Читать книгу 101 Hikes in Southern California. Exploring Mountains, Seashore, and Desert онлайн

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By 2.0 miles, the canyon floor has narrowed, and you’ve turned decidedly east and are strolling through beautiful coast live-oak woods (plus native sycamore and walnut trees), which continue intermittently up the canyon in the next 3 miles. A little stream flows in the bottom of the canyon during and for some weeks or months after the winter rains. You’re climbing at a gentle rate of about 200 feet per mile. You pass the ascending Wiley Canyon Road on the left at 4.1 miles, and at 4.7 miles you reach the site of an old well and pump. Large oak trees shade a cluster of picnic tables for a convenient lunch stop.

Continue following the graded dirt road about 300 yards past the well. The road ends, but a bulldozed track, eroded and very steep at first, curls 0.7 mile up the south slope of Happy Camp Canyon and then joins Middle Range Fire Trail on the crest of Big Mountain. If you are coming from the other direction, the easy-to-miss junction is marked by a cairn on a saddle. Use that ridge-running fire trail to return to lower Happy Camp Canyon at a point just above the gate marking the wilderness area boundary.