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| Pine Creek Trail - South Warner Wilderness, CA | |
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| | Pine Creek Trail - South Warner Wilderness, CA | | | |
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Pine Creek Trail - South Warner Wilderness, CA
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| Hiking | 5.60 Miles |
689 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.60 Miles | 4 Hrs 30 Mns | | 1.24 mph |
| 689 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | This was a relatively easy hike on a well-worn trail up to the Pine Creek Basin. The trail can be used to reach the Summit Trail on the crest of the South Warner Mountains and from there up to Patterson Lake near the top of Warren Peak. That would be a much more worthy destination at 11.4 miles round trip and about 3500 ft elevation gain. But this would be getting a little beyond my day-hike range, especially on this trip where some weird altitude sensitivity was limiting my endurance. The beauty of the basin was diminished by what, in my opinion, is severe over grazing by range cattle. The meadow had been nibbled down to the length of a mowed lawn and large cow pies were spaced at about 10 ft intervals throughout the entire basin. (I used photoshop to remove most of these unsightly defecations from my photos). However, it was still a beautiful area and well worth the hike.
The trail head is somewhat limited in parking space but was more than sufficient on this trip. I car camped there overnight (Probably frowned on but there were no signs forbidding it). Didn't see another person while I was there except for someone who just stopped by to use the practically brand new and very clean outhouse. I was wondering why there was no one there since deer hunting season had started a few days before. It turns out, that entire area is within the State Wildlife Management area - no hunting allowed.
Due to the lack of people, I have no interesting people interactions to share for this hike. However, I had visited this trailhead on a scouting trip the week before while waiting for the weather to clear up. As I drove up early in the morning, there was a young woman and an elderly lady (my age) just getting out of an older 4-Runner (2002) in remarkable condition and tricked out to make it more off-road worthy. Friendly conversation revealed that they were locals and planned to get in a morning hike up the Pine Creek Trail before the expected rain came later in the day. They were a wealth of information about all the trails in the South Warners and quite expert (especially the older one) on the modifications made to their ride and repairs that were required to keep it in good condition (it had 250k miles on it). I kept the conversation going on for some time due to my interest in both hiking and their car experience. As I drove away the rain was starting and I realized I had probably ruined their chances of getting in that morning hike.  |
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Autumn Foliage Observation Light
Aspen grove in Pine Creek Basin were starting to turn yellow. |
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