Trail Review: Brown Mountain Truck Trail and El Prieto Trail Loop
Parking: There is a parking lot at the camp that requires an Adventure Pass.
Distance: 3 miles loop/out & back
This trail is one of many that start from this area at the Millard Camp and Mt. Lowe Trailhead. In fact, we've been here before to hike to the Dawn Mine. When we arrived, it was a lot busier than the last time. The parking lot was full and so we had to park along the road a little ways up from the lot.
The Millard Campgrounds are accessible from a trail at the curve in the road right before the parking lot. This section was pretty flat and had a lot of people on it. But as you get to the other side of the campgrounds and cross a small, concrete waterway, you'll reach the Brown Mountain Truck Trail to the left and the crowds really thin out.
At this point, the trail starts to gain some elevation, although it's never steep. And pretty quickly, you'll emerge from the canyon and have some good views of Downtown Los Angeles in the far distance. The trail in this section is also fairly wide so you shouldn't have any trouble passing people if needed.
Along this first section of the trail, there was a bee keeping area off to the right, up on a small hill. I don't think I would have known what it was, but one of the boxes had been knocked down onto the trail and we could see the honeycomb and some bees in there. There were some bees generally flying around but they seemed unfazed by people.
After almost a mile, you'll come to an intersection where the main trail veers off to the right. The trail we took is the smaller trail to the left (or more like straight ahead). This is where the loop begins and it will eventually bring you back around to this intersection.
After just two tenths of a mile, we came upon some buildings and a truck gate. At first we thought maybe we went the wrong way but then we realized the trail just goes around the gate and makes a sharp right turn down the hill. Don't follow the main road by the buildings. That'll just lead you down the mountain into Altadena.
After making the sharp turn down the hill onto El Prieto Canyon Trail, we descended into a canyon along a much narrower path. It was single file and the brush was definitely encroaching on the trail in parts. We soon discovered that, despite the narrowness and unevenness of the trail, bikes were prevalent so keep an ear out. Thankfully most of them had bells.
Along the El Prieto Trail, there are some interesting old dams. There isn't much water these days and so the dams are in disrepair with lots of overgrowth, but it was cool to see a remnant of an earlier time when I'm sure the water coming down from the mountains needed to be regulated. We passed three all together and you can tell that parts of the path were made of something, perhaps an old wall or fence that had fallen.
The trail will hit the bottom of the canyon and start heading up the other side. There will also be some small water crossings most likely (unless it's been extremely dry). But eventually, the path will spill out onto the Fern Truck Trail, a much wider trail and the one that connects back to the Brown Mountain Truck Trail. There was a "yield to" sign right at the intersection:
You'll want to head to the right from here in order to loop back around and you'll soon find yourself at the original intersection (the one where you went left/straight). Follow the main trail to the left to head back to Millard Campground and the parking lot.
Bottom Line: A quieter trail from the Millard Trail Campground that features some dams and little streams.
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