the edges of some steep slopes. As far as I
was concerned, the falls were the crowning jewel of a very nice hike.
Leaving the falls we hiked back up hill to the main trail and hiked down to
the Momyer Trail Head. The weather was very warm at these lower elevations,
and near the bottom we could really feel the hot wind coming up from the
valley below. The temperature was probably in the mid 90's by the time we
got down to the bottom. This last segment of the trip is 5.7 miles long with
elevation gain and loss being required to reach the trail head.
Once down, you have to cross boulder-strewn Mill Creek just a few hundred
yards from the trail head parking area. The water was cool and inviting, so
we spent some time lounging around in the water before going to the car for
the trip back home.
I would highly recommend this same trip to anyone who is up to the
moderately (some might say severely) strenuous nature of the hike. (19
miles not counting side trips with gain and loss of more than 5,400 feet)
I've included a couple of links below, which provide trail and permit
information.
Link to trail descriptions
http://www.sgwa.org/trails2.htm
Link to a trail map with mileages
http://www.sgwa.org/map2.htm
Happy Trails,
Bernie Lafreniere, N6FN
SysPro Engineering / Nifty! Accessories
320 E. Second Ave., Suite 109
Escondido, CA 92025
ph 760-781-5522
fax 760-739-8520
berniel@nctimes.net
http://www.niftyaccessories.com
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