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.