This past Saturday (January 30) I covered some new territory on a point-to-point hike in the same mountains that I always hike, the Santa Ana Mountains (home to Old Saddleback or Saddleback Mountain, my happy place). As is the nature of most point-to-points (unless you take a bus or some other public transportation) you don’t do it alone, which meant that I got to enjoy some company on this long one-way trip. Under darkness, I met running/hiking friend Kelly and her friend Lilly down Black Star Canyon Road. That was a little eerie being that it was pitch-black dark with no illumination from city lights. From there, Kelly drove us to our starting location, off of the 91 Freeway where we parked at the Green River Golf Course. According to Google Maps, that put us in Yorba Linda. It also appears that the golf course is located within in Chino Hills State Park, as are much of the foothills around the area.
We took off just as the sun was rising and found our way to the foothills by way of a wildlife corridor that runs beneath the 91. It was dang cold, probably not freezing, but just a few degrees above. My flimsy buff covered all but my eyes on most of the climb up Coal Canyon. The climb was immediate and in no time we were above the clouds with views of snow capped mountains in the distance. We wasted some time on this leg of the trip pulling the cameras/phones out at all the scenic spots. It really was breathtaking.
The road up Coal Canyon was jumping with new growth, ready to burst for spring. Several miles up the canyon we came upon a grove of young Christmas-looking trees that I later learned are Tecate cypresses. They gave off a strong fresh, amazingly magical aroma that matched perfectly with it’s bright green foliage. Back at home I did some research and learned that these grow only in three places. Three. We were in one of them, Carbon Canyon. I felt lucky once again out on the trails – lucky that we came upon this grove and that we noticed their specialness without having to read it online beforehand. (I will return for the sole purpose of checking in on these trees again, as much of them were destroyed in recent fires, and this was part of the glorious new-growth that inevitably occurs some years after a fire rolls through.)
After about 8 miles of climbing we summitted Sierra Peak, my first summit of Sierra Peak. It was amazingly crowded, with most of the 20+ hikers coming up together as a group. I couldn’t have been more thrilled to summit another peak in my mountains. The views were spectacular of The San Gabriels across the immense flatlands of San Bernadino, Riverside and Los Angeles Counties – somewhere down there was where I grew up, just a few short miles from the San Gabriels.
Though it had warmed enough to remove the beanie and gloves, it was still a bit chilly at Sierra Peak. The area was spread out enough also, making it easy enough to keep our distance from the others. Though our governor has lifted a statewide “shelter-in-place,” social distancing is still the protocol. (As a side note, though it is a highly debated topic in our area on whether or not masks help prevent the spreading of COVID, we did wear masks in the automobile since we were in closed quarters. Out hiking however, we went mask-less).
Before reaching the peak, we had turned off onto Leonard Road (some more new territory for me) and after summitting, we enjoyed a little downhill continuing off on Leonard Road. We had some nice and easy rolling hills for a bit, coming up to Skyline Trail a couple miles later. And just a little bit after Skyline, Black Star Canyon Road – I was in familiar territory! We stopped for some snacks at a photo-op here. And then we began the 8 mile trek back our cars. It was pretty much all downhill for those 8 miles – good thing because I was pretty beat by then.
What a trip!
Approx. 19.25 miles (our watches varied), w/ 3,370 ft of gain.
