After getting back to the car from Ralston Peak, I continued driving up Lone Pine Canyon Road to the height of land, just south of Wrightwood. Here I parked in a small pullout by a gate and started up to Circle Mountain.
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| Parking spot behind the camera. |
The trail starts as a fire road, and drops a short distance to a col. Here I passed some guys taking their dogs for a walk. When I told them I was going to the summit, they seemed impressed, saying they'd never been. The fire road ends here, and it becomes a single track trail.
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| High peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains. |
The trail obviously sees maintenance, there were plenty of trimmed branches and such along the way. It wasn't too steep, especially compared to what I had just done on Ralston. The summit is fairly large and flat, but I found a small cairn with a register. After checking for red ants, I stopped and signed it, then put up the antenna.
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| On the air with my QCXmini. |
The cell service was marginal, and combined with the hot sun, my phone got hot enough to turn itself off. However, I had no problems getting contacts on the bands, making at least one on each band. As I was packing up I noticed some structure farther down the summit. It could have been a picnic table, but I didn't want to walk over to find out, so I just went down.
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| Nearly back at the road. |
It was a quick trip down. Back at the car I blasted the AC and drove up a bit farther to get Table Mountain.
Trailhead: Height of land, Lone Pine Canyon Road.
Website: SOTA Site.
Maps: AA6XA SOTA Hikes map.
Route: Follow the road then trail to the summit.
Red Tape: None.
Video: ham_bitious YouTube
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