Santiago Peak
May. 27th, 2024 07:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goobergunchSantiago Peak, highest point of Orange County, California, has been on my to-hike list for several years. I had finally intended to check it off last summer, but high heat made it infeasible last July Fourth weekend so I ended up doing a number of shorter hikes instead. Memorial Day weekend this year, however, seemed a good backup plan -- it's cooler, the days are still long, and my annual Adventure Pass wouldn't have expired yet. So I booked a hotel and made my plans.
I ended up getting a rather late start out Saturday morning due to last-minute packing. I hadn't really packed the night before on account of heading up to San Francisco to see the Funny Girl tour, and it didn't help my speed that I got woken up unexpectedly early by loud noises from upstairs. Looks like the neighbors are moving out. Hopefully they'll be finished by the time I get home. Nonetheless, I was on the road shortly after 10 a.m. I decided to take the scenic route via 101, and took a pit stop in San Luis Obispo for gas and what was intended to be a quick check of the local comics shops. Instead, I ended up digging through Captain Nemo's back issue bins for over an hour, finding a decent number of my highest priority collecting targets. It was worth it but did put me behind schedule. After a dinner break in Goleta, I ended up getting in to my hotel in Lake Forest just before 9 p.m.
I woke up bright and early the next morning and after a quick food stop at a nearby Ralph's, headed to the trailhead. Well, attempted to head to the trailhead. Turns out Trabuco Creek Road was gated a couple miles short of the actual Holy Jim Trailhead due to three creek crossings that were still quite wet. I grabbed what was possibly the last parking spot near the gate, discovered to my irritation that one of my trekking pole's tip protectors was jammed onto the pole (necessitating hiking with only one pole) and set off at 7:38am. It was cool and foggy -- great hiking weather.
The first part of the hike was pretty dull since it was just Trabuco Creek Road, although the creek crossings did provide a bit of unwanted spice. When I finally reached the normal parking area, I turned onto the first part of the Holy Jim Trail, which involved another locked gate and a road hike through a bunch of cabins. The lower ones looked to be pretty dilapidated -- I noticed large fungal growths on at least one of them. After all of that road walking, I finally got to the signed Holy Jim Trailhead, at which point the route turned into an actual single-tracked trail. It still follows Trabuco Creek, and there are several additional creek crossings, but these were actually more pleasant than the ones on the road since there were rocks and logs that obviated getting one's feet wet.
At around 2200' there's a trail junction. Turning right would lead to Holy Jim Falls, which will have to be an adventure for another time. The left branch went up, and proved to be a narrow trail through a couple miles of green tunnel. It's not my favorite kind of trail as I tend to feel a trifle claustrophobic with overhanging vegetation that's barely taller than I am. But it kept the sun out and the temperatures cool, so that was upside. There weren't really views yet anyway since the fog didn't even start thinking about lifting until 3000' or so.
Eventually the Holy Jim Trail opens up a bit and eventually meets up with the Main Divide Road at 3965'. I got a bit turned around by the HPS directions here and ended up doing some unnecessary hiking west (following a GPS track I had downloaded) before deciding that no, I didn't want to pick my way through a tiny, steep use trail. I eventually determined that the HPS route followed a trail almost directly north of the Holy Jim trail junction, at Bear Spring, but at that point I figured I'd just go with the road. By that point the day was warming up and the fog was dissipating, and I got to enjoy the views of the Santa Ana Mountains all around. At 4874' there's a nice wide area with good views to the north, where the Three Saints -- two still with crowns of snow -- could be seen off in the distance, as well as the I-15 corridor directly below.
The thing about hiking on an active dirt road is that you do have to deal with vehicles. (I viewed doing Santiago Peak as a drive-up to be unsporting, but if you've got the right vehicle, it's sure easier than a 18-mile hike with four thousand feet of elevation gain.) And it seemed like the vehicles only increased in frequency as I got closer to the summit. Having to wait out a quadruple Jeep convoy was bad enough, but the coup-de-grace was getting passed by, of all things, a Cybertruck. Gross.
At any rate, I got to the summit a bit after 1 p.m. and took all of my regular pictures. The views on the true summit are pretty sharply limited by all of the communications towers, and there were still a lot of low clouds to the south which further obscured things, but Trabuco and Modjeska Peaks were very visible, as were the rest of the nearby peaks. Also there were lots and lots of flies. I took a photo for one family that had driven up and the youngest son was trying to kill all of the flies that he could -- he wasn't lacking for targets. No summit register, but there was a little "Santiago Peak" sign to hold. I ended up taking my summit break (and eating lunch) on the north side of the summit area, which had better (and less cloud-obstructed) views, fewer people, and fewer flies. There's a cool little setup at one point with tubes pointing at the nearby mountains and lakes.
I started down at 2:20pm. The hike out was largely uneventful, although early on my descent a Toyota Tacoma driver pulled over to ask me if continuing on the Main Divide Road would get them out. I confirmed that they were on a thru-road but couldn't help them more than that. It's not like the maps I brought covered the full road. I was pretty exhausted by the final push down Trabuco Creek Road when the elevation loss was too minimal for gravity to be much of a hiking aid, but I made it back to the car just before 7 p.m., a good hour before sunset. And then it was time to drive back to the hotel, get dinner, and pass out.
