I went up the main Wilson trail this morning expecting to go to the summit. When I got to the toll road, there was a sign saying "TRAIL CLOSED DANGER." Being a suicidal anarchist, I stepped over the yellow tape and kept going, to see if there was really any reason for the closure. Sure enough, there's earth-moving equipment doing the beep-beep I'm-backing-up sound. Being a polite anarchist, I didn't go up to the worker driving the machine and demand more information while he was trying to do his job.
Does anyone know what's up? Extra points if you can predict how long the closure will last, or explain whether the work is done by the Fletcher Fund with volunteers and donations. I don't know who else it could be, since Angeles National Forest doesn't seem to do this sort of thing.
Wilson trail closure
The sign and yellow tape were immediately after I hit the road and turned right on it. The work was probably a quarter of a mile farther up the road. I'm talking about the old Wilson toll road, the dirt road that has not been passable to cars for many years -- not the asphalt roads that you can access once you get to the blockhouse.
That puts the work between the trail-toll road junction and the point where the gated access road to Mt. Harvard is (which is where a blockhouse is, and where the single track leaves the road and heads up to the main parking lot). Probably just maintenance.
Oh, you started from Sierra Madre. I was thinking Altadena and Eaton Canyon. This is interesting because on Sunday I was hiking the Idlehour at night, and there were unusual, bright lights at the summit of Wilson.