This is always a fun hike, but especially so because I get to return to my old stomping grounds. When I used to live in Sierra Madre, my house was less than 1 mile from this trail. I used to hike to the Orchard Camp (about halfway to the top of Mt. Wilson) every weekend. Mt Wilson is also where I originally injured my knee doing a banzai run down a very steep gravelly section near the top with Doug Young (it wasn't fun hiking the rest of the way down on that twisted knee and I'm sure that exacerbated the injury...). I've done this hike at least 5 times over the same number of years. Two of those times were in the rain with it freezing at the top (30 something degrees, snow, strong winds). The first time taught me about the importance of good rain gear - I soaked and had to change into dry clothes at the top after which my hands went completely numb from the cold. After that experience, I invested in some high quality rain gear (e.g. North Face Mountain Light jacket and rain pants, gore tex gloves). When I did it in wet and cold weather a second time, I stayed perfectly warm and dry.

I was very fortunate on this hike. Normally, the weather in LA is going to be hot in the beginning of September (I did a short hike almost exactly a year ago on another trail here in Sierra Madre and I almost had heat exhaustion). This even more so in the San Gabriel Valley because the mountains form an inversion layer that causes the temperature to be at least 10 degrees warmer than downtown LA. The temperature was a nice 68 degrees when I hit the trailhead at 8:35AM with quite a few clouds to block the sun.

Orchard Camp above.