Synopsis

Holcomb Valley was the premiere sight for gold miners in Southern California. This now desolate and uninhabited high mountain valley was once swarming with miners and their suppliers. During the height of this gold rush, there were enough residents and excitement to put Holcomb Valley in the running for San Bernardino County Seat. This is a 3-hour, twenty-mile historical tour. Markers are set along the way at specific sights and if you pick up a pamphlet coded with the markers you can spend an afternoon in a beautiful, wild setting and learn a little California history along the way. Bring a picnic and explore the woods, meadows and streams along the route.

Group Size:

Any size would be fine for this route. The roads are large and there are lots of pull off areas to park and enjoy the landmarks.

Difficulty - 1.5

The time of year I ran this trail it had portions that were entirely covered with snow and ice. If you go right after a winter storm expect most of the road to be covered and require 4x4 and good tires or snow chains. During the summer I would expect this to be a pretty standard dirt road, accessible by 2wd and 4wd vehicles.

Length

12.0 Miles

Location

Just north of Big Bear Lake, entrance just west of the Discovery center. Stop at the discovery center to pick up a park pass (required for stopping) and trail map. The trail map will give you all the landmark locations and associated history. As an added bonus there are a large number of geocaches on this trail. If that's something you enjoy plan on pulling a few off of geocaching.com and have some extra fun on your trip. Many of them are right next to the road.

Aerial of the trail:



Pictures

Great views


Sunset near the start of the trail overlooking the lake


Standard dirt road


If you go in the winter you will most likely see lots of this


Optional fun (had a bypass when we were there)


Additional views


"hangman's" tree


Gallery
www.azfj.org/index.php...0003&pos=0



GPS Track

GPX google earth and gps device track below.

This was a lot of fun, and would make for another great AZFJ camping trip. There are a ton of off-road trails up in Big Bear, we picked up a great map from the forest service that has them all.

Gray's Peak is a great group camp site! We were there in June.

I'm guessing rating it a 2.0 you didn't do this part of holcomb...the rock garden....not a 2.

Here are the rest of the pics from that trip. s168.photobucket.com/a...?start=all

Hah, no unfortunately we didn't know the area very well. I know there are a lot of OHV trails up there and we grabbed a map with ratings on all of them. The trail we did was the "gold fever trail" scenic/tourist drive. Pretty basic nice scenic drive.

Well, we got to this rock garden and took a pass on doing it with a few others..... I forget what trail it is. I think it's Holcomb trail, but like you said, there are sooo many trails there, who knows!

Maybe we could plan a camping trip in the summer - it was still pretty darn chilly overnight in June there! But like I said, Gray's Peak is a GREAT group campsite!