As much as I enjoyed a change of pace for my birthday night, all things considered, it stands to reason that I'd spend at least one day of my birthday week hiking somewhere, as that is one of my first loves. So 4 days after my 40th, I laced up my boots and headed out on a hike via the Sturtevant Trail to the summit of Mt. Wilson. This hike was not a particularly special or exciting or even a new route, but it was a personal one, beginning when I hiked the same trail to the top of Mt. Wilson in November of 2012. That experience had started out well but ended on a bad note when a bank of fog settled on the mountain top and cut off all visability, and I literally had to hitch a ride from the summit back to my car. After that experience, I was determined to complete the full hike I had originally set out to do, and I did that last year in April, returning to the mountain and finally completing the entire 13 mile loop.
But the experience was still lacking. I still hadn't gotten the full experience out of it that I should have. The result from the April 2013 Mt. Wilson hike and also my Mt. Baldy birthday hike last June was a great deal of pain and a lot of recovery time afterward. It didn't seem to me that it should be like that. So, since then, I had been determined to get back and have another go at Mt. Wilson. However, the reality of life is that it is difficult for a person with family responsibility, a full time job, involvement in ministry activities, and oh, yeah, that marathon training thing, to find and set aside an entire day for a personal activity like a 13 mile hike. 13 miles of running on a flat route is about a 2 1/2 hour chunk of time for me, leaving plenty of time for other stuff the same day I do it. But 13 miles on narrow, rocky trails with about 4,000 feet of elevation gain and loss is an entire day's commitment of time for me. So I had to bide my time, and it just happened that my birthday week this year was the opportunity that finally opened for me to have a day to go and take one more crack at Mt. Wilson.
Having been at this hiking thing for a few years now, I've pretty much already got all the gear and stuff I figure I need to take with me any time I decide to go for a day out on the trails. For the most part, other than food and water, that is just items to prevent or aid in the the instance of injury or getting lost. If you go to the "outdoor section" of your local sports store or WalMart, you'll find these products. I tend to stick to the basic items, and avoid "creature comforts", but I did decide to add one new tool to my arsenal: trekking poles. I have never really thought it necessary to have them, but after seeing a lot of other hikers using them on my recent trips out on the trails, I figured "what the hey", I'll give 'em a shot. So the day before my trip I picked up a pair at WalMart as I stocked up on beef jerky and granola bars. I also picked up some bug repellent wipes. The package proclaimed in big letters "30% Deet!", so I dubbed them Deet Sheets, and into the pack they went. Now fully equipped, I was ready to go.The day of my hike was the kids last day of school. I took the day off from work and after they were off to school, I headed across the valley to begin my hike. I got into Chantry Flats at about 10AM, and pulled in right as someone else was just leaving. That's a mini miracle in and of itself, because it's a popular spot, and finding a parking space out there is a little like winning the lottery. I've had to park down the road a couple times, which is risky because in some places it's posted "no parking". Despite this, people always park there and ignore the signs, but I always try to get a "real" parking space because I'd hate to return from a day on the trails to find that was the day that the Forest Service decided to go all official and tow everyone in the "no parking" zone.
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| Tiger Lily Flower |
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| Monkey Flowers |
I made the four mile mark by 12:30PM. There is a backpacker's campground there called Spruce Grove. It has tables, fire cook stoves and the worst pit toilets on the planet. I think they are cleaned and emptied like once a year, if that, which means, most of the time they are unusable. I always stop at the campground on my hikes, eat lunch at one of the tables and attempt to use the, ahem, so called "facilities" before continuing on my way. On occasion, the necessity to find an alternative arises, but after so many years in Girl Scouts I am familiar with which types of bushes are friendly and which are not. I've found it's a good skill to have, as you never know when it will come in handy.
Continuing on the trail past Spruce Grove, there is a trail junction. The Gabrielino trail that you came up on goes to the right, and the Sturtevant Trail begins, going left toward the summit of Mt. Wilson. This is the beginning of a 3 mile stretch that is the steepest, most difficult section of the trail in the entire round trip hike. First, the trail goes straight for about a mile. You can look back during this section and see a long stretch of trail behind you, and you find yourself seeing how steep it is and thinking, "holy smokes, I did THAT?" Thankfully, the trail looks a lot steeper looking back down it than up at it. Otherwise I think a lot fewer would make it up there than do now! So, about halfway up, mosquitos and deer flies and gnats decided that I was a snacky treat and began closing in. Apparently June is prime deer fly season. Yay nature. I wiped myself with the Deet Sheets and that took care of that. They still buzzed around, but kept their distance from my Deet-ey odor. I don't even know what Deet is, but if it stinks bad enough to keep the blood sucking bugs away, it's fine in my book.
