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| Hiking | 3.26 Miles |
1,859 AEG |
| | Hiking | 3.26 Miles | 4 Hrs 7 Mns | | 1.00 mph |
| 1,859 ft AEG | 51 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | After Signal Mountain, we drove over to our starting point north of Woolsey, with a couple of sandy and rough sections where high clearance/4x4 came in handy. We passed two guys in an OHV on the way, but those were the only people we saw all day. We parked a small pullout with a fire ring near the end of the road that parallels a barbed wire fence, packed up for the second peak, and took off.
The north side of Woolsey is in shadow all day this time of year, which made it hard to see a route to the top. It wasn't too steep at the beginning, just lots of black volcanic rock that kept us watching our steps. We crawled under a fence, then started gaining elevation more quickly, hiking up slopes of the black rock. Once we were in the shadows, it was easier to see where the route would take us to the top, and we eventually picked up some cairns and faint trails higher up.
Back in the sun near the peak, cholla dominated the landscape. Near the summit, someone had gone to a lot of work to build a circle of rocks, with the register in the middle and a lined path leading to the benchmark. There was a new ammo box and register notebook from February last year...whoever placed it had the elevation listed at 2,237'  . There was one old page in the box with a few HAZ names. Despite a layer of haze that settled in by afternoon (maybe smoke from the LA fires?), we had nice views from the peak, and it was cool to look over at Signal Mountain...the top still looked steep from miles away.
After a snack break, we started down and dropped down off the ridge in a slightly different spot, then followed our same route down. Slow going down with the loose rock, but our parking spot along the road was in view the whole hike, and we eventually crawled under the fence again and finished off the hike. Other than the summit ridge and short stretch of road, there wasn't much level ground--boulders all the way, but Woolsey was definitely easier than the scrambling and loose gravel on Signal Mountain.
We made it through both hikes with no falls and no major cholla run-ins, so it was a double win  . Thank you to Linda for organizing this--both fun hikes and entertaining conversation all day. And thank you for driving--the Jeep handled some rough terrain with no problems, though we did hear a loud thud underneath on the drive back. We can all hope there's not a rock stuck in the heat shield... |
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