EISPIRATEN

I been reading that you can do brown from millard canyon slash campground, and that the round trip is only 10 to 11 miles. That seems really short. Anyone done it this way that can give me some advice? Thanks

Loop route: https://en.komoot.de/tour/4271988

I last did it a few years ago. Trail above dawn mine to Tom Sloane saddle was fairly faint, but with a map and a GPS receiver it was findable. It would be very difficult otherwise. The west ridge of Brown Mt is very steep, but was passable at that time. The rest was fine/easy. Hopefully somebody can chime in with more up-to-date info

Yea, I've done it from the Mt Lowe road / Tom Sloan Saddle (passing through Mt Lowe Camp, which I still call Alpine Tavern)....which seemed significantly more than 10 miles rt. I've also done it from the west ridge after parking my mtn bike there. What I've heard is that there is a trail that goes along Millard Creek and then climbs up.

Here's a quote from Summitpost- "Another stream route to the east ridge starts from the Millard Canyon Campground trailhead. This route climbs immediately above Millard Falls, upstream through Millard Canyon to Dawn Mine, and then to Tom Sloan Saddle (including summit, this is 9.5 –10 miles roundtrip with 2,900 ft. of gain). "

Millard Canyon is still closed between the campground and the falls. You take sunset ridge trail to access the canyon above the falls.

Once you're in the canyon bottom, it's slower going than before the fire, lots of downed trees and changes to the stream course. In some sections it's nearly unrecognizable from what it was before. That said, enough people have been traveling up to Dawn Mine that most of the major obstacles have one path or another cleared through them.

Once you pass Dawn Mine, I remember it being easy to miss the turnoff for the trail up to Tom Sloane even before the fire. I haven't been to that spot recently, but I suspect that could still be the trickiest part for route finding.

Round trip of 10 miles sounds exactly right for that route.

I went up this route prior to the fire and the turnoff was easy to miss out of Millard Canyon. I must've gone a 1/4 mile further upstream before I realized I missed the subsidiary fork where the trail was which I believe went up the right side of that canyon.

I have been to Brown twice after the fire and both times when I reached the Tom Sloan Saddle, I looked down the Millard Canyon route and there was zero trail recognizable and lots of Poodle Dog. A mix I had no interest in exploring but it sounds like it is passable now.

We're going up early in the morning on saturday. I'll let you know how it goes.