Designing a trail climbing 3,800 ft in less than 3 miles is a pretty audacious task and alas the Oak Grove trail fails even in its basic purpose of getting one up the mountain as quickly as possible. Be prepared for a slip-sliding, fly-swatting, route-finding extravaganza if you want to climb Pine Valley Mountain this way(though I’ve heard the other trails up are equally difficult to navigate). Most of the trail passes over slippery crushed rock and awkwardly-placed boulders– bring at least one solid hiking pole/stick and still be prepared to spend half the time sliding. I don’t harbor any illusions about an ideal hiking surface like the cemented trails of Zion Canyon, but something needs to be done in a number of parts here to shore up the surface, especially several talus slopes that could be dangerous. Be prepared for all kinds of bugs on this trail in summer at least– even at 7AM a cloud of black flies greeted me and I was swatting them every inch of the way up(altitude had no effect), when I wasn’t dodging the copious numbers of hornets and bees, especially on the middle section. At least there was good reason for all those pollinators to be around– the wildflowers were gorgeous, with deep red, purple, and yellow flowers plus several blooming cactuses along the way. A meadow-like area about halfway up the trail is particularly full of ‘em. While the bottom 2⁄3 of the trail are easy enough to navigate(going up is usually the right call), the upper third of the trail in the pine forests simply disappears on a number of occasions– blowdowns have wrecked the trail and many of the sections aren’t re-routed. A few rock cairns have been placed to help guide hikers, but there aren’t enough of them and many times you’ll just have to double back and figure out if the trail continues or turns. Blazes would definitely help. At the top, the trail disappears into the snowbanks(yes, snowbanks in July… and pretty deep ones at that), so bring a map, a compass, and shoes good for crossing snowfields if you want to continue onward. The views from the trail are fairly stunning the whole way up, but at the top you don’t get a 360 degree view– even scrambling up some of the nearby rocky mounts will only get you 180 or so. You need to bushwhack up the tallest summits to see the truly magnificent views and there’s no good trail for that(some bouldering may be required as well). Overall, there’s a lot of natural beauty on this trail, but it badly needs maintenance and additional navigating guides to make it a recommended hike. Note that getting out to the trailhead at Oak Grove Campground is an adventure in itself and you’ll want to start as early as possible to stay in the shade(much of the exposed trail is on the western side of the ridge).
