Great Hike In San Gorgonio Wilderness
Went for a great hike today (05JUN2021)! No video as I was volunteering for the San Gorgonio Wilderness Association doing my first patrol. It was a bit unexpected as I had planned to attend their training on trail maintenance instead today.
I was planning to attend the trail maintenance training today and drove up to the work area last night. I camped in the parking lot which was nice as it was quiet, level and there are porta-potties there. It also meant that I didn’t have to get up early to drive up to San Gorgonio. The work area is on the Jenks Lake road and they have an area there where they keep their equipment and do training. As a volunteer I am allowed to camp there as well which is a nice added bonus. I got up there at about 7pm on Friday night and set about having my dinner and tucking in for a good night’s sleep. I just received a new camp stove so I was keen to try it out. My first impression of it is very good. A full review will be coming soon. I did some reading before going to bead and enjoyed the ambience from my little lantern that I use on almost empty fuel canisters. It is like a candle only brighter and gives a lovely light to the back of the truck.
Making dinner out the back of the truck at Jenks Lake.
This morning when people started arriving for the training class I was already up and helping to set up. The person who is in charge of the patrols suggested that since I had helped on some trail maintenance a couple years ago I didn’t need to stick around for this class and there was an experienced patrol person doing a day patrol that I could join. Luckily, although I didn’t plan to do a hike I did have all my hiking stuff with me so it was a quick transition from trail maintenance mode to hiking mode. The SGWA needs more people doing patrols so I think they are quite anxious to get me trained up and our doing patrols. The patrol was to do the Aspen Grove trail. This is a trail that I haven’t hiked but I am familiar with it as it joins into the Fish Creek trail which is a trail I like and have hiked on. We set out and got up to the trailhead parking lot which is on the Fish Creek forestry road. This was all happening so quickly I didn’t even get a chance to let anyone back home know my change of plans. Oh well, I figured the SGWA people knew where I was, so I was okay.
My Garmin InReach track from the hike. I forgot to turn off the tracking at the end so the track includes a bit of the driving down the trail.
It was a very nice hike and the I learned a lot about doing patrols. We saw a few people and talked with them. I had on a Forestry Volunteer shirt on while my mentor had a full Forestry service uniform on. It was interesting how people responded to seeing us on the trail. We talk with some people without permits and we advised that they should get a permit and the reasons why. We also saw some people that were not showing the best judgement so we were able to give them some advice and help. We also looked around the campground to make sure there were no fires there. Ultimately, our job is to be present and educate the public about the wilderness area and make sure they are recreating in a safe way. I enjoyed it a lot and we ended up hiking about 9 miles which was 9 miles more than I was expecting for this weekend. I am a bit tired but it was a good hike and a nice trail.
It was amazing to see all the burned out area and how it was coming back along this hike. This area was burned in 2015 and already the Aspen trees are growing back quite abundantly. There are a lot of burned pine trees that are going to end up falling and may cause another closure of this area due to the danger. The Lake Fire was caused by careless people so that is why a big part of our patrols is to look for fires and particularly in the campsites. There are no open fires allowed in the wilderness because of the extreme danger.
Back in 2019 this is an area that I helped with some trail maintenance to re-open after that fire. We worked on the Fish Creek portion of the trail. It was neat to see a couple of the signs that I helped to install and also to see some of the tress that we had worked on. One large one in particular will be there for many years before it rots away.
The Aspen Grove trail itself is a nice trail in the area. It does require driving a mile or two up a rough trail. The trail is totally drivable by most cars with reasonable clearance. The hike is on a gentle up slope after the initial drop into the valley. There are lots of aspens only a quarter mile into the trail. I guess they would be very pretty in the fall when the leaves change. We ended up hiking almost 4.5 miles up this trail all the way to Fish Camp which is a wilderness campground on the Fish Creek trail. With a lot of the trees burned there isn’t a lot of shade on this trail so on a hot day it would be a scorcher but then most hikes in Southern California are lacking in shade and can be tough when it is hot.