Hard Luck Camp and upper Piru Creek

This mission had two objectives. First one being to complete the Second leg of the Piru Creek Project. I've now seen everything the Creek has to offer from Lake Piru to Above Lake Pyramid and ending just passed the old now closed Hard Luck Campground. Second objective bring Tony Marchese back to Hard Luck where he has so many great memories camping and hunting with his Dad. Logistically this is not the easiest site to access. Established in 1961 Hard Luck Camp and the road leading into it was permanently closed and no longer maintained in the summer of 2009, due to it's close proximity to Piru Creek which provides habitat for the endangered Arroyo Toad. This once 26 car site Camp served as the starting point for Buck Creek Trail(18w01) and Upper Piru creek. You basically have two options now. Hike in from the west via Alamo Mtn(8n01) and Stewart Mtn (6n10) Route, or From the East Gate near Los Alamos Fire Station along the 3 mile now closed Hard Luck road. We chose the latter. Remembering our past mistakes from Lower Piru and hiking in on long, hot, and boring paved roads and how much it sucked. We decided this time to add mountain bikes to this section of our itinerary. Tony picked me up at my house early the morning of and we loaded our packs and mountain bikes in the car for the drive up to Los Alamos Campground where we would leave the car parked overnight.

The weather that weekend was forecast to be hot so in order to stay cool we outfitted the bike I would be riding with saddle bags in order to carry our Ice Mule coolers loaded with beers :) After finding a nice place to park for the night we paid the fees and off we went. From the campground parking lot it was only about .7 miles to the locked gate

From here the next 3.5 miles uphill and then downhill to Hard Luck is rather grueling, especially on a bike carrying a heavy pack. Granted it was still much nicer than walking. I did take note of how bad it would be on the way out from the treacherously steep hill we just went down. Coming into Hard Luck we crossed Piru Creek which still had a decent flow of water for being so late in June. We spent a little time investigating what was left of Hard Luck and Tony Got to relive those old cherished memories with his pops from all those years ago.

We continued our ride along the trail as long as we could before it was no longer passable on a bike. Eventually we found a nice spot to stash the bikes. After a quick break we locked them to a tree and off we went on foot. 

Leaving Hard Luck your awarded with some really nice views of the surrounding valley and  mountain ranges. While here I did do some fishing in the upper creek, I didn't catch anything this time around but I really wasn't trying very hard either. Upper Piru is a wild trout program and only artificial lures and barbless hooks may be used with a 2 trout possession limit.

Our original plan was to follow Piru Creek until it ran into Lake Pyramid. Hoping to camp for the night near the Lake. At about 6.5 miles in we came to the junction of Piru and Buck Creek and surprisingly Buck Creek had a decent little flow of clean cool water coming in. Before heading completely off trail and down into the Piru drainage  we did do some exploring up Buck Creek and found some nice good sized pools to soak in. Note the trail from here up Buck Creek is not in very good condition, it appears then disappears in quite a few places. I would imagine it would be quite difficult to make it all the way up to Buck Creek Trail Camp. Lots of Bush whacking and trail searching involved. I'll have to return another time and explore that one further.

Heading Down Piru very close to the Buck creek junction in the middle nowhere comes this man made gaging station. This in stream structure acts as a barrier to upstream fish migration of non native species under most flow conditions. There has in the past however been reports of anglers catching Large Mouth Bass up and around Hard Luck.

The geology here in the Piru canyon is fascinating. Conglomerate rock formations form steep canyon walls, full of holes with nesting birds in them. At the right time of day the canyon provides a good  amount of shade, something we really needed at this point as the June heat was kicking our butts. I spotted a few turtles hanging by the station structure here as well. 

We followed the drainage for approximately 2 more miles before reaching the Lake. Water flow in the creek got lower and lower the closer we got to Pyramid and eventually stopped flowing altogether. About a half mile before landing on lake we got the pleasure of tromping through wet muddy marsh land and to make matters even worse there was no nice dry place to camp and absolutely no shade by the lake. Tony went for a swim and I cracked a cold one and pondered our next move.

At this point we still had plenty of Daylight left so we decided to head back and camp near a spot we noticed by junction with Buck Creek. Our camp had a nice rock wall to sit on and store our gear and good flowing water from Piru. It was actually a really beautiful spot and had a good amount of wildlife around as well.

As I mentioned plenty of times it was Hot, so damn hot I really did not sleep well at all. I was at one point tempted to go lie in the creek during the middle of the night and sleep there but fought back the temptation as that would not be very environmentally stewardedly of me. Eventually it cooled off enough for me to drift off. The next morning we woke, had coffee and breakfast and high tailed it back out the way we came in. Luckily the bikes were still at the stash spot. (not like there is anybody else out here who would have taken them). I stopped a few more times on the way out for a little fishing but again was skunked. Note: the bike ride out is an ass kicker. Basically straight up hill, its slow going and brutal. Once you reach the top of the ridge though its nice and all downhill back to Los Alamos Campground. Besides the heat and ugly bike hills the trip was great I had a blast. There is still a vast upper section of Piru Creek I need to explore before I can say I have travelled the whole length but section 1 and 2 are officially in the books. Our total distance for this trip was about 19.5 miles.

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