Mt. Emma Road to Mill Creek Summit via Fire Breaks and the PCT

[David Martin]

Like sex and pizza, it seems that hikes are rarely bad. This wasn’t bad, and the views were phenomenal, but it wasn’t what I expected.

Kurt and I had enjoyed exploring the northwest corner of Angeles Forest over the last few weeks and the fire breaks we'd hiked around there, inspired by David R’s reports, were a lot of fun. Before moving on to points east I wondered if I might cook up another route around there, and started looking at satellite views around Mt. Emma. The peak itself is just a big bald unattractive hill but it promised good views of the Antelope Valley and the desert. There’s no road to the summit but an obvious fire break from Mt. Emma Rd. climbed a ridge up to the peak and then headed due south, intersecting with the PCT near Mill Creek Summit. When I mapped it on AllTrails it showed 9.3 miles, with 2677 feet of climbing — shorter than our usual weekend hikes, but probably worthwhile. We scouted the start of the fire break one day and it looked fine...easy parking, no surprises, why not?

After leaving a car at Mill Creek Summit we headed to the start point on Mt. Emma Road and started up the fire break at 5:30, with the first hint of dawn just visible. The climb was like other fire breaks we’d walked near there, and we soon had great views to the north and east. At first it was just a few lights from the southern end of Palmdale, then most of that city, then some bits of Lancaster, I think. We could see Black Butte and Black Mountain, and way out there, Victorville. After a mile and a thousand feet of elevation gain we hit the summit. It has a round benchmark that's just fastened to a loose rock resting in the dirt, which seemed comical to us. The views up there were excellent -- a dramatic sunrise over the high desert.

At the top we saw faint MTB tracks leading east on a narrow, mildly graded fire road-ish path, but that wasn’t our route. My GPS track showed a right turn from the summit and there it was in front of us, a long descent down the ridge, and then a climb back up to about the same elevation, and then…not sure. Not the most efficient way of reaching Mill Creek Summit but with 2677 feet of total climb, it didn’t seem be like a big deal. We dropped 750’ and then climbed 1000’, putting us on a hilltop slightly higher than Emma. Not bad, but we looking at the downloaded route we realized that the AllTrails had the numbers wrong, and that more roller coaster action lay ahead than we’d expected.

Continuing up, the firebreak became a much rougher path. It’s really wide up there, but littered with rocks and big chunks of tree, some burned and some not. Much of its surface resembles a moonscape, perforated with hundreds (thousands?) of big holes that one needs to step around. I was really curious about that and couldn’t imagine why they were there so I asked my brother who can usually answer these questions, but he didn’t know either. I wondered if they were made by the “outriggers” used on some construction equipment, but those are rectangular. If anyone can explain all those big round holes, please chime in.

So it was the same firebreak routine that Kurt and I experienced on previous hikes…climb a steep hill, drop down the other side losing almost all the elevation you just gained, then reach a bigger hill and do it again, knowing that the climbs and steepness will get bigger as you continue. But this was a lot harder than what we’d done before, especially the last roller coaster section, which I nicknamed the Heartbreaker. The funny thing about he Heartbreaker was that the slope was so steep, the cut had to switchback up the hill. Never saw that before. Nearing the ridge top, a level, neatly manicured trail presented itself and of course it was the PCT, the civilized final section, leading to our shuttle car at Mill Creek Summit.

10.6 miles, 6:18 hours moving time, 4633’ of climb, 1 mylar balloon. Downsides: extremely slow, no trees or shade, you follow a trail of destruction. Upsides: outstanding views nearly the whole way, knowing that we old guys did it. https://www.strava.com/activities/4825985091

My Strava page says: Complete this route again to see how you're progressing! Um, no thanks, but David R, maybe you’d like to hike it some time. ?

[Sean]

Thanks for the report. Not sure what you mean by the holes. They might be animal burrows or possibly holes left from the burned root systems of plants.