Brown Mountain loop

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Anthony
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Post by Anthony »

Has anyone here ever done the Brown Mountain loop starting in Millard Canyon?

https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail ... in-road--3

I'm wondering what the trail conditions are like on the upper part (on Brown Mountain).
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dima
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Post by dima »

Not sure what you mean by "upper part".

From Millard Canyon to Tom Sloane Saddle: I was last there maybe a year ago. The trail is faint, but it's passable. Bring a GPS device. The trail on openstreetmap should be accurate. Finding the trail from the Millard Canyon side is a bit tricky: you need to climb on a shelf on the right side of the gully coming in from the left almost immediately. I.e. you almost don't want the side gully at all.

Tom Sloane Saddle to Brown Mtn: good trail, easy navigation, etc.

Brown Mtn to the intersection of Ken Burton/Brown Mtn road: I was there last maybe 5 years ago. At that time there was no real trail, and it was very steep. But not a ton of brush, and the terrain wasn't particularly loose, so it was straightforward.
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Anthony
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Post by Anthony »

dima wrote: Not sure what you mean by "upper part".

From Millard Canyon to Tom Sloane Saddle: I was last there maybe a year ago. The trail is faint, but it's passable. Bring a GPS device. The trail on openstreetmap should be accurate. Finding the trail from the Millard Canyon side is a bit tricky: you need to climb on a shelf on the right side of the gully coming in from the left almost immediately. I.e. you almost don't want the side gully at all.

Tom Sloane Saddle to Brown Mtn: good trail, easy navigation, etc.

Brown Mtn to the intersection of Ken Burton/Brown Mtn road: I was there last maybe 5 years ago. At that time there was no real trail, and it was very steep. But not a ton of brush, and the terrain wasn't particularly loose, so it was straightforward.
By upper, I meant the top part of Brown Mountain, as opposed to the lower part near and in Millard Canyon. Thanks for the report!
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Sean
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Post by Sean »

It's a good use trail with one or two easy scrambles over rock outcroppings.
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psykokid
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Post by psykokid »

I covered the section from Tom Sloane Saddle to the Ken Burton Trail today. From the Saddle to the top of Brown Mountian it was pretty clear. As said above it's a decent use trail. I brought my pruners and cleaned up a little buckthorn that was encroaching in a couple of spots. Now from Brown to Ken Burton - you can see where a few people have been there recently, but there's nothing resembling an actual trail. Game paths here and there that people have used. Lots of buckthorn and spanish bayonet looking to poke the unwary. Pretty steep in spots, but routefinding is pretty straight forward - just follow the ridgeline. You loose like 1300' of elevation in about a mile just before you the start of the Ken Burton Trail.
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Sean
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Post by Sean »

Nice. Even years ago the drop to Ken Burton was trail-less.
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Anthony
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Post by Anthony »

Thanks, guys. Gonna try it soon.
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psykokid
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Post by psykokid »

Just make sure you're wearing pants. I wore running shorts on my loop and my legs got torn up on the section from Brown to Ken Burton.
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Anthony
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Post by Anthony »

psykokid wrote: Just make sure you're wearing pants. I wore running shorts on my loop and my legs got torn up on the section from Brown to Ken Burton.
Will do. It definitely sounds like a pants hike.

Does anyone have a GPS recording by any chance?
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psykokid
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Post by psykokid »

bapolis wrote:Will do. It definitely sounds like a pants hike.

Does anyone have a GPS recording by any chance?
Here's a link to the route I took on my lollipop from Switzers: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1emP_1 ... _kOHpOFfqC
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