Mt. Judah Loop

Went with Jodi yesterday to conquer the trail. At the beginning (up a rocky cliff face) I was expecting more of a smooth, "dynamited from solid granite" experience. Instead, the granite is very eroded and it's more like scrambling over small granite boulders and blocks. It's not too steep though with the numerous switchbacks. Then we began to climb gradually over more of a lightly forested dirt trail with long, long switchbacks. We reached the trail junction (where the Mt. Judah Loop leaves the PCT) and headed up again. There is some interesting overlooks and a weird puddingstone gash bisecting the hill. Not sure if it's human made or elemental.

There is still snow on the sheltered sides of the hills and the melt makes a lively brooklet running down the center of the trail. Part of the landscape is the ski area for Sugar Bowl so the lifts and run areas are evident.

The top is lovely (although we decided NOT to scramble all the way to the top) with good views of the surrounding mountains.

We retraced our steps to the trail junction and then I led us (somewhat inaccurately to Jodi's annoyance) straight down the ski run to a dirt road which I falsely believed would take us to a little lake and some cabins and the road that we started the trail on.

No quite. We pushed on heading down and rightwards until we hit a "trail" that followed along a dry creekbed. In spite of the DEET I was viciously savaged by mosquitos who apparently considered DEET more of a sauce than a deterrent. It was a bit of a scramble on the creekbed with some 2 to 4 foot drops. I did see a bike tread on one of the damp dirt areas and can't imagine how someone got a bike up or down the creekbed without walking it.

Eventually we did reach the pond area. Jodi (much fitter and faster) had reached it first and waded in for a cooling swim. Apparently it's all private property and some cranky "bad karma" guy told her to get the hell out and stay out. What a grouch!

I caught up to her as she was headed back up and we were on the road the whole way back to the car. I do think the shortcut saved some distance and was not quite as difficult as the rocky cliff part of the trail. I could be biased though as I'm a fan of hiking off the trail.

Keep in mind that I'm always doing this where there is some feature or other to navigate towards to avoid getting lost!