Last week I walked up to another place I’d never visited, Little Jimmy trail camp. Definitely hot in the afternoon going up the Windy Gap trail, at 6pm I was the second person to set up to camp there. I filled up on water and sat at one of the picnic tables for dinner as the sun was settling down. One other group rolled in later, so we all had plenty of room to spread out and avoid the little bugs flitting around.
Hot sun walk in the late afternoon
Upper trail between Islip and LJ
New message board, new bear boxes, new outhouse
Campsite - outhouse is back left, I don't advise visiting
A light breeze through the night kept things nice and cool so I woke up inspired. Originally I planned just to visit Islip and return via Big Cienega but changed my mind to hit all the Hawkins peaks again. That meant another trip to the spring, where I watched a large bee going to town on one of the yellow lily flowers. From there of course it was back up to Windy Gap and then the ridge heading roughly east.
Windy Gap
I like trail switchbacks where it looks like a forever view
Morning view over the valley
Last time I walked this area was for the N8K gathering, at the time I mentioned how pleasant it was on that stretch of the PCT. It’s much different going uphill and into the sun, although those few steps out onto the ridge for views helped to break things up. I left my pack at the junction and went up to Hawkins. I came down the use trail on the west side, it’s clearly not been used much lately. I did see this area apparently staked out, the two sides were both about 12 feet long and looked to be exactly 90 degrees as if a building would be put there.
Junction where I dropped my pack for a while, west ridge "shortcut" in the background
Hawkins summit
Layout for a new building?
I noticed a few of these on the recently cut trees, some looked like KH initials while this seems to be KN
Going over Middle Hawkins was pretty easy, a faint use trail still exists there. Approaching Sadie I took the old road bed up, sometime in the not too distant past it’s been run over by some tracked vehicle - not scraped, just driven up and over. There was also some evidence of the same kind of work near South Hawkins, unclear how it got up there. Since Sadie is the only one of these peaks with abundant shade I took my Snickers break there and then retreated down the soft and loose side towards the trail. I ran into another hiker there, we chatted about Sierras backpack locations for the entire time until reaching the South Hawkins cutoff where he took the road and I went up the crummy trail to the summit.
Middle Hawkins summit block
Following use trail down MH
Sadie Hawkins - trail goes left, road bed right
Sadie summit
Bulldozer track going down Sadie
South Hawkins
After a short visit there I walked all the way down the road, which seemed to take just about forever, then down the trail to the parking lot. While it was a long second day, it was still a great time in the Gabes.
Road walk toward Crystal Lake which is barely a pond now
I packed out a couple plastic bottles and this mylar star
Little Jimmy and Hawkins x4
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JeffH
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"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours".
Donald Shimoda
Donald Shimoda
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Nate U
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Little Jimmy TC looks like it has lots of good shade with great trees. Crystal Lake has been so fortunate with fires. (not to jinx anything)
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Anthony
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wow great to see that Jimmy was spared from the fire. there are some big trees there. also the entire hawkins ridge from the pct to the lookout is a delight. i rarely see people up there which makes it even better.