Horsetrough Spring (Black Star Canyon)

March 26 was a lovely day to take a long hike with my husband in search of Horsetrough Spring. The skies were blue, it was sunny, but not hot. It was a perfect spring day. My husband pointed out Horsetrough Spring on the map months ago when he spotted it on his Life360 app while I was hiking in Black Star Canyon. Pinpointing its location, I knew that we were headed for some heavy duty bushwhacking, which is not only physically challenging, but mentally as well – which is why we made a long day of it.

The canyon was practically empty on this Friday afternoon. We packed in a wonderful lunch and snacks and enjoyed them at the village on the way up (and the way back). Before moving off trail in search of the spring, we explored the Hidden Ranch area – the location of a terrible battle/massacre between American trappers and Tongva Indians who had stolen horses from Spanish landowners in 1831, and also the location where Henry Hungerford shot and killed James Gregg in a dispute over a pasturage bill in 1899. I always stop at the village when I’m in Black Star Canyon. This day was the first time I had hiked down into and explored Hidden Ranch.

The Village:Hidden Ranch Now:Hidden Ranch in 1966 (Courtesy of Santa Ana Public Library):

Not too far from Hidden Ranch, we stepped off the trail to our right at a dry creek bed. We remained with the creek bed for a while but eventually made our way across the meadow to the first of a series of rundown barbed wired fences. Following these series of fences, which all headed toward a line of sycamore trees in the distance, we came up on a trough with water being fed to it by a pipe. Well, that definitely confirmed that we were headed in the right direction. And so we headed off toward the line of sycamores where we encountered more barbed wire. Eventually the meadow disappeared and the vegetation had growth so thick that we separated. I headed up a slope where I could look down into a lush green area that we were certain the spring originated. My husband made his way through that terribly thick vegetation until he was finally beneath the green lush covered area. Though we had separated and I was standing on a slope up above him, he was still close enough that we could still speak to each other. He searched for the spring’s origin for some time. Looking at the lay of the land, I’m pretty convinced he found the location but couldn’t see it because the vegetation was so thick.

We paid only small prices for this wonderful day. My husband had to get a Tetanus shot due to a nasty cut from the barbed wire, and he also had a mild reaction to poison oak (he’s had much worse reactions in the past). As for myself, I got 3 tics! Three. I hate tics. I would much rather come up on a rattler than a tic. You can see rattlers, they make noises. Tics, not so much so. They are silent and sneaky. I found one behind my ear, one crawling on my scalp, and another attached to my scalp a whole day later!

The spring is somewhere in that clump of trees about mid picture (we believe):13.5 miles, 3,621ft of elevation gain.