Decided to check out a couple of li'l pks. in the Kitchen Creek area of the Lagunas after I'd spied them from the nearby freeway many times. After studying satellite images I could see that there were a couple of trails that would bring me up there off of Kitchen Creek Rd., which is just on the other side of the ridge from the PCT. Interestingly, there appeared to be no trail coming off of the PCT up to the peaks. But this is prolly a good thing - less impact.
There are a couple of dirt rds. that go west off of Kitchen Crk. Rd. toward the base of the peaks. I chose the northern one, across from a mystery bldg. in the area.
From the end of the dirt spur rd., I headed up the trail & then turned left @ the 1st junction, aiming for the saddle n. of the peak.
The trail then made a steep pitch down to cross a drainage, & then turned sharply up the slope on the other side. I expected it to hit the saddle proper but instead it wasted no time gaining the north slope of the peak. This is going to be painful coming down, I thought.
The trail finally eased up, rounded a rocky outcrop, then hit the base of the highpoint. @ 1st glance the top looked a little hairy.
Not to fear tho, the trail wound around the back/west side of the peak & was a pretty easy scramble for the last bit to the top.
I took a rest break & looked around for a register. Sadly it looked like there had been one, but the glass jar broke & no notebook was to be found.
My next objective was a rocky point to the south a short distance away. From the freeway one could tell that there's something on top of the pk. It's not uncommon for peaks in SoCal to have flags on top, but this was something different. Time to check it out.
I dropped off the summit via rock slabs on its south side, then walked along a faint trail to the base of the other pk. It looked a bit intimidating @ 1st, but once again the route wrapped around to the west & only involved a short bit of slightly sketchy scrambling to reach the top.
Once on top I could try to figure out what the object was.
& of course there was a nice view back to the other peak.
I took another brief break, then headed back toward the 1st pk. There was no good way around it that I could tell, so I went up & over it again. There were some nice flowers along the way.
All in all a nice little morning jaunt.
Home is where the hiking is.
"Peaks that have come and gone four times should halt a man in his steps." -- William O. Douglas
A balanced diet is a margarita in each hand.
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Home is where the hiking is.
"Peaks that have come and gone four times should halt a man in his steps." -- William O. Douglas
A balanced diet is a margarita in each hand.
I don't mean to discourage you from posting here -- it's fun to see another area. But you really need to start a swhikers.net if there isn't one. You're just teasing us with all the sunny rocky hikes we can never get to.
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But this is prolly a good thing - less impact. 
There are a couple of dirt rds. that go west off of Kitchen Crk. Rd. toward the base of the peaks. I chose the northern one, across from a mystery bldg. in the area.
