Special Instructions
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Wilderness Permit Req'd
CONTACT: |
Lytle Creek Ranger Station
1209 Lytle Creek Road
Lytle Creek, CA 92358
(909) 887-2576 |
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NF Adventure Pass Req'd
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| You are here: Home
: Hiking |
Last
Updated on 12/30/2000 |
| RATINGS |
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Timber Mountain
via Middle Fork Trail |
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Location: San Gabriel Mountains, San Bernardino National Forest, Southern California
Region: Lytle Creek Region
Wilderness: Cucamonga Wilderness
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Total Distance:
12.5 Mi
Elevation Gain: 4,500 Ft
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Season: April-Nov
Type: Out & Back |
Start Elev: 4,000 Ft
Peak Elev: 8,303 Ft
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Total
Time: 7.8 hr
Time In: 4.33 hr
Time Out: 3.5 hr
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Peak List |
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Peak
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Elevation |
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Timber Mountain |
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8,303 Ft |
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| Driving Directions |
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From Hesperia, take Main St to I-15 South. Get off at the Sierra exit, make a right at the first stop sign and follow the road (with constantly decreasing speed limits) into Lytle Creek and make a left on Middle Fork Rd. Go over a narrow bridge at the start of Middle Fork Rd and continue on Middle Fork road for about 3 miles or so to the road's end and parking area and trailhead. |
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| Route |
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Start hiking up the exposed trail and when you get to the sign that says Stone House Camp and Three Streams Camp or something like that take either branch because the meet up in about 3/4 mi or so. The Stone House route is lusher and more senic. Continue on the trail for a total of 5.5 mi when you will get to a major intersection of about 4 trails and a sign with a map on it. Hike up the shortcut on the side of Timber Mtn which meets up with the main trail and take it to a small branching trail that will take you to the peak where there is a register can in a pile of rocks and one in the side of a tree, where the flap that opens the can says "Chapman Mtn". |
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| Details |
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This was a great day to be hiking. We were just kind of taking it easy going slow because 3 of us went camping at Big Rock Creek the Saturday before this and in the dark grabbed some poison oak branches from this campsite, burned them and I'm the only one who didn't end up covered in a poison oak rash - they tell me it's miserable. We intended to hike up Cucamonga Peak but because of the late start/poison oak rash/trying to figure out how to use this GPS I got for Christmas, it was about 3:30pm by the time we reached the sign where all the trails intersect where there is another 2.5 mi to get to Cucamonga Peak, so instead we went to the closest peak - Timber Mtn. It was cool going up the side of Timber Mtn, the shortcut and scenery reminded me of Pine Mtn a little. We didn't have long at the top because it was getting late but neither of us really cared; when you're out there in this beautiful land it's hard to find a reason to go back home. So the last hour and a half we were hiking in the dark and it was cool because the light colored rocks looked like they were glowing - kind of like if you were to walk on the ceiling of a planetarium. There was only small patches of snow way up on the side of Cucamonga Peak and other very small patches off the trail in shady crevases. I had to walk up the trail to Cucamonga Peak a few hundred feet to stick my hands in it but of course it was pretty solid and icy. |
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| Trail Condition |
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Good to excellent in most places, a little narrow in some rock/sand slide areas. |
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| Forest Details |
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Along the trail there are many types of trees: Big Cone Douglas Fir, Incense Cedar, Sugar Pine, Jeffery Pine, Ponderosa Pine, Lodge Pole Pine, Sycamore, Oak. Also Manzanita, Yurbasanta, Current, Chincapin (look I don't know how to spell)... Be sure to stick your nose in Jeffery Pine bark, the smell in unmatched. |
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