"No, sir, that Minotaur isn't going to get out of this!"
So said the person who designed the western trail to Mt. Sally, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I had intended to hike three HPS peaks that aren't far from the Angeles Crest Highway: Barley Flats, Mt. Sally, and Mt. Mooney. I only got the first two.
The hike up to Barley Flats was mostly an asphalt road that I would have biked if not for worries about jostling my broken rib. Around a Los Angeles County Sheriff Search and Rescue staging area (the helicopter in the images was landing there) the road turns to dirt and it soon becomes a 4WD road. Then, just before there's an old "Warning" sign on the left, the route makes a sharp turn to the right and heads to the peak. Either watch the map, or keep looking over your right shoulder for a rusty old water tank. Then, head across country and on a use trail to the tank which, unfortunately, is at the summit.
I walked around the tank but I didn't see a register or a benchmark. The gate to the tank's ladder was open and I went up it a little bit. At this point the tank might be more rust than metal and, while the welds looked OK, I didn't want to be the last person to find out they've rusted through. And, even if I went to the top, I wouldn't want to walk on top of that even if the register is there. It's not the natural high point anyway. YMMV.
I could see across to Lawlor and Strawberry but I couldn't assess how much brush there was on the route to Lawlor.
I did it at close to 3 MPH up and down, then things slowed down quite a bit when I moved on to Sally. That lies on a small ridge that runs parallel to the Crest and there are at least two routes up: west and east.
Some years ago, perhaps during the Pandemic, I'd tried Sally from the western route but I had to turn around due to intense brush that I couldn't get through. I don't shy from walking through thorny plants. If I'm not bleedin', I'm not hikin'. But, this was too ornery for me. There is still a bit of a use trail buried underneath the foliage and there are paths you can forge in some cases, but I'd reached a wall of ~5' high thorny plants that I would have needed a chainsaw to get through. I was wearing shorts as usual, but I also had knee-high gaiters on. Maybe a few nested Canadian tuxedos plus the gaiters would have been better. I decided it just wasn't worth it, so, I turned around. This was in the same general area where I'd turned around before: just about a half mile in.
That took a lot of time, but I then drove up the road to try Sally from the eastern route. I wasn't expecting anything different but, even though there was a good amount of brush, that route was nowhere like the western route. There was more or less of a use trail all the way to the top. There was a register, but I didn't see a benchmark. The eastern route, unfortunately, is marred by broken glass (which I think has been there for years, based on another trip report) and what looks like a telephone cable of some kind. Despite being right next to the highway the access isn't obvious, so I assume there are problematic local yahoos.
Anyway, due to doing Sally 1.5x, I didn't have time for Mooney so I'll get that next time.
