San Gabriels – Three Point, Mt. Waterman, Buckhorn, Cloud Burst Summit –May 15, 2011
Backpack starting at Three Points around south side of Mt. Waterman and down to Buckhorn campground on Sat May 14; ~9 mi and 2500 ft elevation gain; started to rain Sat night; turned to sleep and then snow; hiked up to the 2 (Angeles Crest Highway) and over to Cloud Burst Summit.
-Dan Homan
Dan Homan- Hiking Man
This weekend trip was a good training trip and hopefully it brought up scout awareness on the 10 essentials and some common sense gear that was lacking.
While no one expects snow in May in our mountains, particularly when the weather predictions did not give an indication of snow, we knew it could be cold and (mountain) misty. Some had adequate shelter for rain and snow but some of us did not; or in the case of the tarp, did not set it up correctly. Some had adequate rain/cold clothing but most did not.
Because we get so use to warm and comfy SOCAL weather it is easy to think some cold/rain gear is not needed on our trips.
For this trip it turned out ok because we able to get back to our cars in relatively short time. But what if we had been 2 to 3 days out in the backcountry? Something to have the scouts think about and discuss so we are better prepared on future trips.
I do want to add that I was impressed how well first time backpackers Joe and Andrew did. We did about 9 miles and 2500 ft elevation gain. Tim did a good job getting Andrew over some rough stretches.
Dan Homan
Assistant Scoutmaster
As it turned out, because of unexpected rain and snow, we were fortunate not to have made it to our original destination near the Cooper Canyon falls; that would have been a long, cold and wet climb up to Cloud Burst Summit on Sunday for several of the scouts.
On Saturday morning we arrived at Three Points around 9 AM. We recon’d a potential cross country route northeast into Squaw Canyon which then connected to the Cooper Canyon trail (about 5 miles). The terrain going in the canyon looked traverse-able but because the steep sections were like the loose gravel on Sawtooth going in and getting out would be difficult with backpacks. So we decided not to try that route. Instead we took the Twin Peaks trail on the backside of Mt. Waterman (5 miles to the Twin Peaks junction and then 3 miles to RT 2 across from Buckhorn). Because of the late start (11:00 AM), number of breaks and a long lunch, we did not make it down to RT 2 near Buckhorn until 5:30 PM. We went down the western edge of Buckhorn campground down into the canyon looking for the Burkhart trail. This started out ok but became very steep. We got down to the valley floor and found we were at bottom of the campground. By that point we were running out of daylight and we had some very tired scouts so we decided to stop and camp in there instead of continuing another 2 miles to the falls.
We all enjoyed a good hot dinner after setting up camp. The scouts had a fire going in a fire ring. Then around 9 PM what had been typical mountain ‘mist’ turned into a light drizzle and later that night turned into sleet. By Sunday morning it was a heavy wet and steady snowfall. Some of the scouts were not equipped for the wet and snow so we decided it would be best not to continue down to the falls and then back up Cooper Canyon trail to Cloud Burst Summit (~6mi) under those conditions. So instead we found the camp road up to RT 2 and walked the road to Cloud Burst Summit (~2 mi). There we found another troop from LAAC that had camped at Cooper canyon trail camp and were even less prepared then us for cold and wet. I got a ride from one of their parents to our cars parked at Three Point. By the time Tim and I got our cars back to the Summit Robin showed up.
Leader: Dan Homan, Tim Sims
Scouts: Kenny, Max, Sean, Alex, Joe, Andrew
Dan Homan
Troop 8 Assistant Scoutmaster
