Earlier this year, the Los Padres National Forest Park Service said they would be working on the trail to Madulce Camp (25W02). They also mentioned the possibility of creating an alternate route around the Heartbreak Hill section. Since we had hiked the outrageously steep and rough 1-mile-long Heartbreak Hill section twice already, this was great news. We had been tentatively planning a hike to Madulce Peak, and we decided to wait until their work was completed. The Park Service announced the work was completed 6 Nov. We scheduled our hike on 14 Nov.
We made a big mistake. We probably did not read the details of the Park Service bulletin. We assumed that they would be working on the complete 25W02 trail to Madulce Camp. It turns out they worked on only the first 3 miles of the 7.5 mile trail. They did a great job on the 3 miles. After that, the trail got progressively worse. At 6 miles, we were at the Heartbreak Hill section, and we saw no alternate path. The hill was an absolute killer, and I would have never made it to the top without Dave’s help. We made it to Madulce Camp (7.5 miles) behind schedule, mostly because of my slow pace. NOTE: Madulce Camp is basically a wide spot in the trail. There is absolutely nothing there except a fire pit.
After Madulce Camp, the trail to the Peak would be 3 miles
on trail 25W09, before the turn off on trial 28W10 for the last 2 miles to the
peak. In the remaining time, it did not
look like we would make the peak that day; and we did not. The trail after Madulce Camp quickly turned
from bad to worse. The trail was there,
but it was so overgrown with bushes and briers that you had to constantly push
through it, rather than walk through it.
We were still 1 mile from the turn off when the sun went down. We continued on until we found a place where
the trail was wide enough to sleep for the night.
The next morning we continued up the trail, but within ¼ mile we ran into an
obstacle we could not overcome. There
was a very large tree that had fallen across the trail. It was 5 feet in diameter, very slick, and no
handholds. We could not go around the
left because of a cliff face drop off.
Around the right was up a steep heavy brush cliff. There was a real possibility of an injury
occurring crossing this log. As much as
we hated the trail we had come up yesterday, we eventually decided that
returning that way was the safest choice.
Going down the mountain was easier than coming up; but not by much. Going down Heartbrake Hill was especially
challenging. We made it back before dark, but I was completely
exhausted.
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