Pics.
The Islip Ridge Trail is beautiful, although it can get tough to follow once you get above 7000' (if you lose it, think like a trail and you'll find it - sometimes it has switched back on you). The portion of the Big Cienega Trail I was on has quite a bit of dead fall on it as you leave the ridge but it clears up the lower you go. The Lost Ridge Trail is...um...a pain in the ass. I was able to follow it, mostly, but had to bushwhack and do a bit of route finding in a couple of places where downed trees, etc. obscured things. In need of a lot of cleaning.
The Tom Harrison Map "Angeles High Country" accurately shows all of these trails, especially the Lost Ridge Trail. The topo map that ACME mapper uses, on the other hand, fails spectacularly at accuracy for any of the trails I was on - ACME FAIL!
See the first six pictures linked above for a description of how to find the trail head for the Islip Ridge Trail - will help avoid the scrambling some of you have described in your TRs. More info in the titles and description of the pictures in the link above. I hope to add a GPS record too - if I get around to it.
Great views of Twin Peaks...
Was hoping to run into Hikin_Jim out there today but our schedules and routes didn't cross. Hope you had fun HJ!
