EISPIRATEN

I made an unsuccessful attempt at Frankish peak last Friday (30AUG24) morning around 0730. Stoddard has become a somewhat regular before-work run as it's shaded, has pretty views, and is a quick drive from my home. On a recent run, I found myself curious about the Barrett Stoddard Truck Trail's continuation so pulled out Gaia and decided to make a go of Frankish.

The trail past Stoddard quickly becomes less a fire road and more an overgrown single-track, but it was still mostly shaded, and offered very pretty views of the marine layer in the valley between the San Gabriel and the San Bernadino ranges and out towards the Santa Anas.
The trail become pretty overgrown leading to the Stoddard Flat but still passible. The Flat itself is in rough shape and appears to be home to a number of bears based on the amount of scat I encountered. The trail toward Cucamonga Canyon is extremely overgrown and I'm guessing will remain so until the Canyon reopens (in whatever capacity).
It took me a while to find the trail up to Frankish, but it is marked with fading pink plastic ties. I didn't make it very far, the trail was very sandy and a canopy of vegetation had grown over the top making movement uncomfortable. I also needed to get back home so decided to turn back. Looking back out after however, it did look like the overgrown section gave way to an exposed ridgeline pretty quickly and I probably should have just powered through.
Hoping to be back sometime, it looks like maybe a more direct way up might be via N Mountain Ave; maybe next time.
The parking lot was not full; this was an odd sign and I wonder who placed it and why.

Thanks for the report! I remember that trail being overgrown many years ago. It's a lot of miles for little reward, which probably explains the lack of maintenance.

Thanks for writing that up. I've biked Barrett-Stoddard towards Cucamonga canyon before. It's overgrown, but I THINK it's still used by MTB people periodically, so it should still be passable.

I've also hiked up to Frankish from the south (Mountain Ave). This wasn't recent, but at the time it was relatively clear. It's also very underwhelming. After I've been there once, there's no reason to go back.

"Parking Lot Full" is for the weekend when the masses come out to go to the Mt Baldy Slide Waterfall. I assume the locals are kinda pissed. I was up on Baldy last Sunday and the whole area was a zoo when I drove back. Thanks Social Media!

I'll admit It looked a lot more impressive on the map than in person, the run did give some pretty nice views of Turtle / Ontario / Calamity etc.

I know I've seen folks mention Turtle on here before and I'm not sure what the approach / route is, but it almost looked like there was a navigable path up from the flats along the spine. Could be some pretty heinous thorny plants (not sure what the species is but it's everywhere here) though and it does look like it gets pretty steep at certain points.

Still need to put together my bucket list. I'm only here a year or so.

I hiked to Frankish a long time ago on the same trail. It wasn't as overgrown then, and I did see a lot of bear tracks and scat. Seems like a good place to meet a friendly bear.

I agree with others that the payoff is not so great. I'd try the Mountain Ave route if I ever go back.