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| about 1/2 mile to the summit |
On the lower sections of trails I had seen many fellow hikers, but as I got higher, there were fewer brave souls. Most of the trip my companions were wildlife. There were a lot of birds and California gray squirrels, a whole lot of stink bugs for some reason, and many, many lizards. Close to the summit I saw a small rattlesnake making his way up the hillside. I took pictures, with my zoom lens, of course. None of my companions out there bothered me, except maybe some of the squirrels. They are kind of particular about their territory and tend to watch you closely as you pass. It's almost a bit disconcerting, but after many hikes on the upper and lower trails out there, I've learned that the squirrels may be a bit peculiar, but for the most part they will leave you alone, so long as you keep your hands off their nuts.
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| TV transmission towers |
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| Mt. Wilson Observatory 60 inch telescope |
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| the best shot from several attempts using cell phone self timer |
One of the reasons I like this hike is because there is the option of doing a loop. That means, one way to get there, and a different way to get back. It means more scenery and different perspectives of the terrain. But I have always done this loop the same way, ascending via the Gabrielino Trail and the Sturtevant Trail and descending via the Mt. Wilson trail, and the Winter Creek trail. Maybe one of these days I'll switch it up and do the loop in reverse. But this time I followed the pattern I'd previously done twice, because I wanted to have the same conditions as previously, while trying for a different result.
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| Happy Trails... |
I reached the bottom of the steepest section, and came into another backpacker's campground along the bank of the creek. There was someone there in a hammock playing a harmonica off in the distance. It sounded almost a little haunting, but I figured I would be ok so long as I didn't hear any banjos. I sat down, had another lunch and wiped on some more Deet Sheets to get the mosquitos out of my ears again. At this point in the trip, I had two miles to go to get back to the parking lot. I checked my phone, it was 6PM. I still had two hours before the road closed, but I was starting to feel pressure again as the sun had long disappeared from the deep section of canyon I was in, and it was as dark as dusk. The last two miles of any hike pretty much suck anyway, just like the last two miles of any run. It's simply state of mind. You know you are ALMOST there, and you want to be there NOW. You are tired, you are getting cranky, and if it's dark, there's not much scenery to enjoy. And now, with that clock in my head ticking louder and louder, those last 2 miles were particularly irritating. After hiking for what seemed like forever, I started to psych myself out at every turn by thinking "the end of the trail MUST be around the next bend!". And then, it wasn't, I got all irritated, and so on. I kept up this fun routine until I finally reached the end of the Winter Creek Trail at 7PM.
The last section of this hike is the same paved road I came down at the beginning of the day. It's an incredibly steep 6/10 of a mile section of road, probably the last thing anyone wants to see after nearly 13 miles of hiking. But up I went, and got to the parking lot at 7:18PM, a full 42 minutes before the gate slammed shut. On my way to the car I passed several gleeful teenagers goofing around in the parking lot. As I got to the car, one young fellow climbed on the top of a building and began to belt out Beyonce's "Single Ladies" at the top of his lungs. I wondered if he knew he was standing on the roof of a pit toilet and what he was risking falling into should the roof of said pit toilet give way. I thought of taking a video, but that's pretty much when my phone battery died, so that little moment of history will only be able to live on in my memory, and not the internet for all to share. Lucky for him.
So what is the moral of this long detailed story? I have several, but they will need to wait for another post because I think this one is long enough. The one thing I will say is, being 40 is awesome, as least so far! I don't feel old and crotchety, which is what I had assumed would happen all throughout my younger years. Every time someone in my life would turn 40, everyone would make jokes about them being "over the hill", as though the best part of their lives had passed and it was all downhill from there. It wasn't until I began literally reversing my aging process by improving my health and fitness that I dared entertain the thought that 40 didn't have to be the end of "the good years", and that just the opposite, it was really at the beginning of the best years of my life. So my theme of my first days of being 40 is to counteract that old joke that's not really funny: being "over the hill". I have made sure that the personal activities in my life involve literal hills. My first run after my 40th birthday was up to the top of Signal Hill. My first hike after turning 40 was to the top of Mt. Wilson. And I'll continue doing this, not only for its own sake of being just plain awesome, but also as a statement that the hill is only in our minds. You see, if we go with the joke and give in and give up on the later years of our lives, then we lose out. But if we accept that we still have the possibility in us to climb mountains and do other amazing things no matter what the calendar says, then we are truly living the life we were intended to live. And that gives me so much to look forward to for the years ahead to come!
As usual, I would like to thank you for reading this far. I hope you enjoyed my post, please repost to your FB and share with your friends if you think I'm cool.
Thanks again! Until next time,
-MaryAnne
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