I was really looking forward to this hike for a few reasons.I have never hiked in the Los Padres National Forrest area before. I was curious about the camping and remote campsites. And of course bagging two peaks in one hike and getting another peak off my list. I was a little concerned about how I would hold up since I had been recovering for the past few weeks from a foot issue.

The road is nice and easy to follow. There was plenty of parking at around 9:00 am. The nearest bathrooms are located at the near by campgrounds down the path on the right side of the Nordic center. Take the path about 100 yards down and you will see the pit toilets.

We got on the trail and began hiking had a good conversation going and hiked for about 15 min and were talking about how easy this trail is we then realized we went the wrong way. DOH! So we hiked back to the fork in the trail and went to the left aka the trail that goes uphill. In our defense there isn’t a sign at the fork.

The trail is nice and wide mountain biking is allowed on this part of the path but we only encountered two. The trail meanders through the Forrest and is very enjoyable nothing too challenging with the trail. The challenging part is when the elevation kicks in and it will get your breathing going especially for us sea level living people. The trail remains this way for about 1.5 miles until you reach Mount Pinos. The top of Mount Pinos is very flat and if it didn’t have the solar panels and a utility hut on it you may never realize you are on top of the highest peak in Kern County. There are some impressive views at the top. On a clear day you can see Mount Whitney. We got lucky and there was a hiker up there who brought up a telescope to get a peak at Mount Whitney. He let us take a look and sure enough there it was Mount Whitney a bit hard to see through the low laying haze in the valley but you can see it.

After taking a short break we continued on to Sawmill Mountain. The trail gets narrow and more challenging than the first half. It begins ascending but bottoms out and you have to climb back up about 500’ of elevation gain and the elevation will again have some of you huffing and puffing.

At the top of sawmill is a cool large carin type of sculpture and makes for some cool photo ops.

We took a lunch break in some near by shade for a little bit. It was getting hot and the sun was overhead so we took our time going back. The hike back was hot but not to bad just kept putting one foot in front of the other and stopped occasionally to rest.

This trail is very enjoyable but it is deceiving and the altitude did slow us down. The time off my feet really showed I wasn’t hiking at my usual 2mph pace. However good news I had no issues with my foot the entire hike which let me know I can get back to hiking and tackling these peaks.

2 down 4 to go.