Randomly heard about Mount Pinos, the highest point in Ventura County at 8,847’. The trails have been heating up in Ojai, so this sounded like the perfect destination for the long Memorial Day weekend. I found a route on All Trails that would take us to three summits – Mount Pinos, Grouse Mountain and Sawmill Mountain.
The trail was about two hours away, outside of Fraizer Park. When we parked at Nordic Station around 4 PM, and the air was crisp as we quickly made our final preparations so that we could get moving and warm up!
The trail was wide and a gentle incline through the trees, until we turned off the main trail and began to climb in earnest to the top of Mount Pinos. Of note, had I not been following the route on All Trails, we would’ve missed the turn – it’s very faint and doesn’t even look like an official trail until you go down it a ways.
We really felt the elevation on the final push of the climb, which went straight up the hillside. The views from the top were also breathtaking! What a treat!
We continued on, the trail taking us down switchbacks as we descended the backside. Once at the bottom, we crossed into the Chumash Wilderness and the trail took us through beautiful pine trees. It was so different from our front country trails in Santa Barbara, or the Sespe Wilderness we’ve been spending so much time in. It felt like we could be in the Sierra’s, or Colorado… not just two hours from home. There was even still patches of snow on the ground! Incredible!
The trail made us work for it – it was mostly either uphill or downhill, which made us really appreciate the flat sections when we got them! Our destination tonight was Sheep Camp – which had spring fed water. We descended down from the main trail to find that we had our choice of the four campsites. We chose a lovely one with plenty of room for the tents and an established fire ring. The fire ring also had a grill – great to know for future trips, we could pack in some more gourmet food to cook up over the grill!
Right behind our campsite was an outcropping of rocks looking down at a view of the valley. We enjoyed the sunset then retired to the campfire to cook up dinner! The temperatures dropped down into the 30’s – 40’s overnight, so the fire was critical to being able to enjoy the evening!
The next day we slept in until the sun made it too warm to stay in our tents. By mid-morning we were packed up and on our way to Grouse Mountain. We found the “summit” which did not seem like much of a summit, since it was a teepee of sticks in the middle of the forest.
After a quick snack break, we were off to Sawmill Mountain which gave us much more of that “summit” feeling, with expansive views.
There were much more people out on Sunday – had we camped tonight I don’t think we would have had Sheep Camp to ourselves! Very glad we camped Saturday night instead. We were back to the car at 2 PM, less than 24 hours after we arrived. A short and sweet trip, but a good workout and great introduction to this area. I suspect we will be back again!
Three successful summits: Mount Pinos, Grouse Mountain, Sawmill Mountain
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