TL:DR- Aspen Grove Trailhead to Fish Creek Saddle camp. Set up camp and hung out for a bit. Summited San Gorgonio and hiked back to camp. Woke up early to avoid the heat and hiked back to the car. Trail was in good condition. Water more plentiful in the lower sources (shortly after the start of the Aspen Grove Trail). The last water source shortly after Fish Camp was running, but slow. Enough to fill bottles and bladders currently.
Started the hike from the Aspen Grove Trailhead. Never started from there before. Always drove back to Fish Creek Trailhead. You save the 6 mile drive back to the Fish Creek Trailhead, but add 1 mile each way to your hike. One of the rough spots in the road is before Aspen Grove so you’ll still need a vehicle with a bit of ground clearance.
Aspen Grove Trail is in good shape with only a couple trees to navigate over/ around. First short part is downhill, then it slowly climbs to the Fish Creek Trail junction. There is a nice creek right at the bottom of the first downhill part to get water if you need it. We ran into (almost literally) a rattlesnake sunning in the middle of the trail about .5 miles from the start.
Fish Creek Trail to Fish Creek Saddle was in good shape also. The last water source shortly after Fish Camp is running slow, but still good enough to fill your bladders or bottles. I loaded up on 7 liters of water for Max and I. Met a couple rangers- Matt and Rick- at the creek who checked my permit. We chatted about this and that and I was on my way. They were also camping at the Saddle.
Fish Creek Saddle is a dry camp but in wet years, you can walk approx 1 mile down to Lodgepole Springs to get water. I heard it was dry so that meant I was doing the 3 mile hike with lots of water weight.
We got to the Saddle about noon and set up camp. The plan was either to rest and head for the summit later that day or go up the next morning. We watched some stormy-looking clouds but none seemed to be causing any problems. Since I wanted to avoid the heat on the hike back to the car we headed for the summit about 3:00pm.
Got to the summit about 6:00 and took the obligatory pictures (thanks to the guy who offered to take our picture). Headed back down and got back to camp about 9:00pm, hiking the last mile or so with a headlamp. Ate some dinner and headed to bed. Phew… that was a long day. I’m sure Max’s paws were sore.
Got up about 5:30am, ate some breakfast, packed up, threw on Max’s booties and headed back to the car. Got back to the car about 9:00am. Was already hotter than I’d normally take Max out so I was glad we left early.
As always, any questions, feel free to ask.
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