Sawtooth Peak, Burnt Peak, Liebre Mountain

27 April 1991

By: Luella Fickle

Leaders: Luella Fickle, David Eisenberg, Erich Fickle

The road up to the summit of Burnt Peak is permanently locked from the junction of 7N23 and the ridge road. This adds 4 miles to the trip. David Eisenberg was in the area in February and discovered this so we changed the trip plan. I had everybody meet at 7N23 and N2. I hadn't seen Paula Peterson at Sylmar, so I declared everybody there except Teri Astle who had called Thursday and arranged to meet us there. We waited for Teri, but decided that she must have changed her mind. So we drove up to the Burnt-7N23-Ridge Road junction. There we found Teri and Monica. They got into one of the larger 4x4s so we'd have one less car to park at the Sawtooth roadhead.

Sawtooth is short and steep. We had clouds, wind, and no flowers. It was still winter. (I led this trip several years ago on April 26th and it was flowery.) On the summit, George Hubbard (list completion 1973) announced that his friend, Pearl, had just climbed her first Hundred Peak. George also had his daughter, Karen, along. It's been a long time, maybe we'll see more of them. After climbing back up to the cars - the road is higher than the peak - we found Paula Peterson and Keith Martin. They had just climbed Burnt. We agreed to meet back at the Burnt Peak junction after they climbed Sawtooth while we climbed Burnt. The clouds cleared as we climbed Burnt. We could see many poppies in Antelope Valley. The Forest Service asked us not to cut on the Burnt Peak Trail but were overjoyed about us trimming the PCT or any other trail on their map. There is a NASA tracking installation on the summit of Burnt, so they want to limit access. They had no objection to us hiking the road. (Editors note: The Forest Service reports that the Andean condors frequently fly over and perch on the antennas now that the road has closed.)

We were 23 when we were joined by Paula and Keith back at the cars. We drove to Bear Gulch Camp. There Erich Fickle located the PCT behind the outhouse. It's unmarked but fairly obvious after the first 1000 yards. We followed it 2 miles to the summit of Liebre Mtn. David and Erich had fun trimming the PCT. More trimming is needed south of Bear Gulch as 2 hikers from Minnesota had to hike the road because the brush was so bad between the Burnt Peak junction and Bear Gulch. They told us that they were surprised to find out that Southern California wasn't flat!! We also passed a couple from Wisconsin who were hiking the PCT.

I appreciate the drivers who make a trip like this possible. Thanks also to David and Erich for their help and trimming.