Bison Road Trail In Hart Park - Newhall, CA

My friend Linda emailed me the other day and said she had read about a walking/hiking club that meets up every Friday at William S. Hart Park in Newhall, CA. She wanted to check them out, so I packed up Hiker and we picked up Linda then headed over to the park. It was cloudy and starting to get windy. The group meets up was supposed to be at 9:00 am but most of the people did not show up until between 9:15 and 9:30. There were about 10 to 12 people (mostly seniors). They then proceeded to do warm-up stretches. Hiker was going crazy wanting to get going out on the hike. We all finally headed out for the Bison Road Trail which runs through the hills behind Hart Park.

Everyone started out in a group. The leader and a few other's took off ahead of everyone. Linda and I bought up the rear as we had no idea where the trail was. There was another woman who stayed back with us and we introduced ourselves and started to get acquainted. Before we realized it, most of the group had gotten way ahead of us. The trail began to climb and a steep incline and Linda, Hiker and I fell further back from the pack.

Linda began to get very winded, so I lagged back to stay with her and by now the rest of the group was at least a quarter of a mile ahead of us. Every now and then they would see us from a higher level of the trail and yell to ask us if we were OK. We told them to keep going and that we'd follow. I guess their thing is to walk fast and do the hike as quickly as possible, where as Linda and I prefer to take our time, stop and take photographs and enjoy the views, and there were some really nice views from this trail.

Hiker seemed to enjoy the hike as she always does.

Linda took this photo of me and Hiker up on the ridge.

We climbed and climbed and climbed, not knowing where the rest of the group was. Finally we reached the summit and then headed down into a private campground that is used by the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

After about an hour and 15 minutes and 2.5 miles, we finally made it back to the parking lot where most of the group had already left, but there were still 3 people there waiting to make certain that we made it back to my 4Runner OK.

Actually it was a pretty nice hike (if you take your time to enjoy it) and I would enjoy doing it again sometime.

Directions to the Bison Road Trail.

From the Hart Park parking lot, walk out to the street (Newhall Avenue) and take a left. Walk to Market Street and take another left. Continue to the parking lot behind the Santa Clarita Senior Center. Enter the parking lot and walk all the way to the back of it where there is an opening in the chain link fence to your right. Follow the dirt trail (fire road) as it winds up the mountain.