12 min
Overview
Most people who have followed popular music for any length of time are familiar with the concept of a “single.” If you are not familiar, a single is a track released for wide distribution on the radio. The single may be part of a full-length album, and if it is, it has been identified as the catchiest song most likely to make a lot of money. It therefore gets quite a bit of exposure by finding it’s way onto “Best of Lists.” Many music listeners have approached music with only the singles in mind. A smaller fraction of listeners penetrate the “deep cuts” buried within the back half of any particular album. Thus many of even the greatest bands have songs that their fans have never heard before. These tracks are relegated to cult favorite status and perhaps even forgotten unless you stumble upon it after falling into a Youtube wormhole. One fine example of this phenomenon is Led Zeppelin. It’s hard to imagine a person who isn’t familiar with tracks like “Stairway to Heaven” or “Kashmir,” but only the diligent, patient fan is able to sink his or her teeth into a song like “Carouselambra.” So it is with hiking as I’ve observed from monitoring the habits of other hikers on social media. Every day, I see mention of the “Kashmirs” and “Stairways” of the natural world in the form of Mt. Baldy or Runyon Canyon or Torrey Pines. Everybody knows them, and everybody seeks them out. Somewhat less often but still frequently, you see the “Rock and Roll’s,” “Over the Hills and Far Away’s,” and the “Fool in the Rain’s,” in the form of Echo Mountain, Woodson Mountain, or Sturtevant Falls. But it’s not often that you hear somebody bragging about sitting through “Carouselambra.” It’s a weird song, filled with unexpected twists and turns, not terribly accessible, and probably longer than it ought to be. If Southern California is the Led Zeppelin of hiking with a deep, rich, and astonishingly varied catalog, the Sawmill Trail to Santa Rosa Mountain is its “Carouselambra.” This “deep cut” goes to all kinds of unexpected places, cont
Trail Stats
33.3 km
1310 m
2457 m
1220 m
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