EISPIRATEN

I have been wanting to get back to San B. since the trail reopened. Though there is a lot of hiking through the fire zone, nature is recovering nicely. The trail is in great shape and the spring above Limber Pine is flowing. All in all we had a great hike to the summit. Some pics of the upper mountain (fire zone pics not very scenic) and of some of the flowers
The head banger just below Washington Monument

Washington Monument
Summit
Prickly Poppy (looks just like Matilija but the leaves)

The dead trees are now food for the veiled polypore (Cryptoporus Volvatus)

Bear Tongue Penstemon
The Birds Nest Buckwheat in red hues lined the trail for awhile

I've been wanting to get up to the SB Peak Divide Trail this year but was partly unsure if I wanted to go because I thought it might be so depressing. In some ways it can be just a mental readjustment to think about a partly burned landscape as the way the land would naturally be, before the Forest Service started systematically putting out every fire for a century. I went for a run up the South Fork trail yesterday, and it was really pretty gorgeous. There was a fire there a while back (5-6 years ago?), and it did look pretty bare for a while, but now what you see from the trail is a lot of thick green brush plus, in most areas, a forest where there's a 50-50 mix of live trees interspersed with burned ones. It's really beautiful in a way, just different from how it was before. My favorite thing to do on the SB Peak Divide Trail had been to go out as far as High Meadows, which has water and is really beautiful.

How long since the fire in that area, Jerry?

The fire went through there September 2020. There is quite a bit of new growth in the area. The Foresee trail is trashed but the San Bernardino trail is in good shape

Thanks for the report. If gas weren't so expensive I'd spend more time around that area. It's really nice at that elevation.

Thanks for the TR Jerry. I've been wanting to go back and was curious how the trail looked after the fire. The last and only time I was there it kicked my butt!