I ended up getting a rather late start out Saturday morning due to last-minute packing. I hadn't really packed the night before on account of heading up to San Francisco to see the Funny Girl tour, and it didn't help my speed that I got woken up unexpectedly early by loud noises from upstairs. Looks like the neighbors are moving out. Hopefully they'll be finished by the time I get home. Nonetheless, I was on the road shortly after 10 a.m. I decided to take the scenic route via 101, and took a pit stop in San Luis Obispo for gas and what was intended to be a quick check of the local comics shops. Instead, I ended up digging through Captain Nemo's back issue bins for over an hour, finding a decent number of my highest priority collecting targets. It was worth it but did put me behind schedule. After a dinner break in Goleta, I ended up getting in to my hotel in Lake Forest just before 9 p.m.
I woke up bright and early the next morning and after a quick food stop at a nearby Ralph's, headed to the trailhead. Well, attempted to head to the trailhead. Turns out Trabuco Creek Road was gated a couple miles short of the actual Holy Jim Trailhead due to three creek crossings that were still quite wet. I grabbed what was possibly the last parking spot near the gate, discovered to my irritation that one of my trekking pole's tip protectors was jammed onto the pole (necessitating hiking with only one pole) and set off at 7:38am. It was cool and foggy -- great hiking weather.
The first part of the hike was pretty dull since it was just Trabuco Creek Road, although the creek crossings did provide a bit of unwanted spice. When I finally reached the normal parking area, I turned onto the first part of the Holy Jim Trail, which involved another locked gate and a road hike through a bunch of cabins. The lower ones looked to be pretty dilapidated -- I noticed large fungal growths on at least one of them. After all of that road walking, I finally got to the signed Holy Jim Trailhead, at which point the route turned into an actual single-tracked trail. It still follows Trabuco Creek, and there are several additional creek crossings, but these were actually more pleasant than the ones on the road since there were rocks and logs that obviated getting one's feet wet.
At around 2200' there's a trail junction. Turning right would lead to Holy Jim Falls, which will have to be an adventure for another time. The left branch went up, and proved to be a narrow trail through a couple miles of green tunnel. It's not my favorite kind of trail as I tend to feel a trifle claustrophobic with overhanging vegetation that's barely taller than I am. But it kept the sun out and the temperatures cool, so that was upside. There weren't really views yet anyway since the fog didn't even start thinking about lifting until 3000' or so.
Eventually the Holy Jim Trail opens up a bit and eventually meets up with the Main Divide Road at 3965'. I got a bit turned around by the HPS directions here and ended up doing some unnecessary hiking west (following a GPS track I had downloaded) before deciding that no, I didn't want to pick my way through a tiny, steep use trail. I eventually determined that the HPS route followed a trail almost directly north of the Holy Jim trail junction, at Bear Spring, but at that point I figured I'd just go with the road. By that point the day was warming up and the fog was dissipating, and I got to enjoy the views of the Santa Ana Mountains all around. At 4874' there's a nice wide area with good views to the north, where the Three Saints -- two still with crowns of snow -- could be seen off in the distance, as well as the I-15 corridor directly below.
The thing about hiking on an active dirt road is that you do have to deal with vehicles. (I viewed doing Santiago Peak as a drive-up to be unsporting, but if you've got the right vehicle, it's sure easier than a 18-mile hike with four thousand feet of elevation gain.) And it seemed like the vehicles only increased in frequency as I got closer to the summit. Having to wait out a quadruple Jeep convoy was bad enough, but the coup-de-grace was getting passed by, of all things, a Cybertruck. Gross.
At any rate, I got to the summit a bit after 1 p.m. and took all of my regular pictures. The views on the true summit are pretty sharply limited by all of the communications towers, and there were still a lot of low clouds to the south which further obscured things, but Trabuco and Modjeska Peaks were very visible, as were the rest of the nearby peaks. Also there were lots and lots of flies. I took a photo for one family that had driven up and the youngest son was trying to kill all of the flies that he could -- he wasn't lacking for targets. No summit register, but there was a little "Santiago Peak" sign to hold. I ended up taking my summit break (and eating lunch) on the north side of the summit area, which had better (and less cloud-obstructed) views, fewer people, and fewer flies. There's a cool little setup at one point with tubes pointing at the nearby mountains and lakes.
I started down at 2:20pm. The hike out was largely uneventful, although early on my descent a Toyota Tacoma driver pulled over to ask me if continuing on the Main Divide Road would get them out. I confirmed that they were on a thru-road but couldn't help them more than that. It's not like the maps I brought covered the full road. I was pretty exhausted by the final push down Trabuco Creek Road when the elevation loss was too minimal for gravity to be much of a hiking aid, but I made it back to the car just before 7 p.m., a good hour before sunset. And then it was time to drive back to the hotel, get dinner, and pass out.
