Red Box to West Fork Campground 06.05.11

[robnokshus]

(No pics, since all I had with me was my crapberry and I would just have to explain what the picture was anyway.)

Went on a splendid hike down to West Fork CG on Sunday. We (my wife Robbin & I and our two canine hiking buddies, Maggie and Ozzy) left Burbank a little after 9am and enjoyed a nice drive up the fantastically rehabilitated Angeles Crest Highway. What a difference a year and a half makes! Last time we had driven that section was the short window in between the Station Fire and the highway's closing that winter. At that time it was just a barren moonscape-all shades of gray and white and black. Sunday was an explosion of color! Verdant hillsides blooming with all manor of wildflowers in every color of the spectrum. No doubt the last two wet winters have helped to rejuvenate our lovely San Gabriels. Many of the trees are showing new signs of life as well. I suppose the mountains are just doing their thing, like they have been for millions of years. Really beautiful though.

As soon as you clear La Canada, the immense operation that CalTrans has been undertaking becomes visible. New catch basins, massive hillside stabilization and lots of big new turnouts were evident at nearly every turn. Very impressive. Finally. My tax dollars spent appropriately.

I'm guessing that the news of the highways re-opening hasn't caught fire with a lot of folks yet, because there were maybe two or three other vehicles in the Red Box parking area when we arrived. We started down the trail around 10 under partly cloudy skies and cool temps in the low 60s. Just below the first batch of switchbacks we ran into a few young hikers and what appeared to be their scout leaders on their way up. They had spent the night at Valley Forge. One of the gentlemen commented that a trail crew had been working on the trail just past Valley Forge on the way to West Fork but had halted their progress at the point where the Baldy Vista comes into view. He mentioned that the trail beyond was “loose.” We bid them a good day and continued on down.

I had never hiked this stretch of the Gabrielino trail before, my plans of hiking the entire loop in '09 being dashed by the Station Fire, and I found myself many times wishing to myself that I had seen this area before the blaze. That being said, it was a beautiful hike! As with many of the burn areas, prodigious amounts of wildflowers are bursting out where before, chaparral would have choked them out. Mostly the Mt. Wilson side of the trail was spared while the other side burned down almost to the river. I also enjoyed watching the West Fork transform from a small, trickle of a stream to the swiftly coursing river it becomes by the time you near West Fork CG. We passed what appeared to be boarded up Forest Service buildings at the .9 mile mark (anyone know what those are?) and several cabins, all unscathed by the fire. We reached Valley Forge CG and stopped for a bite to eat and a little exploring. There has been quite a bit of work completed here: new benches and tables have been constructed, a new footbridge linking yet another campsite, and at least one new campfire grate. Again, nice to see my tax dollars deployed in this manor.

From Valley Forge we went back up to the Gabrieleno Trail towards West Fork CG. We walked through a burnt section that was full of these beautiful, minty-smelling purple flowers from 4-6 feet tall. Contrasted with the blackened branches it was quite a sight. As we rounded the bend, the Baldy vista that the scout leader had mentioned to us came into view and we shortly came to the terminus of the trail crews labors. The trail grew more sketchy as we proceeded, narrow and crumbly. We went under one large fallen tree, across a creek and over another. We rounded the next bend and at the next creek crossing the trail basicly just disappeared. You could make out where it had been and I could see where it picked up again up at the next bend, but, not knowing the condition beyond that, we decided to double back to Valley Forge and take the road down to West Fork CG. This proved to be a good decision as the walk down river along the road was most pleasant. Wildflowers bursting forth everywhere you looked, I felt like I was tripping through some impressionists Absynthian hallucination. It was glorious. We improvised a couple of crossings where the river ran over the road and rolled on into West Fork Cg, encountering the first people since the scouts previously. A group of 4 mountain bikers who had just descended Rattlesanke, they confirmed to us the prudence of our decision to take the road when we mentioned the condition of the trail and one replied “Trail? What trail? The trail is gone!” He had just come from across the river where he had inspected the Silver Moccasin trail and concluded that it didn't look like it had been traveled recently, saying he saw not a single footprint.

I noticed a couple of new campfire grates at West Fork CG as well though it doesn't appear that anyone has camped there recently, judging from all of the acorns on top of all of the tables. The swimming hole here was nice and deep and would be very inviting on a hot, summer day. We ate what was left of our food and started ambling back the way we came since it was now around 2pm. We were in no hurry and just soaked up the beauty as we walked along, everyone, dogs and humans just having a grand old time out in the woods...

[arctic_grayling]

very nice TR, sounds like a beautiful day.

i can confirm the rugged condition of the silver moccasin "trail" down shortcut canyon. i tried to hike down to the WF campground 2 weeks ago via shortcut canyon and was rebuffed by the dense foliage that paralleled the creek at the bottom of the canyon. it was still passable, but despite the beautiful day (and the amazing wildflowers), hacking through a bunch of bushes that may or may not be concealing poison ivy just wasn't very pleasant.

[MattCav]

Thanks for the TR! I've been wondering about this stretch!