Hiking The Devil's Punchbowl Loop Trail - Pearblossom, CA

Today, my friend Linda and I took Hiker out to Pearblossom, CA to the Devil's Punchbowl Natural Area. Ben and I went to this sight back in November 2009 and I have always wanted to go back and hike the trail down into the "bowl". Ben was not a hiker, so he didn't want to go down the trail when he and I were there. The trail is about a mile long, but takes about an hour or more depending on how fast you walk and how often you stop along the way. It descends 300 ft. into the "bowl" and takes you all the way to the bottom where there is a year-round creek. But then...you have to climb back up out of the "bowl". This area is part of the San Andreas Fault line so these rocks are "thrust faults" coming up out of the ground from pressure put on them by two plates of the Earth's crust pushing into each other.

You can start your hike at either end of the loop. We chose to start near the Visitor's Center on the North side of the "bowl". There are many great spots for photo ops along the trail. Sometimes you lose track of the trail, even though it is marked all along the way, because people have gotten lazy and do not want to take all of the "switch backs" so they take short cuts and create new sections of trail which makes it confusing at times.

I would advise you take this hike in the fall, winter or spring as it would get pretty hot there in the summer.

Here is a link to the Devil's Punchbowl Website if you'd like to check it out:

http://www.devils-punchbowl.com/