Our forum turns 18 this month, and in Sean's tradition, I tasked myself with initiating a group event. Last year we gathered at the Monte Cristo Campground and bagged Rabbit Peak. The year before that Mt Islip. And that one previous Lupine campground and before that Wright Mountain .... and it probably goes back further than that!
But 18 is an important age to turn. You can vote, and become guardian-less. The world becomes a bigger place, and you can begin to really choose your own adventure.
I wracked my brain to think of hiking ideas that could be 18 related… 1,800 feet elevation is too short. 18,000 too tall. 18 miles too long.
What I did fortuitously discover however is the -118 degree line of Longitude JUST so happens to nearly bisect the San Gabriel mountains. AHA! We have our number 18.
Dima had the so-simple-its-brilliant suggestion of just hiking a stretch of the line, and Mathew selected a promising portion not far from Horse Flats, which could double as the meeting place the night before.
I arrived Sunday morning, armed with breakfast sandwiches I had picked up at Dunkin Donuts not long after they opened at 5am. The campsite was groggy but convivial, familiar faces mixed with newer ones. Forum legends held court over the state of the high country around the picnic table, sipping Mathew's unmatched cardamom-infused camp coffee.
It was great to see Sean again, keeping his streak of Forum anniversaries going strong.
Breakfast and packing up camp proceeded leisurely until we went our separate ways - Taco embarking on a characteristically epic bike route back to the city, others driving.
But the forum anniversary celebrating wasn't done for Mathew, Dima and I - we had a date with the -118th meridian.
After a little circumvention of Camp Christian, we locked onto our line. Adherence on our journey north would be guided by a combination of Caltopo and my compass app. Mathew proclaimed the ambitious goal of remaining within a few meters of it on either side. I liked where his head was at.
Coming down the slope below camp Christian was north-facing and entirely lovely. We were inhabiting a pocket protected from both the Station and Bobcat fires, and so this area hadn't burned since 1912, and was shaded by majestic pines and firs. None were more impressive than this incredible Big Cone Douglas fir growing right on our line - it must have been 300 years old? I could describe to you its unique branching, but a photo will do the writing for me:
I have a soft spot for majestic trees like this - when I was in kindergarten I was obsessed with big trees, and finding them were my very first forays into wild land exploration.
It was a tricky navigation challenge to effectively ignore where the terrain might *want* you to go, and stay disciplined on holding the line as it led us at odd angles across drainages and ridge lines. It reminded me of the summers I spent working as an assistant to a land surveying crew in high school and college, where we would map property lines through the Maine forest. It was an excellent summer job!
As we lost elevation, things got progressively brushier, particularly on some south facing slopes. This pocket not having been burned, it was mercifully free of whitethorn and the like, but did have a lot of dead scratchy unburned fuel. Dima was in shorts, and had some pretty cut up legs by the time we re-emerged. The thicker this scraggly brush got, the more discipline was required to ignore the easier routes tempting us in every direction, and maintain our mission to plunge straight north no matter what lay in front of us. Nothing was a choice. The -118 line of longitude was our master.
Climbing this granodiorite crag along the line allowed for a brief respite from the brush.
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As we progressed further north, a transition to the high desert of the Antelope Valley became apparent, particularly in the sun-parched days of late summer.
As we neared our final bump, it became very tempting to follow the natural path of the ridgeline, and we allowed ourselves a bit of wobble as we did intend to bag ~5740 despite it being a few feet to the east of the line. We snacked there under a little shade of a scrubby pine, and I proclaim its title to be "Meridian Bump"
A modest grand finale followed, with a quarter mile of downhill plunge on the loose soil and crumbling rock amongst the old growth oaks of a north-facing slope to the south fork of little rock creek. This experience reminded me some scrambling I did in Eaton Canyon on similarly steep north-facing slopes in a mature, (at the time) unburned oak forest.
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Thus we emerged upon 5N04.4, emptying shoes full of plagioclase silt and debris, having slayed a good 2 miles of the -118.
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Positioned somewhere between desert and mountains, Pinyon Flats is a quiet corner of the Angeles, and we made use of its still-flowing Sulphur springs.
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We opted to take the world-famous PCT as our path back up, stepping around Yuccas adorned with the DNA of humanity from around the globe.
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This brought us after a bit of a brush-busting shortcut to Camp Singing Pines, which hosted Girl Scouts from the 1940s until 1993 before being sold to the Camp Christian next door.
Camp Singing Pines still has its lake, just as majestic as it ever was.
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The water may be slightly lower now then when it was dotted by the canoes of fishing Girl Scouts.
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But the boats are still available!
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We wandered through a twisting trail through the camp, which is generally still in very good condition, before winding up right back where we parked.
You can see from my .GPX we encircled the line like a squeezing, creeping vine. I love conceptual goal-oriented hikes like this, and it proves that you can go anywhere in these mountains and always find cool stuff.
Welcome to adulthood, EisPiraten!!!
6.03 miles, 1972 feet of gain.
Eispiraten's -118º Birthday
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Nate U
- Posts: 550
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Matthew
- Supercaff
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Nice report man, super glad I had you write it all out. You definitely have a way with wording. I'm now just starting to realize how great the transition was from forest to desert landscape. Also I'm stealing the word "Dougie" when referring to Douglas firs, that's just too good
stoke is high
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Elwood
- Posts: 621
- Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 5:23 pm
Congratulations gentlemen! Well done, and well reported. I truly wish I could have joined Y'all.
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Sean
- Cucamonga
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Thanks for the report and pictures! I hope you left some goodies on Meridian Bump.
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JeffH
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Something I really like about this forum is that there are so many unique adventures, and this is an epic example. Nice going for the three of you!
"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours".
Donald Shimoda
Donald Shimoda
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Matthew
- Supercaff
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- Location: Pasadena
Next we gotta reach the middle point of the boundaries or something. Maybe even camp in a mine or something
stoke is high