West End Tour

Date:  5 May 2011

Click to enlarge elevation profile

Who hiked:  Me

Where:  Boushay Road - Silver Peak - Trans-Catalina Trail

When: 0915-1440

Weather:  sunny, clear, lt breeze; temps in low/mid 70s

Distance:  9.3 miles (measured on GPS)

Elevation range: 59 ft (trailhead) - 1708 ft (Silver Peak)

Visitors to the island can access the trailhead by getting a shoreboat to and from Emerald Bay.  There is a campground at Parsons Landing, which is about a mile from Emerald Bay. Check out my "how to get around" post here.  Click here for camping information.

The fun part of today:  new GPS (Garmin GPSmap 60CSx).  The map of the hike is generated using that data.  I am also fiddling with an altitude profile -- look for that in the coming days.

I drove from the house out the West End Road (an adventure in itself) toward Emerald Bay.  The goal was to hike up the Boushay Trail, pick up Silver Peak Trail, drop down toward Starlight Beach, and come back via Parsons Landing on the Trans-Catalina Trail (TCT).  A quick look at trail maps indicated it should be around nine miles.


I've never hiked nine miles by myself.  I was curious and a bit apprehensive about how it would go.  Usually Hubby is the pace-setter for our hikes -- would I be able to keep up a pace to get me back home before the Things sounded the "Mom is lost" alarm?

Wild cucumber fruits

The day started cool and cloudy, with a thick marine layer shrouding the island. I parked the truck by the bar gate to Parsons Landing, then backtracked to the trailhead for Boushay Road, just a short distance back towards Emerald Bay.  It is the time of year when the wild cucumber is fruiting.  The fruits look formidable, but the spines are rubbery, not hard.  I see squirrels eating them all the time.

Boushay Road:
I'm headed to the ridge! 

This leg of the hike is about 2 miles and the trail goes up up up to the ridge. However, unlike most uphill trails on Catalina, this road has steep intervals interpersed with flat (or at least less steep) sections.

The Boushay Road is surrounded by scrubby bushes, but nothing that provides any shade.  The habitat was perfect for Spotted towhees and I think I saw or heard one in every bush.  Where there weren't towhees, there were Chipping sparrows buzzing away.

View of San Clemente Island
from the Silver Peak Trail.

I hiked uphill for a little over an hour, with a few brief stops, then took a longer break to look at the view. I had climbed more than 1000 ft and was above the marine layer.  I could see the peaks of the mountains on Catalina poking above the clouds.  Off to the southwest, I could see the top of San Clemente Island.  No sign of Santa Barbara Island to the northwest -- perhaps it is too low to emerge from the clouds.  To the east, I could see the tip of the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the mountains beyond. But no sign of the ocean!

By 1055, I was at the intersection of the Boushay Road and the TCT/Silver Peak Trail.  The final uphill sections on Boushay were pretty awful... and the trail has no shade, which made it tough -- the day warmed up considerably once I emerged from the clouds.

The TCT, which was opened in 2009, took over parts of other trails.  So naming can be tricky, as established trails are part of the TCT.  I tend to use the old names when I know them, but TCT when either (1) I don't know the former name of the trail or (2) the Conservancy blazed a new trail as part of the TCT. Sorry for any confusion.

The TCT heads down the mountain at Fenceline Road; after that point, I was on the "official" Silver Peak Trail. I hiked the Silver Peak trail along the ridge for the next hour or so.  This trail is lovely -- rolling up and down, but not too strenuous, with really great views. About half-way between Boushay Road and the end of the Silver Peak Trail, I passed Silver Peak itself, about 100 ft below its summit.

I saw some Uta stansburiana up here -- usually as they skittered out from under my falling foot, startling little "eeeks" out of me.  Also lots of flycatchers -- Western kingbirds, Say's phoebes.  And lots of Black-headed grosbeaks flying around.  They must be migrating through...

About 4.5 miles into the hike, nearly at the end of the Silver Peak Trail, I could see Starlight Beach waaaayy below me. The trail turns sharply and drops steeply here!  I headed down the hill, being careful on the slippery loose rocks. About 0.5 miles later, the Silver Peak Trail ends at the intersection with the Trans-Catalina Trail.  To the left the TCT drops down to Starlight Beach and the TCT terminus.  To my right the TCT would take me to Parsons Landing.  That's where I wanted to go.

View of Starlight Beach from intersection of
Silver Peak Trail and Trans-Catalina Trail

I expected the TCT between Starlight Beach and Parsons Landing to be mostly flat.

OMG was I wrong.

The first mile or so of it had some of the most brutal up and downhill sections that I hiked.  Maybe it was because I was getting tired -- my quads were pretty burned up at the loooonnnggg downhill I'd just completed -- and I struggled with this section.

To top it off, I was up against the clock.  I'd told the Things that I should be home when they got home from school (2:30 PM). I had also told them that if I wasn't home by 3:30 PM, they should call Hubby at work to let him know.  At this point, with 3.5 miles to go, it was about 1230...  now, you all have figured out that I am not a fast hiker...  so I was a bit worried about making that 3:30 cutoff!

One short section was so steep -- like vertical steep -- that I slipped.  To stop myself from slipping, I stepped forward a bit and before I knew it I was running down the hill.  The GPS keeps track of my rate of travel -- I was running 9 miles/hour! It was steep enough that I couldn't stop.  In my head, I chanted, "Don't fall. Don't fall. Don't fall." in time with my footfalls.  A fall would have been catastrophic with so much of the route left to hike!  I'm still not exactly sure how I kept on my feet -- maybe it's my cat-like reflexes (meow).

Heart-leaved penstemon 

(Keckellia cordifolia)

I was a bit shaken up and so I decided this was a good time to stop for lunch...  I found a sliver of shade under a small oak tree and had a bite to eat.

The TCT does flatten out after you pass Stony Point and then the hike became pleasant again.  There were beautiful bunches of brilliant scarlet heart-leaved penstemon blooming.  I saw more black-headed grosbeaks.

Before I knew it, I was at the waterfall at Parsons Landing.  The hike from here to the truck went quickly; you can read about hiking around Parsons Landing here and here.

I got back to the truck and drove home, arriving there around 3:10 PM.  The first words out of the Things mouths were, "You're finally home!"  They were getting a bit worried, but I still had 20 minutes before they called in the rescue squad!


Birds seen: Catalina quail, Chipping sparrows (singing all over the place), Northern mockingbird, Spotted towhee (all over the place), House finch, Northern raven, Barn swallow, Western meadowlark, Western kingbird, Bewick's wren, Black-headed grosbeaks (lots and lots), Red-tailed hawk, Western tanager, Brown pelican, Western gull, Allen's hummingbird, Western wood peewee, Ruby-crowned kinglet, Lesser goldfinch