EISPIRATEN

UPDATE - Meet-up time is 7:30am, Saturday, January 31
We Will start hike at 8:00am
Please meet at the East Fork Trail Head
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=34.2 ... 8&t=h&z=18


I don't know if the Taco-Baldy-Lodge-Beer-Forum-Meet-Up-Thingy happened or not, but I thought I would extend and invite to an easy "COME ONE, COME ALL" forum meet-up hike this Saturday morning (say 7:30am) along the East Fork San Gabriel to the Bridge to No Where.

At first, I was planning a very quick conditioning hike for myself nearby, but thought this hike was easy enough for anybody to attend and it might be a good oppurtunity for the forum members to meet up and introduce themselves, regardless of your hiking ability or level.

I personally will be going regardless of the weather conditions. In fact, I wouldn't mind some adverse weather in order to test some new gear, so if anybody else likes adverse weather, the hike will still be on.

The hike along the East Fork to the Bridge is relatively flat. The trail gains approximately 700' elevation in 4.4 miles. Total hike is 9.8 miles round trip. The trail follows the creek 95% of the time and there are several creek crossings, most of which can be done by jumping boulders or crossing on logs. Caution - the wet logs in the early morning are very slick with frost/ice. There is no snow along this hike.

If the weather is clear, there is a commercial bungy jump outfit at the bridge and for $65 or so, you can take a leap. I think for $160, you can get 5 or 6 jumps. It's pretty cool. It's a 90 foot plunge.

Please note, as a reminder, you will need an Angeles Forest Adventure Pass to park at the East Fork trail head.

Anyway, this is an open invite to everybody. It would be really nice to see a large turnout. If you are interested, please post your interested and I will keep a signup thread going. If you are interested in carpooling, whether as a driver or passenger, please say so, and what city you live. I will help coordinate carpooling.

I will post directions on this thread on Wednesday.

SIGN-UP THREAD SO FAR:

EnFuego (not so lonely a place anymore)
Dirt_Poor
Lilbitmo & Lucy (2nd prettiest girl around)
Alex
Zach
Zach's GF (hopefully! with or without Zach )
Taco

My knee is still screwed up, so I'm probably out (unless I just want to stop at the first steep spot), but what time are you thinking about doing this?

HJ - there is one steep spot that I can think of in each direction. Both steep spots are less than 35 yards long. First steep spot is almost 4 miles in and consists of a couple easy switch backs to gain elevation from river bed to old trail to bridge.

The time of the hike is dependent on the number of people that go. If more than a few go, I would think a 7:30 or 8am start is good. If I wind up going alone, I will start about 6'ish in the am.

Hmm...neat idea. I'm interested, but won't know until Wednesday if it's a possibility or not. The river will be high won't it?

HikeUp - thats a good point. Under most water conditions, I have always managed to cross. But, I was never with a large group and I have always found ingenious ways to cross (use nearest Yucca Tree as pole vault )

But, if the creek does seem too high and crossing will mean we need to get wet, we can always change course and head up the Heaton Flat trail up to Bonita Peak. Bonita Peak is about two miles up the Heaton Flat trail and gains nearly 2,000'. If enough people want to continue, we can continue another 2.75 miles and drop into Coldwater Canyon.

First and Foremost Hello everybody, im new to this forum and am glad to find a place to discuss familier things. i would like to tag along if thats fine?

EnFuego wrote:HJ - there is one steep spot that I can think of in each direction. Both steep spots are less than 35 yards long. First steep spot is almost 4 miles in and consists of a couple easy switch backs to gain elevation from river bed to old trail to bridge.

The time of the hike is dependent on the number of people that go. If more than a few go, I would think a 7:30 or 8am start is good. If I wind up going alone, I will start about 6'ish in the am.

Well, keep me posted. My time is really screwy right now because my wife is pregnant. It's hard to leave her alone right now 'cause the morning sickness and the "nesting instinct" are coming on strong.

Re the knee thing: even short stretches of steep downhill make my knee hurt like the dickens. I can't risk increasing the inflammation in the knee lest I delay healing even further -- and there's always the risk of permanent damage

Why not bring her along?

Hikin_Jim wrote:Well, keep me posted. My time is really screwy right now because my wife is pregnant.

just a small detail. congrats!

yoskolo wrote:Why not bring her along?

Yes, bring her along. The SGMDF Rescue Crew could use the practice of delivering a baby. And if she doesn't deliver, we still haven't practiced rigging a litter yet, so she would come in handy there too.

Zé wrote:

Hikin_Jim wrote:Well, keep me posted. My time is really screwy right now because my wife is pregnant.

just a small detail. congrats!

Yes. Congratulations Jim! 8)

Thanks for the congrats guys. Hopefully I'm not announcing this too soon; she's only about a month along. Apparently it was pretty cold in December. We'll know more as things progress.

EnFuego wrote:

yoskolo wrote:Why not bring her along?

Yes, bring her along. The SGMDF Rescue Crew could use the practice of delivering a baby. And if she doesn't deliver, we still haven't practiced rigging a litter yet, so she would come in handy there too.

Thank you for your support.

Okay, I'm in.

"The SGMDF Rescue Crew could use the practice of delivering a baby."
And I'll bet it will look something like this:

Jim,
The good news is that you don't want to bring her for bad reasons - because it is the Bridge to Nowhere - just kidding.

HJ congrats - my daughter is three months along as well - she's about to make me a grand daddy for a second time.

HJ have you tried taking Glucosimine/Condrotin? It's worked wonders in my knees over the past three years of hiking. I used to hate downhills because my left knee would swell from the rubbing of the joint, now it only hurts if I go really fast downhill.

Now that we've completely stolen this thread, how many people do we have so far EnFuego? I count five, with HJ as a maybe sixth?

I will bring Lucy along as well, she will like the canyon and the water.

Talk at you tomorrow,.

I'm interested in going...

Oh yeah, I'm driving from La. So if anyone wants to carpool, let's do it.

Already scheduled for another hike, but would have joined you guys otherwise. Never actually done this hike, either! Have fun, all.

I'll be hiking up Rabbit and Villager, likely cursing myself as you guys are enjoying the East Fork. enjoy!

I wont be able to make it..but always like the East Fork...I plan on hiking this before this weekend in fact...

Zach wrote:I'm interested in going...

Being interested won't cut it.

Come with, bring your GF too. We could use some nice scenery....errr, good company.

EnFuego wrote: We could use some nice scenery....errr, good company.

My wife will be going no where near you lot.

A definate maybe. Did you decide on 8:30 then?

Can you just show up and pay cash to the bungee outfit? Looking at their website, it says stuff about $20 deposits, reservations, balance due a week out, etc..

In these economic times I don't think they are going to turn anyone away.

For ten bucks, I will tie you on my dog leash and throw you over?

No deposit needed.

Yus!

An attractive offer, but I'm afraid I'm committed already.....
(No need for the obvious comment. Most SG Forum readers know that about me anyway.)

Great choice, btw, for a collective shindig.

Unfortunately, you can still get PO in the winter. Be forewarned!
Particularly near many of the stream crossings.

And if you bring your best friend, they probably have no experience tacking, so make sure you are able to stop them from being swept unexpectedly downstream.

In San Gabriels, bungee jumps YOU!

Bill wrote:A definate maybe. Did you decide on 8:30 then?

Bill - I think as a whole, we would like to leave the trail head at 8am sharp. If you are a definate, but can only make 8:30am, I'm sure we can accomodate that.

By the way Bill, are you the same Bill that picked up my snowboards?

I shall pass as I finally have hours at work, and need to do a truffle shuffle of sorts to get a car deal.