For this weeks Show Us Your California contest by @thesocalhive I head out into the San Bernardino mountains for a fun winter trip to the...
Coon Creek Cabins!!
My friend Ryan and I wanted to get out in the mountains for an overnight backpacking trip and with all the snow I thought a fun place to go (and potentially less cold) would be the Coon Creek Cabins. A group of 3 historic cabins that were once a private ranch, but now are maintained by the Forest Service. We headed up highway 38 to the Heart Bar area. We parked at the locked gate on Forest Service road 1N02, which is locked for the season every winter. We had brought our snowshoes as we were expecting there to be lots of snow, but looking at the conditions at the trailhead we opted to leave them behind. Much of the snow had melted and the snow that was still there was only 6" deep at most. So we tossed on our packs and started our hike. It was a 5.5 mile hike to get to the cabins. At first we were glad that we didn't bring the snowshoes as the snow conditions were minimal and the weather was actually quite nice. There were a few big washouts along the hike that took some navigating, but it was nothing too difficult for us. But the last few miles the snow got thicker and deeper and we were sinking and postholing up to our knees. Which was quite tiring and had us regretting not bringing the snowshoes. The last mile was especially rough and we were getting exhausted, but eventually we made it! The sight of the cabins was a welcome relief.
Trail map
The locked gate at the trailhead
The minimal snow conditions and blue skies on the first miles of the hike
Hiking up Coon creek
Ryan at one of the washout obstacles
Hiking up the trail, with the snow staring to get deeper
And deeper
Starting to regret not bringing the snowshoes
Mostly cloudy views to the east
Arriving at the cabins
The Coon creek cabins are a group of three cabins, two small ones that were somewhat dilapidated and missing sections of roofing, and one larger cabin that is still in good shape and most importantly had a solid roof and a nice large stone fireplace. We unpacked and setup our camp in the main cabin and then headed out to collect some firewood. Most of the wood was wet from the snow, but we were able to find enough dry wood to get the fire going, which then we were able to use to dry some of the wetter wood. With the fire going we were nice and warm and we enjoyed dinner and some drinks before heading to bed.
The front door of the main cabin
Ryan arriving at the cabin
One of the smaller cabins
The other small cabin
The backside of the main cabin
Another shot of one of the small cabins
Views from the front porch
Staying warm by the fire
The next morning we woke up to a bunch of fresh snow outside, with it still falling quite heavily. We made breakfast, got packed up, and then headed out into the snowstorm and started making our way back. It was really beautiful with all the fresh snow, but the extra few inches of snow had us wishing even more that we had brought the snowshoes. After a mile or so the snow unfortunately turned into rain. Which was a bit unpleasant, but luckily the rain was pretty light, and it wasn't long before it turned back into snow. The second wave of snow got pretty heavy, but compared to the rain it was quite enjoyable. Eventually we made it back to the trailhead at Heart Bar. Finishing our trip. We were both a bit tired from hiking through the snow so it was a relief to finally make it, but the challenge is just part of the adventure. And this adventure turned out to be a lot of fun and I'm really glad we did it!
My sleeping area in the cabin
Fresh coating of snow in the morning
One of the small cabins in the fresh snow
Making breakfast
Last look at the cabin before hitting the trail
Hiking out
Hiking out
Winter wonderland
Snow selfie
Hiking out
Hiking out
Hiking out
Beautiful winter scenery
The final stretch
Getting back to the trailhead
To finish off this post be sure to checkout this awesome Youtube video Ryan made from the trip! He's an excellent videographer and I always love watching the videos he makes from our adventures.
And so until next time...
I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into
My California!!
#SoCalHive is building and supporting the Hive Blockchain community in Southern California. If you are from SoCal and are into creating quality content here on Hive, we'd love for you to follow us @theSoCalHive and join our group on Discord
Pinmapple
Hiya, @livinguktaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Travel Digest #2146.
Your post has been manually curated by the @pinmapple team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!
Become part of our travel community:
Very cool hike and campout! Thanks for sharing!
Congratulations, your post has been added to Pinmapple! 🎉🥳🍍
Did you know you have your own profile map?
And every post has their own map too!
Want to have your post on the map too?