Barley Flats, San Gabriels (HPS)
Barley Flats: A Disclaimer
This was supposed to be a road.
Or so I told myself roughly four hours into this particular expedition when I had lost all hope of a graceful exit and was bleeding profusely from any number of minor wounds, furious with discomfort and mumbling incoherently.
I had returned to the San Gabriels that morning bright and early, laden with supplies and no shortage of cheerful pluck. My aim was the summit of Mt Lawlor—a steep scramble over inhospitable rock and a handful of sandy grades which embodied the adage Two steps forward, one step back, and from there along a trail-less ridgeline that I had noted one week prior. It was an alternate descent indicated on my map only by the most cursory of pale gray lines as opposed to the usual green; the sort which should instill, if not complete insecurity, at least a fleeting sense of panic. These noncommittal marks were used to designate unmaintained trails, questionable passes, unconfirmed traverses and downright murderous routes. They were in essence the cartographer’s equivalent of a liability waiver.
The point of all this was to reach a soft summit known as Barley Flats, named long ago by horse thieves who had mistaken its wild rye for barley. I ought to mention that Barley Flats can be comfortably accessed by non-hikers and children. Actually, my grandmother could access it. There is a perfectly harmless paved road which, if you drive but five minutes farther on Highway 2, can be taken at a leisurely pace directly to the summit. Yet I had somehow got the ingenious idea in my head that undertaking the hardest route to any given point would imbue it with terrific meaning. That this would be fun or somehow rewarding was a thought better suited to such wholesome lovers-of-life as, I don’t know, the Marquis de Sade. I’ll also say right off the bat that for all his talk of the road less traveled, Robert Frost never hiked off-trail to Barley Flats.
Even at a distance it was clear the ridgeline hosted an impressive array of wild grasses and scarlet bugler, lush carpets of Bear’s weed, and formidable stands of Jackbrush. All that to say it was terrifically overgrown and would make for sluggish progress.
The ridgeline proved nominally walkable. Sure, I had to putter about knee-deep in shrubbery and pause infrequently to root red ants out from under my sleeves before being bitten an outrageous seven times, but after a few hours of relatively uneventful hiking I was able to summit Barley Flats. This triumph was marked by no more than a close-up vantage of a disused water tank, trivial views of the surrounding mountains, and a summit register whose placement seemed specifically intended to elude all those who sought it.
Now, for those who would accuse me of perhaps underselling the hike somewhat, let me remind you that Henry David Thoreau, famed naturalist and immortalizer of lonely ponds, wrote, “I love to go through a patch of shrub oak in a bee-line, where you tear your clothes and put your eyes out.” The point being that what seems in the moment an unbearable affliction is often softened by memory to no more than a bit of jaunty entertainment. Of course, Thoreau—an inveterate loner, teetotaler, vegetarian, and by all accounts celibate—may have had a sense of pleasure at odds with, say, your average weekend hiker.
If you have followed me thus far (never advisable), it is here—perched on the forgettable summit of Barley Flats—that I would recommend the hiker pause and consider the route ahead, for we are to return by what is inexplicably marked as the Barley Flats Truck Trail. Now, by “truck trail” our wily mapmaker may have meant a trail so wide and reliably-graded as to accommodate even the most ungainly of automobiles. Or “truck trail” might indicate the faint trace left by some lone, creaking jalopy that risked the dirt road back when it was still maintained, several hundred years ago; or so it seems, judging by the proliferation of spiny yucca, rampant whitethorn, and the gleeful frequency with which the narrow track opts to break apart and tumble headlong down the mountain. For all its hazard, the Barley Flats Truck Trail has likely seen a living brontosaurus more recently than it has a maintenance crew.
From this point forth, attempts at speed are merely perfunctory, as the unlucky hiker will be met with all manner of land-bound peril, including but not limited to screefall, gullies of indeterminate depth and origin, and a proliferation of yucca wounds.
A word on yuccas: for those blessedly ignorant of what is perhaps California’s most vile piece of flora, the yucca (much like cancer) comes in a multitude of forms. You can find it potted and miniaturized, adorning windowsills and record players and the cup racks of espresso machines, innocently camouflaged among harmless succulents. When in season, the yucca flourishes a pleasant plummy fruit, as well as a delicate mantle of hanging flowers, each one spaced precisely. The height of these mantles can rise to such staggering proportions that the plant has garnered the nickname “Our Lord’s Candle.” Charming. That is, until the candle burns you. Only consider its other terms of endearment—Dagger Plant, Spanish Bayonet, Adam’s Needle, the Golden Sword—and you will find the yucca roughly as endearing as the friendly local strangler.
So, massive yucca will certainly rank high on the prospective hiker’s do-not-get-impaled-by list. But let’s not overlook the little pleasures; the trail also boasts a plethora of rattlesnakes, which should help fend off loneliness. It should, in fact, help fend off all thoughts but those of rattlesnakes.
Bore directly through the overgrowth at the rate of a pint of blood per hour, and you’ll be rewarded with perhaps no views, likely no shade, and almost certainly no stretch of fifty feet or more that does not in some way threaten your life, but at least you’ll encounter a den of arthropods unsurpassed since the film Arachnophobia. The recurrent sight of deer ticks scurrying up your thighs in a mad dash for your nether regions will likely cause more discomfort than any fear of falling.
Thus the Barley Flats Truck Trail, if one is so lucky as to survive it, reaches its interminable conclusion at the terminus of the Strawberry Peak Trail, which is indeed a proper trail and not an abominable death-trap. And so ends one of the San Gabriels’ more memorable offerings, one I wholeheartedly encourage.
Some may ask why a perfectly sane individual would subject themselves to such exquisite unpleasantries. I can counter only with the assertion that we are supposed to be at risk. If not continually on the cliff’s edge, we trend toward the drab and existential. And I for one greatly prefer the physical hurdle to the spiritual. There is no map, however suspect, for surmounting buried trauma.
Thoreau, I reckon, would agree.
Total Time: 5:00
Total Distance: 5.84 miles
Elevation Gain: 1,812 ft