Upper Fish Fork / Dawson Peak Trail, 8/12–8/14/20
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2020 5:09 pm
Hello! I just found this forum, searching for information about the old/unmaintained Upper Fish Fork and Dawson Peak trails. The last info I could find anywhere was from 2014, so I thought I'd post a quick trail report, as the conditions seem to have changed a lot since then.
I parked at Guffy (8/12/20)—I was concerned about the dirt road driving in, but made it with no problems in a Fiat, perhaps the most ill-suited option. The road to Lupine did not seem possible without a high-clearance/4wd. If you can drive it, though, I'd recommend it, as you'll save yourself 3mi/1500 ft elevation of shadeless dirt road at the beginning/end of your trip.
The trail seems to get some use up to Pine Mountain Ridge, about five miles from Guffy. From there until Little Fish Fork camp, the navigation isn't especially difficult—you can generally see from a distance where the road was once cut out—but you'll be slowed considerably by washed out sections, thorn bushes, rockfalls, etc. Compared to previous trip reports, this section seems to have deteriorated quite a bit, and the steepness of the slopes limits your options with obstacles.
(bighorn sheep saying "it's not actually that bad")
Little Fish Fork is unfortunately saddled with a lot of rather large trash items (tents, air mattresses, etc), and wasn't the nicest. From there, the area is more densely wooded and it's much more difficult to follow the old trail, but I still picked it up in bits and pieces, and there are animal use trails that you can follow in places. The last sign of the old trail (some ancient sawed tree trunk) was still a few hundred feet of elevation above the camp, and the last stretch was the most difficult part of the entire trip. I tried four different routes in/out, none of which were good, but in general the section right above the camp is less sketchy and exposed, and more just 45deg with terrible footing.
The campsite is a really lovely place—the steep canyon walls that make getting in so difficult create a very beautiful enclosed area, with the stream running right through it. It must have at one point been a large camp with lots of tent sites, although now all but a couple are overgrown. I couldn't find the camp on any of the maps I had, but I did find exact GPS coordinates at this geocache, which I found barely poking out under a pile of dirt. Hadn't been found since 2012!
The next day (8/13/20) I set out to follow the old Dawson Peak Trail. After a much-too-dicey for my liking ascent out of the camp, I found the trail pretty easily—another overgrown road. This trail, too, was relatively easy to follow, but slow going. There was a fairly incredible amount of what I think is Mountain Whitethorn(?), which much of the time I had to just wade through. Wear long and *thick* pants if possible... I wore long pants of some kind of "performance" material, which evidently does not mean performance re: thorns. My legs were pretty shredded with a quantity of tiny puncture wounds that I'm sure made my cat jealous.
Count on at least four hours, I'd say, to make it to the saddle. From there, the trail is an actual trail(!), and I took a quick jaunt up to Dawson Peak. Despite the proximity to Baldy, doesn't seem like many people get up there—about one person a week, according to the summit register. From there, I saw a smoke cloud appear, which I later found was the beginning of the Ranch 2 fire:
Sadly, seems like they determined this to be arson. Got fairly smoky on the descent, though the next day the wind shifted and you'd never have known there was a fire.
Got a late start (and was distracted by the fire) so I didn't check out Pine Mountain or Baldy, not wanting to navigate the descent into Upper Fish Fork alone and in the dark. Wouldn't be too difficult though, just extra miles.
I found water at Lupine (on the trail above the campsite, a piped spring), Little Fish Fork, Upper Fish Fork, and a small spring in the drainage below Pine Mountain about 1.5mi from the end of the Dawson Peak trail. For the most part, the path I took matched very closely to the maps I had, although I'll post a couple screenshots of my track where I took some unadvisable routes:
Into Upper Fish Fork, you should be able to follow the "trail" until that marker, then you're likely best off just plunging down the hillside as best you can. I tried following the stream more closely, and going upstream to try a path up a gully, but both options were more risky and exposed.
Going into Little Fish Fork, my maps had two options, 0.7mi and 2.0mi. I'm not sure which was worse, but I'll just advise that the shorter route has completely vanished and is very steep and bushwhacky, and the longer route is hot and involves lots of climbing over rockfalls and thorn bushes.
I'll close with a few subjective thoughts! For one, it's a shame the trail isn't maintained, as it would be a really nice alternative route up to Mt. Baldy. Would be nice to ascend from a less-trafficked direction and be able to camp in the backcountry for a night or two. As it is now though, the trail is pretty unusual and interesting... it feels kind of post-apocalyptic, as you're always following these wide roads cut into steep mountains. At one point this must have been significant infrastructure, but now it's so overgrown and obliterated by landslides that you're basically hiking cross-country. I also didn't see another person the entire three days. Neat as it is to get out into a remote area, it's also a rather painful hike and despite some nice views of Baldy and Iron Mountain, the hike from Guffy to Upper Fish Fork isn't super interesting. If you can't drive down to Lupine, I'd consider just hiking down Dawson Peak trail—frankly it's not much different difficulty-wise than the Fish Fork trail. At the end of the trip I was feeling like the whole thing was a bit more trouble than it was worth, though after a few days I'm feeling a little more sanguine about it.
