The upper section of Highway 39 from West Fork to Islip Saddle

This was a ride I'd been looking forward to doing for months. Highway 39 is a north/south road which passes through Azusa and goes up through the San Gabriel River canyon way up into the Angeles National Forest. The last 5 miles between the Crystal Springs area and Highway 2 is "closed indefinitely" according to maps. In 2002, there was a very large fire in this canyon, called the Curve Fire. Since the fire the road has been closed just a bit north of the West Fork parking area. On previous rides, I'd ridden up and down the lower section of Highway 39 as it passes several dams (Morris, San Gabriel) as far as the West Fork. So on this ride, I parked at West Fork, and planned to ride the closed section to the north.

It's all uphill. In fact this ride gained me 5000ft in about 17 miles. During the section below the closed gate you pass a few fishing people and their cars, but once you duck under the big closed orange gate, I had the road to myself. One vehicle came past during the nearly 3 hours I was on this ride. There are a few little cabins and I guess the residents have a key to the gate. The road is smooth, in surprisingly good condition, and the crash barriers are all gleaming new shiny steel. There are an amazing number of switchbacks which from the bottom seem to just wind endlessly up into the canyon. You can see lots of evidence of the fire, and several burnt out old cabins, with just the fireplace and chimney standing. I passed about 3 parked cars, and near each, I think I identified a cabin of sorts. These people have chosen the remote life for sure!

Eventually you pass a major turning on the right to Crystal Springs area. If I'd had more energy I'd have explored this area. It's full of trailheads to places like Little Jimmy. But at the time I was just keen to keep moving, and the gradient got a little easier. The gate marking the bottom of the permanently closed section was actually unlocked and the road deteriorated a bit, but was still very passable. Along this section I found a few vehicles associated with road maintenance, and even a small RV. We had driven along Highway 2 a few weeks back, and saw that they were clearing falling rocks along here. There is a section where it looks like they've had to do a substantial repair job. Also a section where they've sprayed that green grass seed all over the area. As I rounded a corner I saw what I hoped might be highway 2 - I didn't really know how close I was to the end. I was pretty happy moments later to see a vehicle go sailing by, confirming my guess. I stopped at the junction with highway 2, which is Islip Saddle, took a couple of pictures, then wrapped up for a fast and furious return in 38 minutes during which I got pretty chilly! Next time, I might ride this one on a road bike - the roads are really smooth and it might be a little easier!

This is what the top looks like:

And this is a view from near the top, looking down at the San Gabriel canyon

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