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.

Mt. Lukens = Tick Farm

Next on our list of mountain peaks, was Mt. Lukens. This time our friend Jeanette decided to join us.

The morning started with off with everyone meeting up at my house, making a early morning Carl's Jr. Run, which is becoming a tradition, and taking to 210 to the 2 FWY towards the Mt. Lukens trail.

We arrived at our destination, the Wildwood picnic area. It was just behind the picnic area that would find the Stone Canyon Trail... Or what we thought was the trail. To reach the trail we had to hop rocks and logs that were making a make shift bridge across a stream. After keeping as dry as we could, we walked along the stream until we reached "the trail". This trail worked its way about 3 miles into the canyon. It looked like a trail...but at the same time it looked like a rocky dried river bed. Turns out, it was the river bed. After hiking up the steep rocky bed, we decided to make out way back down to the beginning to see if we had overlooked the real trail. Indeed we did. Luckily, Elizabeth spotted the real trail up on a ledge about half way down our decent. It took a little climbing, but we reached the real trail.

Excellent, so now we were on the real trail heading up the mountain, looking forward to a terrific and smooth hike. That wasn't the case.

As we made our way up the trail, I noticed little bugs jumping onto my legs. I examined them a little closer. They resembled little crabs. And thats when it hit me. TICKS!!!! These were no ordinary ticks. They were ticks on Steroids. Luckily for the girls, they shave their legs, but for me, my leg hair acted like a jungle gym, and guess what, school was out for the summer, cuz the ticks were having a grand old time swinging from hair to hair. We had to stop every few minutes to clear out legs of ticks. This was initiated by one of us yelling "TICK CHECK!"

As we started to get into higher elevations, the ticks slowly went away. Now we had a new problem. SLAPPERS!

Definition - Slappers (noun) - 1. one who slaps, 2. tree and shrub branches that hit, smack, wack, slap or cause other bodily injuries while hiking. Most commonly found on over grown trails. Word orgin comes from an aggravated hiker, John.

Yes we had to bush wack almost half of the hike. Finally reached the summit. Scrathed, itchy, and tired, we sat at the peak of Mt. Lukens, ate some food and enjoyed the view.

After 30 mins of rest, the fog started to roll in over the mountain. We packed up and made our way back down the obsticle course back to the car. When we got to the car, we did one final tick check and started the drive back home.

While this hike wasnt the most attractive, it was definitely an experience worth remembering.

Lotto Fever!!!

WE WON!

It is official! We won the Mt. Whitney Lotto, and we got placed on our #1 preferred time slot. Elizabeth, Jen, and myself will be hiking to the Mt. Whitney On Labor Day weekend 2008!

I guess that means we are really doing this thing huh?!

Wish us luck! And Pray for my knees!