Sean and I met up on Friday after Thanksgiving for a stroll in the local mountains. My plan was to go up Mt Lowe from below Echo Mountain so I was amenable to ascending via Rubio Canyon, this was really interesting because of the old incline railway bed. The various trails cross and follow the rail route and the hillsides have plenty of old wood ties and concrete/rock formations to help visualize the route and the experience of visiting the resort. I was shocked when we arrived at Echo Mountain, no one else was there and we had the picnic tables all to ourselves for a while which was a good time for a Snickers break. While there we planned out the rest of the day, I'm easily persuaded to explore new areas so I said OK when Sean suggested going down Grand Canyon. Of course he said there was a trail.... We took another rest break at Inspiration Point and then got some water at the spring above Alpine Tavern. Dropping down into the canyon we found semblances of trail with minimal overgrowth and pretty soon reached the mostly dry creek bed. The bushwhacking started in earnest there, as there was so much tangled brush among the rocks it was hard to pick a route. We bounced back and forth between the bottom and moving up and down slope to keep moving. After a while we spotted a relatively thin piece of aluminum sticking out, which upon further review turned out to be the plane wreckage that Dima wrote about
here. Shortly after that, Sean succeeded in his quest to find the cabin ruins so we climbed around them for a while imagining life back when they were built. We continued to follow the creek down, it had running water by this point and some pools created more obstacles. The brush got a little thicker in places but we managed to crash through and around, and found a bear skull with a few teeth remaining. Side note- you don't want to hear Sean saying "where are we" when exploring off trail. I refilled with water above Dawn Mine and then we visited the grating over the entrance, leaving right away to avoid a dozen people just sitting around there. A long hot uphill walk brought us to then Mt Lowe road, where we stopped for a snack break and enjoyed the afternoon view out over the Pacific Ocean, looking at Catalina and San Nicolas islands. We covered a bit more history on the return to Echo Mountain, walking around the Cape of Good Hope and reading the signage along Alpine section of the railway. We took the lower Sam Merrill trail for a while, then turned off near the power lines to return to our cars at the Rubio trailhead. AllTrails clocked it at 11 miles, just another great day in the San Gabes.
Railroad remains.
Leading the way.
Echo.
Plane wreckage. Lots more debris since the last viewing.
Fall survivor. This tree's trunk was split in half and only one section of branches is still alive.
Cabin #1. Still looks like a good base camp for exploring.
Cabin 2. Not as nice any more. Interesting construction, that big rock was one of the cabin walls.
Former bear.
Ocean view.
"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours".
Donald Shimoda
