East Ridge ascent to West Mt. Fuji & Mt Lowe Benchmarks

Girl Hiker · Post by **Girl Hiker** » Sat Jan 28, 2017 6:37 am

Last Sunday, I invited my 2 hiking buddies Bob and Christian to accompany me on a newly restored trail that my friend Jeremiah has worked on. Jeremiah and I previously hiked this trail and it was so cool I brought my friends along. It is the OER that is located off the Altadena Crest Trail. It's a very cool trail that eventually ascends up the East Ridge off trail, bagging West Mt. Fuji.

After we hiked past the ACT onto the OER we could see awesome views of the canyon below.

Jeremiah did an awesome job cleaning up the trail.

Some parts of the trail are narrow and due to the recent rains there are some washed out areas. I think my friend is exaggerating a bit much.

Part of this trail was completely washed out and Jermiah constructed some steps.

After crossing the man made steps it continues to a shady trail.

After hiking through some slightly thick brush and shaded trees we went off trail where we took a break on a H20 Tank.

Behind the water tank begins the first stretch of the steep trail towards the ridge. We put some markers to lead the way because the brush gets a little thicker and the trail seems to disappear.

Eventually, you approach a really cool find the Mt. Lowe Reference Marks. One of them is hidden in some brush, but I only found 2 of them.

Looking towards West Mt. Fuji as the fog rolls in.

Behind the Mt. Lowe Reference marks there is more thick brush but you find your way towards a saddle which is just before the final push up to West Mt. Fuji. View of the trail after the reference marks before it disappears and you scramble onto some more thick brush

You come to a saddle just before the final push up to the summit.

There blue and pink markers along the way.

Whooohoooo!!! West Mt. Fuji summit with my hiking buddies.

Jeremiah and friends.

View from the summit

We soon descended down the Lone tree trail that Sean has maintained.

Interesting fungus after the rains.

The recent rains contributed to the beautiful green grass on the trail.

We decided not to descend all the way down the Lone Tree Trail. Instead, we took a turn off down the old Rubio Canyon Pavillion crossing the creek.

There was plenty of water in the stream.

and some really cool fungus..

This is a really nice hidden trail which probably will no longer be a secret that very few of us know about. It was so much fun I had to brag about it! But if you find it please admire the awesome trail work and keep it clean! Take advantage of the fun bush wacking and scrambling adventure. If you get far you will see a cool little spot under a tree where Jeremiah has place a Geocache in a secret location.

Post by **Sean** » Sun Jan 29, 2017 11:10 am

Thanks for the report. It's nice to see the old trail back in action. Nice picture of the fungi on the log.

Girl Hiker · Post by **Girl Hiker** » Sun Jan 29, 2017 2:28 pm

Sean wrote: ↑Thanks for the report. It's nice to see the old trail back in action. Nice picture of the fungi on the log.

It's an awesome trail. I posted another pic of the same Witches Butter fungus I found in flora and fauna. Its a beautiful type of Fungus!

Post by **dima** » Sun Jan 29, 2017 5:03 pm

Thanks for the writeup! I'm a bit unclear on the geography about what the new trails are. So there's a new connector from the Altadena Crest trail to the old Edison service road, and the section of the road from the connector to the first set of towers on the Lone Tree trail was cleaned up? Is there more? What about the Edison road East of the junction? The people doing the trail work rock!

Girl Hiker · Post by **Girl Hiker** » Mon Jan 30, 2017 6:46 am

dima wrote: ↑Thanks for the writeup! I'm a bit unclear on the geography about what the new trails are. So there's a new connector from the Altadena Crest trail to the old Edison service road, and the section of the road from the connector to the first set of towers on the Lone Tree trail was cleaned up? Is there more? What about the Edison road East of the junction? The people doing the trail work rock!

Hi Dima,
The connector has always been there from the ACT to the OER. it was very overgrown and easily missed, however, it has now been cleared. A few repairs have been made on the washout sections.
The connector trail from the first set of towers is still there.
Its best to start up the East Ridge from the old Huntington Camp area to the ACT to the connetor trail that leads to the OER.
At first my friend didnt want anyone to know about this cool trail because hes afraid people might not respect it but if you are exploring in the area you can obviously see it. We also put blue and pink markers in the brushy off trail areas as you start to climb up the East Ridge.
I know you will like it its a fun steep scramble past the watertank!

David R · Post by **David R** » Sun Feb 05, 2017 1:02 pm

Did the hike this morning as a warm-up for Super Bowl Sunday. The work on the SCE trail is quite impressive and is still going on as far as the crossing over Pine. We started up the ridge by the transmission towers. We didn't see any evidence of passage up this ridge but there was a slight opening at the start of the ridge and it had a nice gradient so it made the most sense to me as the way up. I was surprised to not see any ribbons as the write up suggested or cutting but the route while brushy was easily passable. Upon reaching the Mt. Lowe benchmark I saw the ribbons coming up the next ridge to the east. I assume that is the route that has been created but my ridge is faster.

From there it was very foggy but the ridge was evident. The amount of ribbons is excessive for a ridge route. There really isn't many places to get off track and sometimes they were more distracting then helpful. I suggest that for an off-trail route like this to minimize the guideposts as that is what this route is all about. Due to the fog we couldn't see much of what was ahead of us and very abruptly reached the peak way before I expected to. The total time up was about 1:40 and only a few minor scratches and a poke from a yucca to show for it. I was most excited about hitting the Mt. Lowe benchmark which had been on my to do list for a while.

I like this route if it could be done and I'm sure it can, coming from Eaton and then hopping over to the Idlehour trail. This will allows a pure loop for the first time without some street walking to get to your car.

Kudos to the hard work of the trail builder(s).

Girl Hiker · Post by **Girl Hiker** » Mon Feb 06, 2017 6:24 am

David R wrote: ↑Did the hike this morning as a warm-up for Super Bowl Sunday. The work on the SCE trail is quite impressive and is still going on as far as the crossing over Pine. We started up the ridge by the transmission towers. We didn't see any evidence of passage up this ridge but there was a slight opening at the start of the ridge and it had a nice gradient so it made the most sense to me as the way up. I was surprised to not see any ribbons as the write up suggested or cutting but the route while brushy was easily passable. Upon reaching the Mt. Lowe benchmark I saw the ribbons coming up the next ridge to the east. I assume that is the route that has been created but my ridge is faster.

From there it was very foggy but the ridge was evident. The amount of ribbons is excessive for a ridge route. There really isn't many places to get off track and sometimes they were more distracting then helpful. I suggest that for an off-trail route like this to minimize the guideposts as that is what this route is all about. Due to the fog we couldn't see much of what was ahead of us and very abruptly reached the peak way before I expected to. The total time up was about 1:40 and only a few minor scratches and a poke from a yucca to show for it. I was most excited about hitting the Mt. Lowe benchmark which had been on my to do list for a while.

I like this route if it could be done and I'm sure it can, coming from Eaton and then hopping over to the Idlehour trail. This will allows a pure loop for the first time without some street walking to get to your car.

Kudos to the hard work of the trail builder(s).

Hi David
I'm glad that you found your way to the benchmarks and up the East Ridge. Since you started from the towers you wouldn't have seen markers because we initiated flagging after hiking on the ACT for a bit which is a beautiful trail before aproaching the OER. Starting from the towers is another way to go but you bypass the beaautiful trees and shrubbery along the way. Also, as you approach the trail towards the H2O tank the markers become more evident. I think my friend Jeremiah got caried away with lots of flags but nevertheless it might be helpful to someone who is not familiar with finding their way and may not be as experienced as you and I.

Thanks for checking it out!