Trip Report - Ventura & Kern, CA highpoints 4/13/05

[Layne Bracy]

Mount Pinos, CA 8831’
Sawmill Mountain, CA 8818’
Ventura & Kern County highpoints
Mount Pinos TH 8300’
RT approx 6 miles, 1600’ gain
“California County Summits”, Suttle

The road to the trailhead was paved and free of snow. The route, however, was almost completely covered in deep snow. Fortunately, the snow was packed but not hard, making for almost ideal hiking conditions. Amy and I had not brought gaiters, snowshoes, or axes, but they were unnecessary.

We could not find a trail, so we hiked west and up through the woods using the compass. The trees are spaced apart enough that bushwhacking was not a problem. The Air Force microwave station came into view and we found the summit of Pinos(Ventura’s highpoint), a small boulder just north of the fence. We did not see the benchmark, presumably under snow.

Roach’s trip report is good reference for the issue of Kern’s highpoint. Essentially, it is either Sawmill’s summit or some rocks in trees 100 yards NW of Pinos summit. We visited the rocks in the trees and then hiked over to Sawmill’s summit on a pleasant day. Suttle left a note in the register encouraging hp’ers to visit the rocks on Pinos and some high ground NE of Sawmill’s summit cairn.

We retreated over to Pinos. The challenge of the day came in finding the car again. The sun had erased our tracks. I set the compass for east but we ended up north of the parking lot, and we had to partially reclimb the mountain and try again. On the second attempt we hit the road 1/3 mile south of the parking lot. Without map and compass we might have been in trouble, and I would have liked a GPS for this hike.

Total time: 5 ½ hours(an extra 60-90 minutes in routefinding at the end)