I've been dying to hike the newly restored Tom Sloan trail that the Restoration Legacy Crew has been working on for months. They have about 400 more feet to complete the restoration. Today my friend Bob and I decided to do a loop hike. We started at Eaton Saddle~Mt. Lowe Road~Bear Canyon~Tom Sloan Saddle~Newly restored Tom Sloan Trail~returning to Mt Lowe Road and finally back to our cars at Eaton Saddle. We started at 7:15am.
8 miles.
View from the Mt. Lowe Road.
View of Brown Mountain.
Selfie at the Grand Canyon H20.
There is not a sign at the start of the Tom Sloan Trail. It's like a secret entrance. You just have to know which trail to take. Anyways further down the trail you can see some of the awesome work completed by the crew.
Even though the entire trail is beautifully restored, in my opinion this was the most gorgeous part of the trail.
Exit from the Tom Sloan Trail back to the Mount Lowe Road.
By the way, I counted 11 containers of H20 throughout the trail. I took pics of a few. Today would've been a good day to drink some but we had enough for our hike.
Since the Tom Sloan Saddle Trail is closed to bikes, I'm assuming (and hoping) that this one will be also? I passed by on Sunday on my way up Mt Lowe Rd, and noticed a few bike tracks headed out from the east end. Probably time for the 'no bikes' sign to go up.
Gonna do this one, with boots of course, when the weather cools a bit. Looks spectacular!
Tom, unfortunately, tire marks have been seen on this path and I am sure they had to walk the stairs. The entire trail is beautiful. I hate to see it ruined by bikers.
I was talking with a member of the RLC and they had considered putting up a no bikes sign.
Jeff, it would make a great group hike. Maybe Sean will let me lead it but if we do I would like to add Brown Mountain just to make it interesting.
HikeUp wrote:
Honest question here, but who (what authority) says that the Tom Sloan Trail is not open to bikes?
I believe it would be USFS. Since it's not wilderness, I don't know what criteria would be used to determine the status, but probably safety and/or trailbed fragility.
"Mountain bikes are welcome on all trails within the Angeles National Forest except those within a designated Wilderness or on the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail"
Uncle Rico wrote:
"Mountain bikes are welcome on all trails within the Angeles National Forest except those within a designated Wilderness or on the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail"
This was my basic understanding. Which makes hearing that the Tom Sloan Saddle Trail is closed to bikes a surprise.
I've encountered bikes on some really narrow and cliffy trails, which I think they were allowed on, but was surprised to run into them because a fall would certainly be deadly.
Oh well. I was just curious...don't care too much either way.
Ah, didn't know they opened the Saddle trail. It had been closed to bikes for as long as I've been riding up there (30+ yrs), so I stopped checking after a while. Hindsight...wondering if the Saddle trail had been closed because there was never a viable exit. Sometime in the early '90s I did a 3-day loop hike that included going up Bear Canyon from Switzers, and I lost the trail about where the campsite should have been, and ended up bushwacking up to the ridge.
Related to this, I noticed that the Tom Sloan Trail is now clearly marked on the new signs at Eaton Saddle, and the 'no bikes' marker has been removed from the top of the Castle Canyon Trail.
Hike Up, don't hate lol. I don't mind bikers but this trail is so beautiful.
Like Tom Kenney said, maybe they will put one due to the fragility/dangers on some of the sections of the trial.
I would hate to see the hard work put into this trail be destroyed, like this section here.
It is a masterpiece!
I totally agree, but I was just wondering if anyone actually had the authority to prohibit bikes from any given trail (other than wilderness and PCT). Bikes can be destructuve but so can a bunch of moronic hikers, so I am not choosing sides here lol
I went there today from Sunset Ridge and found the chain gang working hard on the last bit of trail including Cucamonga Man. I noticed that the majority of the trail coming up to Tom Sloan Saddle had been used by bikes. This will definitely become a bike route more then a hiking one. Trail is really solid can't wait for their next project as this one should wrap up soon. Also some nice new signage at Dawn Mine and the Saddle.
It was nice seeing you again, David. We've tried to make this trail as solid as possible. It gets lots of animal traffic, including bear. So I don't see why it shouldn't support bikers. Most of the path is flat and wide, so rutting shouldn't be a big issue. Hopefully they'll respect the rock work. We'll see.
On Friday we opened up the trailhead at the saddle, so that it's obvious. Restoration is done. The crew will be in mop up mode for the next week or so and then move on to the next project.
Explored this stretch of trail yesterday. Super nice. Big ups to Sean and the rest of the RLC for all the great work they have done to restore this trail.
Anybody have a gps track of this trail? I'd like to add it to OSM. Usually aerial imagery is good enough for this, but this is too new for the aerials.
dima wrote:
Anybody have a gps track of this trail? I'd like to add it to OSM. Usually aerial imagery is good enough for this, but this is too new for the aerials.
Sean sent me a track, and I added it to the OSM data. Thanks, Sean!
Finally had a chance to hit the Tom Sloan trail this morning. Nice job on the trail work! It's still in great shape. Didn't look like it's seen a whole lot of traffic recently, most recent tracks being those from a bike. Ran it from Mt Lowe Rd to Tom Sloan Saddle and it was so nice to just be able to cruise along.
psykokid wrote:
Finally had a chance to hit the Tom Sloan trail this morning. Nice job on the trail work! It's still in great shape.
Did you notice any damage from the recent storms? Downed trees or washouts?
No downed trees. A couple of spots in the corners where the water running down from higher up the hill washed out a little bit, but nothing that stood out.
