After the heavy loads of winter, my pack felt like nothing as I tossed it into the trunk. Summer is here. Craig’s wife was super nice to give us a lift to the start. She laughed a bit when we told her the forecast. We should be on the trail by 9pm, and the forecast says 30mph winds for our first night on Baden Powell’s summit.
Only one problem with that plan, though. The road is closed at Islip saddle. We had no idea, so we all just kinda sat there a minute staring at the closed gate with a dumb look on our faces as the wind whistled outside and rocked the car back and forth a little bit.
“umm.”
Okay, well let’s just start walking from here and find a place to camp somewhere. Then we get out. Immediately clothes starts flapping loud and dust blows into my eye and my hat blows off and damn I'm cold and we scramble around trying to just get our crap and get moving . Quick pose for a picture. Craig gets a goodbye kiss but for some reason me and Michael don’t, and off we go up the trail holding our hats down.
None of us really did much homework for this ahead of time. Our plan to sleep Thursday night on Baden Powell and finish the 60ish miles by Sunday was now cut short by maybe 15 miles. That night we kept our headlamps off and enjoyed the moon and strong wind so much that we rambled on along a ridge right past our trail for almost an hour before we realized. Grand views of Wrightwood and the high desert spread out below like a sea of lights, and then turn a corner and suddenly you’re looking in the opposite direction at Los Angeles and lights all the way out to the coast.
Finally, we stop to see where the hell we are. Craig estimates almost a mile off route and my smartphone confirms the accuracy of his judgment. We get a good laugh, and now I’m shivering quite a bit, and we pick our way back along the ridge in the dark and finally find the trail again and drop down into the warm, sweet darkness of the canyon where we settle in around 1am.
The morning sun finds us yawning and stretching on a cushy bed of pine needles on a tiny flat just big enough for three. One by one we begin to stir, quietly heating water, beginning our morning rituals while still in our bags. These quiet mornings are often what I remember and crave the most.
Soon we’re on the move again. As always, a lively conversation moves the day along nicely. Sometimes I can’t figure out if these two are commies, hippies, preppers, or what the hell, but I always get a good laugh and often come away from these talks with new things to think about or fresh view points on certain issues that I’m dealing with.
Cooper Canyon scrolls by. Babbling brooks, burly old pines jutting sideways out of marbled granite, shadows shaped like crows gliding across the canyon floor. Some nonsense about how hiking-related movies suck, and about internal and external sources of suffering, fills in the gaps. Somewhere along the way we decide to try and make lunch more interesting by bringing food for sharing, a proper spread that we enjoy together, instead of meals prepared for ourselves individually. I look forward to doing that more.
The last several miles to Horse Flats contains a surprising number of small springs that cross the trail, but we pass them by since the ranger on the phone said there was water at Horse Flats. Not sure why the hell I all of sudden took to asking rangers anything. There was no water. But there were friendly campers, and they had water, so maybe that’s what he meant. We made ourselves comfortable for the night among the sagebrush, boulders and pines, just west of Horse Flats.
The final day, we dropped down rapidly along the headwaters of Tujunga, along Shortcut Canyon, and down into the West Fork of the San Gabriel River. Along the way, we wasted plenty of time locating water and discussing trail bar recipes at Chilao, identifying edible plants and having Michael sample any of the toxic ones, including a poodle dog bush which he rubbed on his lips, and stopping in the San Gabriel River to soak our feet and feed mosquitos. We arrived at Chantry Flats just as it got dark, after climbing out on the access road which was so steep that Craig was placing protection and belaying Michael across the trickier sections.
The final stage of the hike was definitely the toughest for me. Not on the steep descent down into Chantry, or even on the steep climb back up to the car. No, the very last bit, from the pizza place to the car, after consuming almost toxic quantities pizza and hot wings and beer. That parking lot section was a total death march.
