Distance: 2 miles round trip on use trail
Summit Elevation: 5240'
Elevation Gain: 730'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 0.6
Round trip time: 2 hours
Recommended water: 16 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Forest Road 1N34 (gate open seasonally)
Difficulty: Easy
I was looking for an easy HPS peak I could do as a day trip. San Sevaine (HPS #260) was one of the closest left. When I checked the status of forest road 1N34, I discovered it was going to close in 3 days for the summer. It would reopen in September. That was motivation enough. I drove on Sierra Avenue to the gate for 1N34. It was open and I started the 8 mile drive to the radio towers near San Sevaine. The road definitely needed 4x4. It was rutted, rocky, and muddy. The last quarter mile to the towers was the worst. The drive up was about an hour. I spotted the use trail about 100' down the road. It was in decent shape as it dropped down the slope toward the knob where the lookout used to be. I spotted either a coyote or deer sprinting downhill not far from the road. I brought along loppers since the trail gets quickly overgrown with whitethorn. The vegetation grew thicker as I went along. While there were signs of clipping, I had to do quite a bit of my own to get through some areas. I hit an old road bed near the saddle and followed that through some turns. On the way up the knob, the use trail went through 4 tunnels cut in the whitethorn. I had to crawl anywhere from 10' to 40' at the longest. The last tunnel was not even visible until I cleared the opening of branches. Loppers were a must. Maybe you could get by if you followed someone within a week. Even with the loppers, I garnered a collection of scratches passing through. At the very top was a small boulder pile. Two registers were in a PVC pipe with a lid, but both were soaked and mostly ruined. San Sevaine needs a new register. The views were OK. Nice look at Etiwanda and Cucamonga, but this was not an HPS peak that will wow you. It was easier on the way back with fresh cuts, but no faster. It's about a 600' climb back up to the towers.
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