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| Hiking | 5.68 Miles |
2,077 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.68 Miles | 5 Hrs 57 Mns | | 1.32 mph |
| 2,077 ft AEG | 1 Hour 39 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Well, that was an adventure! I've wanted to hike browns peak forever, and I have just never managed to get the stars aligned so that I could get out there. My coworkers hiked it last weekend, and I was jealous.  I had a free weekend and made plans to go!
I don't love the 4WD road up 4 peaks, so I decided to give El Oso road a go. Best decision ever!! So glad to have a smooth, relatively people-free ride up to the trailhead. Really, the road was such a dream. I'm glad I took a 4wd drive, high clearance car for the rockiness and steepness, but overall the road was smooth. The time penalty was plus 15 minutes to take this long way around. Definitely worth it!
We arrived at the Trailhead without incident to no cars in the lot and started off. Based on triplogs, we decided to go counter clockwise to avoid going up amethyst trail. This was also 100 percent the way to go. Browns Trail is beautiful up to the saddle. Smooth sailing. Morning was warm but still nice. The gentle grade is easy to manage.
We passed the amethyst junction and saw the rocky goodness that we would be descending on our way back, yippee! . We stopped for a quick snack break at the saddle before heading up. The views at the saddle are nice, and the view of the chute is daunting. It was a bit warm at the saddle as there was no surprisingly no breeze.
The first part up was uneventful. Before too long, I stowed my hiking sticks to allow my hands to be free for clamoring upwards. Our first obstacle was up an over a large boulder enroute to the chute proper start. After going over, I saw there was an easier, no exposure way around it that I hadn't spotted going the other direction. Cest la vie. I took the easy way on the way back. There are some nice wildflowers in this nice small shady area before the rock chute begins.
At the bottom of the chute looking up, it looked better than from the saddle. To me, anyway. It didn't look fun, but that's the price to pay to get up there No real problems until near the very top, just slow and steady going up. Near the top there was a section where a slightly larger round rock overhang. I felt not great about being able to go down after ascending. We had a discussion about it.,but turning around less than 300 feet from the top of the chute is a sad story. I climbed up and kept going. The top of the chute was steep and loose, as expected. Then came the last bit to the top, which after the chute was no problem.
The view from the top was breathtaking. The 360 views were worth the trek up. We sat up there a while to bask in the views.
We had the summit to ourselves, but we knew people were coming. We saw only one group of 3 hikers all day. Halfway up the chute, we saw them arrive at the saddle. When we departed the summit, we passed them going the other direction and had a friendly chat. We discussed the blood droplets (!) on the rocks, as they asked us if we were bleeding (Thankfully, we were not!).
We headed back down, and then in a few minutes we were at the top of the chute looking down. Delightful. Well... Here we go, down down down. It was actually pretty smooth going. I went down the spot that I was worried about going up with absolutely no issues. Funny how that works. Really nothing of note to add. Just a long way down, but nothing unexpected. My quads,knees, and palms of my hands were happy when it was over.
We headed the easy way around around the large boulder obstacle, and headed down the last decent to the saddle. I took my poles back out on this section, and it was so nice to have them to use!
No stop at the saddle this time, instead we cruised down amethyst. This wasn't horrible, but not super fun. It's rocky and steeper than browns as we knew it would be. A lot of trail maintenance was done near the upper junction, but over time the trail gets narrower with encroaching manzanita. Still relatively easy to follow despite a number of what appear to be other trails branching off here and there. There are also a lot of cairns around, along with well-placed branches telling you don't go this way. After a seemingly interminable down, I was happy to reach the 4 peaks trail junction. It was easy walking back to the trailhead. The landscape changes to pine trees, oaks, and very large boulders.
We arrived back to 4 cars in the lot. 2 people were just taking in The views before driving off, so it looks like we missed seeing one group.
The drive down El Oso was smooth. We saw one car parked at the hairpin turn with the loop on it. That was it, we passed no one else. This in contrast on the way up where we passed 2 cars going down on our initial ascent, then no one until we saw a few cars with camps set up at the top. We paused at the pigeon springs trailhead on the way in, and 4 cars passed us by. So not no people all day, but overall not too bad. The drive back to town was uneventful.
I had fun on this hike despite it being relentless sometimes in the chute, as I figured it would be. A day well spent on a hiking adventure!  |
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I know I hadn't been up since the Bush Fire, but that's only half the elapsed deficit. Oh well. 
. I stated that I really didn't want to hike back down that steep climb to where we were to look for him if he was on he way back to the TH anyway, and Wally likes uphills anyway. Joe threw in that maybe we passed a ruin that Andy was checking out. After Joe ran a quarter mile back down the trail, I took my phone out of airplane mode and got in contact with Andy. He did take the wrong turn but figured it out and was on his way towards us. At that point we continued on in confidence that we were not in fact leaving him for dead. He caught with me and Joe a half mile from the Lone Pine TH, Wally was already taking a nap waiting for us there. 
