Mount Lowe Night Hike: Are You Scared of the Dark?

With Mt. Whitney closely approaching, We realized that we had had no experience hiking in the dark with our headlights. This is a mandatory task on Mt. Whitney, as we will be beginning our hike at 3 am, in the pitch black wilderness.


I decided that we needed to get some night hiking practice in before our big trip. I knew that Mount Lowe Trail was a well known trail to us all, and relatively close to civilization, so it was the obvious choice. The only potential problem was wildlife, aka mountain lions, and the well known fact that the area is a refuge for devil worshipers, witches, and other dark gatherings. What could go wrong, right?

Elizabeth and Jen met at my place around 2 am. We gathered our gear and made the drive over to the trail head. We got out of the car and put on our backpacks. Just as we did, the street lights flickered, then turned out, leaving us in total dark. Must be a coincidence. the area couldn't really be as haunted as they say it is, right?

We walked up to the front gate which lead to to old Cobb Estate and the beginning of our trail. As we approached the gate, 3 gothic teens crept out of the dark and exited the old Cobb estate and out onto the street. After seeing this, we knew we would be in for an interesting hike.

We hit the trail with out headlamps on out heads, guiding the way. I took the lead and the 2 girls followed closely behind. This was our first time hiking in the dark, and I do have to say it is a strange experience. Our headlamps use blue LED lights, which washed out all color from our views. It was like watching an old TV show in black and white. The other odd experience was the tunnel vision. With out lights spotlighted in front of us, everything else in our peripheral vision faded into the darkness.

As we approached our 1 mile mark, we noticed small objects swooping around and fluttering around us. We frequently had to dodge these objects and they often almost fly into our heads. We stopped to observe these objects. We realized what they were. BATS. and they were everywhere. We tried to ignore them as we pushed on.


As we continued we were met by a few other night time creatures.... Tarantulas, Spiders....and something we didn't expect. As we rounded a bend in the trail, I saw something large sprint towards me on the trail then dart off into the brush. My heart stopped and I froze trying to figure out what was running toward us. 2 more creatures ran towards us, then again into the brush. My first thought was, Mountain Lions! but as the last creature ran into the brush, I saw the hind leg of the animal kick into the air. It was a family of deer. We must have snuck up on them. I don't know who was more scared, us or them.


We pushed on and finally reached the old Mt. Lowe Hotel Ruins (the white city). It was a little past 4 am. What we saw was amazing. We could see the San Gabriel Valley, Pasadena, Glendale, Los Angeles, San Bernardo. Each city blending together, creating a giant blanket of lights for as far as we could see. Absolutely Amazing! We stopped for a moment to snap some photo's then continued our appretiation of the city lights.


We grabbed some snacks out of our bags and gazed at the city lights for quite some time. We decided it would be a wonder experience to sit and wait for the sunrise. The sun soon broke from beyond the horizon and lit our view of the valley. We had had enough rest, and started our way back down the trail.

We passed some folks making their way up as we made our way down. They seemed very shocked to see someone coming down at 5:30 in the morning. They must have figured they were going to be the early birds. They must have thought we were crazy. The rest of the hike was uneventful. It only took us 40 minutes to come back down to the cars and then a quick 15 minute drive back home.

While the phyisical hike itself was not challanging, learning to navigate a trail in the dark, getting bombarded by bats, being spooked by wickens, and sneaking up on wild animals, made this trip quite the adventure.

Next Stop..... Mt. Whitney!!

Baden Powell Strikes Back...

Dancing with the Devil

Info on our pre trip to mt whitney.

Mt San Jacinto

Mt. Lowe Historical Railroad

This will have info about our hike on the mt low railroad.

Baden Powell: Mountain Lions Like Snow too....

Dedicated to the man who created the Boy Scouts, this hike definitely required some boy scout learned skills. For example, how to tell which way is North. Another, how to stop yourself from sliding down the side of a mountain covered with snow.

Jenn, her brother Dave, Elizabeth and John all headed out early one morning towards the Mountain High area of highway 2. Driving towards the saddle and parking lot, they noticed that there were hardly any cars. This made everyone think that the hike was going to be nice and peaceful. Getting out of the car and looking up toward the peak, lead them to believe something different. You see, there was still snow on the mountain. This is something that the group wasn't entirely prepared for.

After tossing on their gear, they started to head up the trail. Not even a mile in, snow patches began to show on the mountainside. Excited that there was snow, the group quickly moved along the trail. Later, this would not be the emotion they were expressing.

As small patches of snow turned into large patches of which the group had to cross, Jenn became a little more wary of the hike. At this point John and Elizabeth decided to share their trekking poles with Jenn and Dave as they were very much needed to keep from sliding down the side of the mountain. About 2 miles in, the large patches of snow had turned into huge ones and losing the trail became a concern.

As we hiked along the trail, we hiked along the snow filled trial, we started to notice animal prints in the snow. They were mountain lion tracks. Big mountain lion tracks. We came to a point in the hike where the trail opened up into a small flat area. It was at this point where the trail seemed to disappear under the snow. We each spread out, combing the area, trying to pick up the trail. As we looked for the trail, we spotted more and more mountain lion prints.

Elizabeth stopped and asked everyone, "uhhh do you guys smell that?" We all raised our noses to the wind and caught the strong scent of animal urine. It was at that moment that we realized that we were standing in the mountain lions marked area. We bunched together and shot of on what we thought was the continuation of the trail.

