Mission Abort: Cooper Canyon, Angeles NF

Was planning on heading into the Sespe Condor Sanctuary (on the one legal trail) this past weekend, but the weather report said it was going to be in the 90's. Blech.. not the spring out and back backpacking trip we were planning.

Did some quick research for some higher elevation trails and decided to take my kids to Cooper Canyon Trail Camp (along the PCT) in the Angeles National Forest. A little over 2 mile hike to a campsite at 6000 ft. I called up the ranger station and asked about trail conditions. She said there was water in the creek and there won't be any snow since it hasn't snowed in weeks. Sounds good... off we went Saturday morning.

Got to the campground with the trailhead and it was shut down for the season and completely snowed.... hmmmm.... Well, maybe the snow clears up on the trail? About a mile or so in of slipping and sliding, my 7 y.o. son fell and hurt his finger and was pretty inconsolable. We stopped for lunch and my buddy went ahead to scout trail conditions. He said one more big snow field and looks to clear up. We crept through that and we're off. About a half mile or so farther a guy who passed us on the way in was coming out and said, "it's a bit harry up there." I stopped with the kids and my buddy went off without his pack to check it out. He came back a bit later and said, "we're not getting through... there are four college kids up there clinging to iced in cliffs." Well, we were not passing that with a 4 y.o., a 7 y.o. and two heavy packs.

We burned through most of our backpacking treats coercing them to hike back out and then roasted some hotdogs in the shutdown campground before driving home. We were a bit disappointed, but it was a nice day hike with resistance training!

Glad you got out safely with the kids, but sorry you didn't get a full trip in. The hair raises on the back of my neck every time I hear "Condor Sanctuary", "Sespe", or even "Los Padres". Having had meth heads at a trailhead level a rifle at me has slightly soured me on the area. We did get to see with binoculars a pair of those amazing birds riding some thermals. Found really fresh cat tracks, too. I hope my follow up with the LPNF Forest Supervisor and other law enforcement agencies had at least the result of some increased patrols.

That just irks me. If you don't know the answer then find it or say you don't know, but you never send someone off on trip like she did you.

Honestly, I think that entire gov dept needs to have it's ass kicked. For as much as we spend the actual number of boots on the ground that really do anything is insanely low.

Yeah. What I have found when calling ranger stations is that they spend the 20-30 seconds of the conversation deciding if you are an adventurous person who can handle the difficulties nature throws at you. If they decide you are, they just tell you to go for it. If they think you don't know what you are doing then they will try to discourage you. I seem to get one response or the other and never anything in between.

Reminds me of the time (back in 1988) that I was supposed to lead a trip in the WA Cascades (in a lower elevation valley) in early May. When I called the weekend before, the lady at the ranger station said it was still solid snow up there. I didn't believe that, so we went anyway. Yes, the ground was solid white, but the white was avalanche lilies in full bloom! We didn't see a speck of snow but we certainly enjoyed the floral display!

Ask to speak to a backcountry ranger or to someone who has recently been there. You may have to wait for them to call you back. Some USFS ranger districts are better about this than others. Some (I'm thinking of the recreation phone line for the Wallowa-Whitman NF/Hells Canyon NRA in Oregon) are completely useless.

You can also find out snow levels from NWS reports and from Snotels if there are any of the latter in the vicinity or at a similar altitude.

At least you found lots of snow, which you folks badly need!

My last overnight was in a state park. The rangers there told me both over the phone and in person that there was spigot in the primitive camping area, but no one mentioned that the water had been turned off for winter.

If there wasn't another water source available, that's just plain criminal!

There wasn't.