We set out upon this peak on whim. We wanted to go hiking and we’ve been exploring Angeles National Forest. We were originally going to go to Switzer sand hit up the waterfall. This was unsurprisingly jam packed, so we pondered other ideas. I had this peak on my list, as I have many others, and was happy to see the Red Box trailhead was very close. So we decided to go before we headed to their beach in the evening.

This spontaneity provided an interesting experience to say the least. We had a questionable amount of water with us for a hot, clear day where you are going to be exposed pretty much the entire hike. We had just enough water to get back to the car with smart rationing and electrolytes. In retrospect it was a risky decision and would definitely take more water next time. TAKE WATER! We had two Nalgenes for two people. I’d say this was half the water you would want on a hot hike, exposed. I’d take two for each. Enough of the hindsight and onto the hike.

The first 2/3 of the entire hike is super easy and is beautiful. Closer to the trailhead is the only place where you get a bit of shade, but there are some bugs. Not crazy, but enough to annoy you for half a mile or so. After this section you get to a fork. Pretty much just stay walking straight from the trail and to the left on the side of the sharp rising hill. There is a metal line or something laying there. You will follow this cutting alongside the mountain to a stretch with lots of rock walls and places where falling rock looks to be something to look out for after a storm, etc. Following this you keep slowly rising on a slight incline and the views start appearing. You start to see a great expanse and then you can see groupings of skyscrapers in the distance. The trail smells of rosemary and sage and had a great population of bees bouncing around from a low ground over of small brownish orange flowers. It was quite nice.

After a good 2 miles of this or so and many beautiful views, you get to another fork where you can follow the lower saddle or take the trail to the peak. You’ll know it’s the trail because it starts rising immediately. This is the part of the trail that becomes a bit strenuous. There is lots of loose sand and a bit of very light scrambling if you would even call it that. It continues to rise quite proficiently then as you’ve just gained that elevation, will drop back down along the ridge for you to rise up it again on the way to the top. On the day we were here, we started getting a nice cool breeze fro the rest of the way up, it definitely saved us from dehydration/overheating. There were very few places to get refuge from the sun, until you were up to about the last half mile or so. There is a nice big rock that you can sit under a little while before you get to the peak. The views that start to show themselves are absolutely awesome. You can see the observatory from Mt. Wilson and watch as you continue to hike above them. At this point you can see almost the whole of LA and all the way to the Pacific. It’s an awesome thing. I just moved to the west coast this year, so my landmarks might be a bit off, so I apologize for anything of the sort….

Anyway, as we neared the top we noticed there is a nice drop off on the North side that is pretty awesome and you definitely wouldn’t want to take a tumble down there. I hear the is a mountaineers route up to strawberry and I would imagine that this is the path for that. I’m interested in taking that next time.

At the top the views is a huge 360 of coolness. You can see peaks far off into the distance. I would imagine some of those were others ones I will climb in this challenge, but at the time I did not take out a map or investigate further. The water crisis, was sharply on my mind. We stayed up at the top to get a few pics, Eat a granola bar while taking it all in and then hitting the road back down. The little strawberry signs up there are cute and the view is super worth it.

The hike back down is pretty straight forward, a bit of slippage from the lose sand, but nothing to worry about except for those big sharp succulents.

We made it back down to the trailhead and took our Garmin readings: 7.64 miles, 4 Hours and 28 Minutes.

This hike was great and a great warmup to some higher goals. With adequate water, this would be a super fun, stress free stroll to a sweet view. Cheers.