This hike was a bit of a haul. We started at Eaton Canyon, and went Henninger Flats –> Idlehour Trail –> Inspiration Point–> Echo Mountain –> Altadena. This was a total of 13 miles and 4100′ of gain, according to Trip #28 in Trails of the Angeles.
On the trail heading up
Wooha. This was quite some hike. So, I called up Chris (or email, whatever) and said I was thinking of going hiking, and he said he already had this sort of plan with Adina and a whole crew, where he and JQ were going on a hike, and meeting up with Adina et al. at Inspiration Point. So, Chris and JQ picked me up , and we went and parked the car at Eaton Canyon, and headed off. The first part of this trip just goes the standard way towards the Eaton Canyon waterfall, but pretty quickly sticks to the right, heading up the fireroad to Henninger Flats, which I had never been on before. It is broad, wide, fire road, in full exposure, so I was pretty glad it was a fairly cool winter day. There were a lot of people out on the road, which is pretty normal as I understand it, though I was pretty impressed at the people biking uphill past us. While broad and easy, it was definitely a solid slog uphill.
The trail passes right by several large power pylons
View of downtown LA through the haze
We finally made it up to Henninger Flats, which I really enjoyed. It’s a wide, grassy + trees area, with a campground, small visitor center, and various other buildings. It looks like it would be a really nice place to camp! We took a short break there and had a snack, and I checked out the stuffed animals (ie, taxidermy) and then continued on up the Mt Wilson toll road.
JQ and I up at the Henninger sign
The little visitor center shows us this ever so playful raccoon
We took this route for a bit, and then turned off to the left, over a small footbridge, to head onto much narrower singletrack Idlehour trail. This went up and over a hill, over a small mostly try creek area that still had some great ferns, and then began descending into a steep canyon. I could identify where the stream bed was by seeing the stripe of winter grey deciduous trees amongst the chaparral. There was also a variety of rock color here, which was neat. Once we arrived at the bottom, the trail headed downstream for a bit, hoping over a fair number of logs, before turning to the side and bringing us to the site of Idlehour Trail Camp.
Grey and red rocks, and the streambed cutting through. Color changes mean…everything.
From there, we continue up the path of another creek, with some bits trail, and some boulder hopping. This was certainly the least travelled part of all the paths we went over, though even here we did see another person. The trail then started going up, and up…and definitely on a bit farther than I would have really anticipated. It cut through the burned area as well, though some minor regrowth had begun, but it did make that part of the slope much more open and sunny than it would have been otherwise. After a fair amount of this up, it finally tops out at the Mt. Lowe fire road, just west of the ramada at Inspiration Point.
Chris “holding up” some trees for me; JQ and Chris cutting through the regrowth on the burn area.
Thataway for inspiration!
We went over to that point, and me and JQ kind of collapsed for a little bit, while Chris went to explore one of the hills next to the structure. We had a snack, and then after a bit, Adina and her crew of people showed up. They had come up from Altadena via Echo Mountain. They also sat around and ate a bit, and we all chatted, before heading down. I have to admit, I was pretty wrecked at this point and my feet were pretty sore, but a couple people kept me company at one point or another on the route down (Castle Canyon –> Echo –> Altadena), a route I had done many times =before. I wasn’t that great a conversationalist, and I was definitely lagging behind more and more as we got to the bottom, so much so that by the time I arrived, everyone except Chris, JQ, and Adina (who was giving us a ride back to our car) had actually left already. Oh well. They walked, and I hobbled, over to where Adina had parked, and she drove us back, a bit before gate-locking time, to where we had left JQs car. At which point, we found that….the car had a flight tire! Oh, sigh, the end of a long day. Nonetheless, we got the spare loaded on, and it was all a reasonable ending to a day with a long hike.
Finally getting to the ramada, and having all of our bases covered when we got there
Birds playing in the updrafts in front of us
