Sugarloaf and Kagel Mountain

[David R]

It was time for my return to the Little Tujunga area for some additional peaks in the area. This time I decided to leave LTJ out of the picture and instead took Kagel Canyon up the side of the mountain. If you don't know about Kagel Canyon/Lopez there is no way in hell you would ever come up here. The drive up feels like Little TJ but at the top there is a cemetery and open spaces that give it more of a wilderness feel.

The start of the hike is at the high point of the road where there are oddly enough two signs on both sides of the road advertising Santa Monica Mountain Open Spaces for the fire road. Sugarloaf is just an excuse as you're already here to hike a prominent ridge to the south. The high point is at the SE and can be accessed just about from anywhere along the road but is easiest if you go completely around Sugarloaf to where the ridge meets the fire road. From there you huff back to the road where you parked and can continue to Kagel.

The main fire road starts from the road that heads directly up from the cemetery but is in the middle of a small neighborhood. This route accesses an older road that is more of a footpath that reconnects further up the canyon with the main fire road. A ranger lives on the property that gives you the right of way to the old fire road. He has a sign "Private residence, dogs in yard". I saw no dogs either on the way in or out and the trail skirts to the right of the residence and then makes a sharp Uey to the right to ascend the old fire road.

After about 15-20 minutes you'll hit the main fire road as it leisurely ascends to Kagel Divide and a water catching station. From here you can look and see the ridge that takes you to Limerock.

This same ridge is the one that the fire road follows to the NW at a lower elevation as you get nice views of the upper reach of Limerock Canyon.

You however can access it either via a steep climb directly from the Divide or meander for a while along the fireroad. I noticed two access points to the ridge beyond the divide. I was interested in taking what looked like an old trail per the Topo map. It instead was more like a firebreak that was a bit overgrown and steep that led directly on to the ridge. The wind on the ridge was very powerful with some awesome gusts that made you stutter step on occasion. This ridge also used to be an old fire road and I found evidence of its use.

The ridge gradually became less overgrown and where it met the second connector to the fire road it was pretty much brush free. From this point it got steep as it climbed to connect to the Kagel Truck road from Dillon Divide, which is the main route and can be driven if you get the key.

From here it is a short hop and a jump to the top of Kagel Mountain and all the apparatus for the hang gliders. This is one of the last places in SoCal for those daredevils, with one of the main reasons for it being a dying sport is due to the lack of landing strips as everyone is worried about liability It was nice to see Los Pinetos a couple of miles to the NW as I've hiked that one from Santa Clarita so it connected the dots for this area.
The top was very windy as well so I stayed only for a short time and took the same way back. The whole hike was probably about 9-10 miles with 2,100 feet elevation gain in just over three hours.

Edit: Tried to put some pictures in but it showed as code not sure what I did wrong with the html img business, maybe next time.

Edit#2: Link to pictures because I'm not cool enough.

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumb ... =snapfish/

[cougarmagic]

Interesting. I went up there a few times, but the last time I went I was kind of harassed by a resident who (while on his ATV) was trying to convince me it was closed. That someone would tow my car, that I'd get kidnapped by drug lords, and all kinds of things. I thanked him for his interesting ideas and continued on my hike, but since it wasn't all that great a place, I never went back.

Would like to see photos if you can even just post a link to a photobucket page or something.