Liebre Mountain, Sawtooth Mountain

18 September 1992

By: Jack Trager

Leaders: Jack Trager, Gordon Lindberg

This was a climb of two HPS peaks by Pathfinder routes. Meeting at Sylmar at 7:30 am, we waited a few minutes for two expected participants and then took off in three vehicles with those present: the leaders plus Dorothy Danziger, Jeanne Sakabi, Anne Stewart, Eric Veinstein, Beth Miller, Evan Samuel, Hugh Baker, Southern Courtney, and Bud Hansen.

The combination of peaks required considerable driving and the road in to Sawtooth via the Warm Springs and Sawtooth is narrow and slow, but we arrived at the base of the mountain by 9 am. The trail up looks almost vertical from a distance, but with one step at a time and a little slipping and sliding, we were all up by 10:30. I led over the rocks in a couple of places when we could have gone around by trail. (My memory was bad since it had been 10 years since I had done this route.) Jeanne Sakabi was on her first 100th peak but has done much jogging and kept right up there. We were down by 11:30 and decided to drive out to the Lake Hughes Road for lunch. We found a pleasant shaded area by the intersection. Comments on Sawtooth were that it is a very interesting approach and well worth the extra trouble of coming in from the south.

Driving on to the PCT trail to Liebre, we parked not at the Old Horse Trail Campground shown as the secondary trailhead, but 1/2 mile further west where the Pine Canyon Road goes over a ridge and a rough spur road leads in to the trail with plenty of parking. It is 3.7 miles west of Three Points. Both Sawtooth and Liebre are moderate hikes, but the combination of the two with the heat made them quite strenuous. Starting at a little before 2 pm, we were on the summit by 4:30 and back to the cars by 5:30. Gnats were a continuous problem and everyone was well bugged despite applications of preventative and brushing with leafy branches and kerchiefs. I had scouted the trail 5 days previously and found a good cairn and register on the peak, but when we got there - no register and the rocks scattered. Someone is playing games with the HPS. Thanks to Hugh Baker, a new smiling face can was installed, but no one had a notebook so one is needed.

Much thanks to all for their lack of complaints and good fellowship and especially to Gordon Lindberg for his assistance.