10:20 AM 01 September 2008 at the Mt Wilson’s Trail

Being the US Labor Day on this day and “no-work” day, my son just thought of asking me if I want to go on trail hiking at The San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles. I said, “Yes” and we were out of the house at 9:45 AM with our trail running kit, energy bars & GUs, and our respective Camelbaks.

We took the I-210 and went to the direction of Pasadena, exited at Baldwin Street and went North towards the town of Sierra Made, California. We parked our car at Mira Monte Street fronting the Mt Wilson Trail Park.

At exactly 10:20 AM, we started our trail hike at an asphalted road that exits from Mira Monte Street and to a narrow dirt trail road towards the peak of Mt Wilson with the general direction going North. As we entered the dirt trail, we started to meet hikers who were just going down from the trail. The trail starts at an elevation of 970 feet and the peak of the mountain reaches to an altitude of 5,650 feet. The altitude of the mountain is higher than the altitude of PMA in Fort Del Pilar, Baguio City which is 5,000 ft.

The distance of the Mt Wilson Trail is 7.75 miles, one-way, and going back from the peak to the place where we parked our car will give us a total distance of 15.5 miles and a total gain altitude of 4,680 feet. The trail is best described as Route 5.

We started our initial ascent along the trail with a fast brisk walking to jogging pace until we reached our first rest area. The width of the trail is very narrow just enough for one man to walk through it. We had to stop walking whenever there were hikers going down the trail and allow them to pass us. Without the knowledge of my son, I’ve been counting the number of hikers whom we met along the trail. Every time we met a hiker, we had to greet “Good Morning” or “Good Afternoon”. I counted 51 hikers that we met while going up to the peak of the mountain. We had our brief rest just enough to eat our energy bar and drink our water for about 15 minutes after hiking for one hour and 35 minutes. At this point, we had covered 5 kilometers and we still had at least 7 more kilometers to go.

The last 7-kilometer hike was a hard one because the trail became steeper and there were more rocks, big and small ones, along the way. Breathing became harder because of the altitude and the heat of the sun. We had to continuosly hydrate ourselves and our brisk walking became slower and harder. As we go up the mountain, the vegetation and trees became thicker and we had shade and cooler air to counter our profuse sweating and warm bodies.

It took us almost two hours to reach the peak from the point we rested along the trail. After we reached the Visitor’s Area at the peak, we rested for almost 30 minutes, just enough time to rest our legs & feet, take our GUs, drink our water and replenished our Camelbaks with water in one of the public faucets at the park and take some pictures of the view from the peak of Mt Wilson.

After our rest, we started brisk walking downhill and later slowly jogged…and due to the steep trail and gravity of our bodies, we started running and turning/shifting our pace while passing the different switchbacks along the trail. It was really challenging and fun running downhill from Mt Wilson but we had to rest briefly half way to sip our last GUs, drink water and take some rest of about 5-10 minutes. For the last half of the trail, we continously jog and run until we reached the asphalted road that connects to Mira Monte Street where we parked our car.

It took us 3:31:50 hours for the uphill hike to the peak and we jogged and ran downhill for 2:05:40 hours. For the suggested average of 9-10 hours of easy hike for the 15-mile trail (round trip), it took us 5:37:30 hours. Although this is still a slow pace due to our unfamiliarity of the trail, we hope that the next time we hike on this trail, we’ll be able to improve our hiking/running time. 

We found out that the trail has a yearly trail run/race, called the Mt. Wilson Trail Race which is 4.3 mile uphill run and back at Mira Monte Street where the race starts, a total distance of 8.6 miles. The race is being conducted every 3rd weekend of May.

My son and I had lunch at 4:30 PM with a take-out meal at McDonald’s. We were both happy and tired after our day-long adventure at Sierra Madre’s Mt Wilson Trail. While we were on our way for our late lunch, John called up his Mom and sister through his cellphone and broke the news that we just came back from hike & run to the peak of Mt Wilson.

John got the same answer from his Mom and sister, “Dude, you are both crazy!!!”

Yes, we are getting more crazy everyday!