A Chilly Morning Hike At Devil's Punch Bowl

My brother Keith is visiting me for a few days. He had never been to the Devil's Punch Bowl out in Pearblossom, CA so I decided that this visit, I'd take him out there. We also invited my neighbor Jean who is also my dog Hiker's groomer. We've been having some very cold mornings here in SoCal and it was only around 25 deg. when we headed up to the Punch Bowl. It is at an elevation of over 4700 feet, so there was snow in the mountain around the county park.

We headed out on the canyon loop trail which takes you down to the bottom of the Punch Bowl...about a 300 foot decline in elevation.

There are some really great views from the trail.

We got pretty close to the bottom of the canyon and looked back up at the visitor center on the rim.

So we decided to head back up the trail.

Once we got back on top, we checked out the owls that are on display. This Great Horned Owl and my dog Hiker did not take their eyes off of each other.

We sat down on a bench near the edge of the Devil's Punch Bowl and enjoyed the scenery before heading home.

That's me and Hiker on the left, my brother Keith in the middle and my neighbor Jean on the right.

Link For The Devil's Punch Bowl Website

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/