That day, we ended up doing a hike that I’d heard about several times, passed more than a few times – the trail from Route 2 down into Devils Canyon, in the San Gabriel Wilderness Area within the Angeles National Forest. We went to the bottom as far as the first trail camp, but you can keep going along trail, and then bushwhack (and canyoneer?) even further if you so choose. I went with Ben, Joe, Erin, and Crystal on the first and last trip I ever managed to drag her on. The hike was 7 miles RT, give or take, with about 1500′ of loss and gain.
This was a great little trail that I’d been meaning to do for somewhile. We drove up to just before Chilao and parked in the lot for this hike, and got on our way. Being a canyon, it is of course all the way down on the way in, but the trail is nicely graded and in good shape. In fact, I thought it was *very* well graded, I was pretty impressed. It was warm, but not ridiculous.
my one real photo of crystal…better believe I’m putting it in!
We went about 3.5 miles to reach a trail camp on the shore of the creek at the bottom of the canyon. It was an obvious place to stop and take a break, and eat our lunch. We then hung out and looked at the creek, which had a fair bit of water and was really rather beautiful. It’s in the San Gabriel Wilderness area, which means that there are no roads and no further construction, so even for the San Gabriels, it felt a little more aloof, even if the trailhead did drop in right off of the highway.
After hanging out for a bit, we returned the way we came. It was all in all a pretty mellow hike, but one I would definitely recommend to other people. I always hear people warned against canyon hikes, since, obviously, you need to go up on the way out, but this one just never felt that bad, due to the generally level gradation of the entrance/exit trail. And the creek at the bottom was really quite nice, and I would say it was a pretty high reward/effort ratio. No great views, but the stream is really pleasant given the general scarcity of water in the San Gabriels.
joe takes a shot
ben wanders along, looking at the pretty
