I enjoyed this hike a lot. The rolling hill county on this end of the range is really nice. Oak springs was beautiful. Making the ridge up from fascination springs was tough though. Definately like to return in fall or winter. Thanks Dave & Dex for organizing!

Oops typo! Volcanic and Thank you.

There is so much beauty in nature. The terrain in this hike variedso much including scree to volcan underfooting to wild overgrown nature. Saw gaping faultline protruding. Tiniest of flowers and yellow ones all over. Nice hiking companions. Thanktoi Dave and Andrew. See you next time.

Trip writeup, part 3: Even retracing our steps didn't quite work out. Initially we found the lower trail segment that we had missed. But the connection between the upper and lower segments is bad and I just climbed up the ridge directly instead. It worked well enough, but it was steep.

There was talk of skipping the fire-road tour of YB ridge, but I'm glad we did it. I was excited to reach the YB Ridge highpoint; nobody else cared enough to walk 20 yards to the laughable "summit".

We continued to Gold Creek Saddle then down Boulder Canyon Road. My initial plan to take an old trail instead of the road fizzled when we saw the trail. But the road was shaded and easy.

At the picnic area were two motorcyclists. They were the only people we saw all day.

Thanks, Andrew and Mylene for accompanying me!

Trip writeup, part 2: In any event, at some point the trail reaches a saddle where a fallen trailhead sign for Fascination Springs Trail lies. It helpfully suggested that the springs were 0.4 miles (east). The trail seemed nice enough and so off we went looking for the spring.

We passed what I believe is the old trail going to the springs and continued on what appears to be a better trail going down in the canyon. the GPS indicated we had passed it, and we began a miserable bushwhack guided solely by GPS. We got to a point overlooking the springs, and could see no water. Someone has run pipes into the spring and I am guessing that they are taking the meager water that runs.

Up until that point I had harbored a hope that maybe a new trail would lead up from Fascination Springs to YB Road (as the incorrect sign suggested), but from our vantage the only thing that might have been a trail looked pretty bad. We decided to retrace our steps.

Trip writeup, part 1: Mylene, Andrew, and I pulled into the underused Oak Springs picnic area (off of signed Gold Creek Rd off of Lil Tujunga Cyn Rd) at 8:30am. It has nice shady trees and a stream flowing through it. The trailhead has a fancy new sign about 25 yards further up the road from the picnic area. The trip up to Oak Springs is on excellent trail: uphill and wide, but shaded. Except for some poison oak, Oak Springs Camp is quite inviting and we relaxed a few minutes before continuing our ascent to Yerba Buena Ridge.

At the intersection with YB Ridge Road, there's a trail sign which indicates that Fascination Springs Trail is 0.8 miles east up YB Road. The map suggested 0.1 miles west. As usual, the map is right. The Fascination Springs Trail is now marked with just a few posts - no sign. The trail is harder to follow than it seems: both up and down we would resort to bushwhacking.

I will be at Sports Chalet @ 8:00. It's been since Smith Mt hike that I've hiked. But what is hiking but walking? I can do this.