West Horsethief / Trabuco Canyon Lollipop

On Saturday (February 11), Abby and I hired a babysitter and explored new terrain (for us, anyway) in the Santa Ana Mountains.  The trailhead was at the very end of Trabuco Creek Road.  Although the first half of the road was improved, the second half was as rough as ever, so we were glad to be in our AWD Subaru . . . at least initially. 

From road's end, we hiked up Trabuco Canyon to the junction with the West Horsethief Trail, avoiding fresh deposits of horse poop along the way.  After the zigzagging ascent of West Horsehief, we intersected Main Divide Road, which we followed for a couple scenic miles to Los Pinos Saddle.  There we headed downhill on the Trabuco Canyon Trail, occasionally jumping out of the way to avoid collisions with reckless and very serious mountain bikers -- they're probably having "fun" in some remote sense of the word, but they often don't look like it.

Returning to the car, we made it about 100 feet before the front right tire exploded after being punctured by a tree root.

The numbers: 10 miles, 2700 vertical feet.

What Abby's car may have become had we not brought a spare tire. 

 Ascending the switchbacks on West Horsethief Trail. 

Getting close to Main Divide Road above the switchbacks. 

Among the conifers on Main Divide Road. Lots of varied vegetation on this hike.