Hope that's ok for a first post
Lots of great information on this (deceptively named) forum! I'm looking forward to catching up on it.
I parked at Guffy (8/12/20)—I was concerned about the dirt road driving in, but made it with no problems in a Fiat, perhaps the most ill-suited option. The road to Lupine did not seem possible without a high-clearance/4wd. If you can drive it, though, I'd recommend it, as you'll save yourself 3mi/1500 ft elevation of shadeless dirt road at the beginning/end of your trip.
The trail seems to get some use up to Pine Mountain Ridge, about five miles from Guffy. From there until Little Fish Fork camp, the navigation isn't especially difficult—you can generally see from a distance where the road was once cut out—but you'll be slowed considerably by washed out sections, thorn bushes, rockfalls, etc. Compared to previous trip reports, this section seems to have deteriorated quite a bit, and the steepness of the slopes limits your options with obstacles.
Little Fish Fork is unfortunately saddled with a lot of rather large trash items (tents, air mattresses, etc), and wasn't the nicest. From there, the area is more densely wooded and it's much more difficult to follow the old trail, but I still picked it up in bits and pieces, and there are animal use trails that you can follow in places. The last sign of the old trail (some ancient sawed tree trunk) was still a few hundred feet of elevation above the camp, and the last stretch was the most difficult part of the entire trip. I tried four different routes in/out, none of which were good, but in general the section right above the camp is less sketchy and exposed, and more just 45deg with terrible footing.
The campsite is a really lovely place—the steep canyon walls that make getting in so difficult create a very beautiful enclosed area, with the stream running right through it. It must have at one point been a large camp with lots of tent sites, although now all but a couple are overgrown. I couldn't find the camp on any of the maps I had, but I did find exact GPS coordinates at this geocache, which I found barely poking out under a pile of dirt. Hadn't been found since 2012!
The next day (8/13/20) I set out to follow the old Dawson Peak Trail. After a much-too-dicey for my liking ascent out of the camp, I found the trail pretty easily—another overgrown road. This trail, too, was relatively easy to follow, but slow going. There was a fairly incredible amount of what I think is Mountain Whitethorn(?), which much of the time I had to just wade through. Wear long and *thick* pants if possible... I wore long pants of some kind of "performance" material, which evidently does not mean performance re: thorns. My legs were pretty shredded with a quantity of tiny puncture wounds that I'm sure made my cat jealous.
Count on at least four hours, I'd say, to make it to the saddle. From there, the trail is an actual trail(!), and I took a quick jaunt up to Dawson Peak. Despite the proximity to Baldy, doesn't seem like many people get up there—about one person a week, according to the summit register. From there, I saw a smoke cloud appear, which I later found was the beginning of the Ranch 2 fire:
Sadly, seems like they determined this to be arson. Got fairly smoky on the descent, though the next day the wind shifted and you'd never have known there was a fire.
I found water at Lupine (on the trail above the campsite, a piped spring), Little Fish Fork, Upper Fish Fork, and a small spring in the drainage below Pine Mountain about 1.5mi from the end of the Dawson Peak trail. For the most part, the path I took matched very closely to the maps I had, although I'll post a couple screenshots of my track where I took some unadvisable routes:
Into Upper Fish Fork, you should be able to follow the "trail" until that marker, then you're likely best off just plunging down the hillside as best you can. I tried following the stream more closely, and going upstream to try a path up a gully, but both options were more risky and exposed.
I'll close with a few subjective thoughts! For one, it's a shame the trail isn't maintained, as it would be a really nice alternative route up to Mt. Baldy. Would be nice to ascend from a less-trafficked direction and be able to camp in the backcountry for a night or two. As it is now though, the trail is pretty unusual and interesting... it feels kind of post-apocalyptic, as you're always following these wide roads cut into steep mountains. At one point this must have been significant infrastructure, but now it's so overgrown and obliterated by landslides that you're basically hiking cross-country. I also didn't see another person the entire three days. Neat as it is to get out into a remote area, it's also a rather painful hike and despite some nice views of Baldy and Iron Mountain, the hike from Guffy to Upper Fish Fork isn't super interesting. If you can't drive down to Lupine, I'd consider just hiking down Dawson Peak trail—frankly it's not much different difficulty-wise than the Fish Fork trail. At the end of the trip I was feeling like the whole thing was a bit more trouble than it was worth, though after a few days I'm feeling a little more sanguine about it.
Hope that's ok for a first post
Lots of great information on this (deceptively named) forum! I'm looking forward to catching up on it.