Before I start to describe my hike, I want to take a moment to explain I'm 43 years old, I have mild asthma and a non-life threatening heart condition called Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). This condition (SVT) makes my heart beat faster than the average person and my condition seems to be mostly exercise induced. I am able to control my SVT by going at a slower pace and taking a couple seconds of rest if needed to keep my HR below 190 bpm. All that being said, some trails that people find easy, may not be as easy for me. This is my account of Sawmill and the 3-2-1 Challenge:

My friends and I completed the 3-2-1- Challenge on the beautiful day of May 29, 2021. It could not have been a better day for hiking. We arrived at the Nordic Station parking lot at 7am and there was plenty of parking available. What wasn't available was the port-a-potty I was used to seeing there in the winter. If you don't like to take care of nature in mother nature, you can use the restrooms at the campground about 3 miles before Nordic Station. We started off and reached Mt. Pinos in no time. The trail to Mt. Pinos is wide and the incline easy. The views from Mt. Pinos are amazing (minus the microwave tower and solar panels), and on a clear day you can see the area of Mt. Whitney. You get a good sense of how high you are as you look down onto the Bakersfield Valley area.

After a short stop at Mt. Pinos and a photo with the elevation marker we continued towards Sawmill. The trail narrows from a wide dirt road to a single track trail. We headed down some switchbacks that weren't too bad and then reached a section that got steeper and had a lot more loose rocks. Hiking poles are suggested. We leveled out a little bit before starting a climb that at times gave my heart and lungs and good workout. I didn't feel as bad when my two friends told me they were feeling in their lungs too. The above 8k foot elevation did add a level of difficulty I'm no longer accustomed to. After a push up the hill, the trail became more gradual with it's ups and down. The little side trail to head up to the peak of Sawmill was not marked with a  sign but rather a bunch of branches outlining the trail. We were distracted by a group of hikers that stopped at the split and would have walked right by it had they not mentioned it was there. Once we saw it we couldn't believe we would have missed it, but we weren't the only ones to admit they almost walked right by it. That's what happens when you're busy talking 🙂 The view from Sawmill was also beautiful. We searched for a elevation marker but could not find one. A photo with the signs and rock pile had to suffice.

The next section of trail to Grouse Mountain was similar to the trail between Sawmill and Mt. Pinos. There was a lot of ups and downs with some of it being quite steep. At one point on the trail you will come to an area that has two signs. Neither of these signs mentions Grouse Mountain. We went off to the left (northwest) and began a fairly steep decent. The trail level off a little and we came to a kind of “T” shaped fork in the trail. Someone had placed the branches in the shape of an arrow next to the trail that pointed in the direction we had been traveling. During research of this trail, my friends and I remembered people mentioning going “right” and we thought maybe this was the area they were talking about. We continued on and walked about .5 miles when I began to question it. I pulled out my Garmin and learned we should have turned left on that little side trial. That little side trail is east to see and is lined with rocks for 4 feet. We started up the hill which had a pretty decent incline. As we neared the top, some people coming down the trail told us when we reached the top, we would need to make a hard right to get to the actual peak. Once at the top, the trail was gone. We made a hard right and could not find the wood “teepee” we expected to see. We walked around for a few minutes, checking out the entire peak area and finally found it. We needed to make a harder right turn apparently. It's almost a U-turn. The peak of Grouse Mountain is beautiful in its own right because it is surrounded by pine tree's, but those trees block any view of the world below.

After a quick snack break we headed back towards Nordic Station. All the steep down hill sections became steep uphill sections and the steep uphill sections became steep downhill sections. The last two miles are nice because they are so relatively flat. Even though they are flat and easy, they felt like the longest two miles ever because we were tired and ready for our traditional In N Out meal. We arrived back at the parking lot around 2:30 and found it was much more crowded, but there were still plenty of places to park.

All in all, it was great day. If you're going to do Sawmill, you might as well do the 3-2-1 Challenge. It adds a fun little element to an already awesome hike.