solitude!

My dog and I started at the alternate trailhead and took the trail 3 miles to the Fox Bottom Primitive Campground.  The trail winds in and out of small wooded areas, but spends much of its time in meadows with tall grasses and wildflowers.  In places the trail was almost entirely obscured by grass, but common sense plus occasional trail markers made it impossible to get lost.  I did not see any cow patties or snakes.  The driftwood has been cleared off the trail.  I did see a fair amount of poison ivy, but it was *mostly* outside the trail zone.  Although it was a gorgeous day, we only saw one person on the trail.

We spent the night at the campground in blissful solitude - no one else around other than a few folks going by in small boats.  The campground was quite overgrown and had poison ivy around its edges.  The chemical toilet was full of trash and unusable.  There are two short trails from the campsite that provide access to the San Gabriel River, but one of them has a deep drop-off such that it is pretty much impossible to climb back out of the water after you swim.  My dog jumped in and couldn't get out - I jumped in, gave him a hefty shove onto the bank, then realized that I couldn't get out either!  Ha.  Luckily the other river access location is quite a bit easier to climb out of.  That one is still a fairly good drop-off, though, which makes filtering water a bit of a balancing and stretching exercise.