This "trail" was all snow, with a width of a few inches; just enough to step one foot in front of the other. Once false step, and a hiker would slide down the mountain side. And that's just what happened. We all watched in horror as Elizabeth's foot slide out from under her, and he started to slide down the mountain side. Luckily, she was able to wrap one of her legs around a tree as she slid. We helped her back up to the trail.

It was at this point that we decided that attempting to continue on with this trip could lead to deadly results. We turned around and marched back through the slick icy snow back to the car.

We did not reach the peak, but with all the odds fighting against us, we figured it would be better to attempt this hike at a later point in the summer.

Mt. Wilson: "Lions and Fires and Bears.. Oh My!"

Mt. Wilson. Good old Mt. Wilson. Not a new hike to us. In fact we hiked this peak last year this time, only on a different route. So when our morning started, we didn't expect to much excitement. This would be more of a cardio/training hike than a sight seeing hike. What could go wrong?

The morning of the hike we gathered at my place, and made the short drive to the Chantry Flats Parking area 3 miles into the mountain side, just off the Santa Anita 210 FWY Exit. We parked the car, threw on our gear, and set out on the trail.

We marched single file down the trail. Jen in the lead, Liz in the back, and me in the middle. About .75 miles into the hike, we head some leaves crunch off the the right of the trail. This is not abnormal. There are always lizards, snakes and squirrels making their way through the brush. The crunches got a little louder and heavier. Before I would look, Elizabeth yelled, "BEAR!". She pushed me out of her way and jolted down the trail. I turned to look and found my self staring eye to eye with a bear. The bear was no more than 10 feet away from me. I slowly moved away from the bear. She stared at me, watching my every move.

I wondered why she was being so territorial. It wasn't until I heard the yelping of baby cubs, did I realize why. Two baby cubs, no longer than 2 feet tall, were climbing their way down from a tree. I grabbed my camera and tried to snap a few shots, but momma bear would have none of that. She hopped up onto the trail and made her way toward me. I quickly ran to catch up to Liz and Jen. What an experience. I have never come that close to a wild animal. Well, a dangerous wild animal.

If you thought that was our only brush with the mountain's wildlife, think again. While not dangerous, we were attacked by swarms of flies almost the whole way up trail. Tried some Deet bug spray. Didn't work. Jen brought some all natural bug spray. That worked like a gem.

As we reached the top, we ran into a group of about 50 people that were cleaning and clearing the trail of brush and over growth. Turns out they were preparing the trail for their trail running. This trail was only a small portion of their run. They were doing a 100 mile trail run, starting in Wrightwood and ending at JPL which had to be run in 40 hours, or they would be disqualified. Crazy people!!

We reached the top, eat lunch, took some pictures and started back down. Ran into some snakes on the trail. Not poisonous. Jen Took a spill, and scraped her self up pretty good. She also banged up her knee pretty badly.

At about the 10th mile of our hike, about 2 to 3 miles from the car, Elizabeth asked "Do you guys smell smoke?" Indeed I did. So strong that it was burning my nose. We figured there might be a fire somewhere and the wind was blowing smoke in out direction. Over the next 10 minutes, the canyon began to look a little hazy, and specs of ash started to fall on us. This is when we realized, the fire must be closer than we thought. about 2 miles from the car/parking lot we rounded a turn. To our shock and horror we saw the backside of the hill directly over the parking lot was billowing smoke. We could see water dropping helicopters and planes swooping over head, but their affect was minimal.

We all looked at each other and I said.. "RUN". We knew we had to head in the direction of the fire, but we knew that we couldn't go backwards. The fire would catch us faster than we could make the 10 mile hike back to the peak. Our only chance to survive was to try to make it to the car and drive 3 miles back down the road.

We ran almost all the way back down the trail. When we reached the parking lot, we found about 100 cars in the parking lot, with everyone just sitting around. We spotted a Ranger and asked her what was going on. It turned out that the fire had started and is burning directly on and around the very road we needed to use to get out and to safety. We were trapped, along with 200 other people.

Very soon the Ranger was joined by a fire captain. He took a head count and explained that yes, we were trapped here, as that road was the only way out and that when the opportunity arose, they would escort us down the mountain, 10 cars at a time.

While we waited, to leave, a heroic crew of firemen and search and rescue teams were putting on their gear, saying a prayer, and preparing to go out into the wilderness to alert and save any campers or hikers that may be stranded or unaware of the dangers that were coming.

We waited for 2 hours, when finally, they would not wait any longer. The fire was almost upon us.

We loaded into our car and made the second caravan down the mountain, with a sheriff in front and behind us. What we saw next was amazing and possibly the scariest thing I have seen in my life.

We rounded a bend only to see the whole mountain a blaze. Hundreds of firemen were scrambling everywhere, hosing down outbreaks, cutting back brush. The flames were 7 stories high. I was terrified for our lives and the lives of those fire fighters. We had to be careful where we drove as smoldering rocks and trees were flew down onto the road from the mountain side. We were on the fire lines.

After what seemed like an eternity, we were escorted all the way down and safely to the city. As we drove towards the freeway, people were standing outside, the media was running around in a frenzy, and people closest to the hillside were evacuating. As we drove further away, I could get a wider view of the mountain and could fully appreciate how lucky we were to get out of there alive.

Every knows fire fighters are brave, but after being on the fire lines with these amazing people, you really get a better understanding of how dangerous and life threatening their jobs are. Thank you to every single firefighter that helped us escape that day and risked their lives to save ours.