Sister Sally and I headed up the Forsee Creek trail yesterday. We turned at the junction sign and headed over to John's Meadow. The trail to John's is basically a very pretty traverse through the forest with little elevation change.
Once at the meadow, we continued on the trace trail. It was difficult to find in a few places -- the route crosses streams, passes through overgrown brush and crosses sandy ravines. Parts of the trace trail are steep but having to continually stop and route-find provided needed rest breaks
We lost the route in a sandy wash below the San Bernardino peak intersection. Sally's GPS indicated that the trail was directly in front of us. Unfortunately, there was also a veritable wall of waist-to-chest-high manzanita, buckthorn and chinquapin blocking our progress
We circled around and/or walked over the brush. The sky became bluer with my invective 
We finally reached the San Bernardino peak trail. We figured out where we'd gone astray on the trace trail -- won't make that mistake again. I gave John's meadow an appropriate salute at the junction sign
and we started the loonngg climb up to west San Bernardino peak. I washed the new blood off my legs at the creek above Limber pine bench and we doused our hair with that blessed, cool water.
Took a short fuel break at the stone bench below Washington's momument before grinding up the trail to West San Bernardino peak. We enjoyed brunch before rejoining the ridge trail over ot East San Bernadion peak. It was now after 11 AM and starting to heat up -- the predicted NOAA high for the summit of San Gorgonio was 71
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We ran into our first hiker on East San Bernardino peak. She was taciturn, so we didn't dally long and dropped back down to the San Gorgonio backbone. The walk over to Anderson was very pleasant and allowed us to stretch our legs. We met a really nice guy who was hiking San Gorgonio for the first time. He'd stayed at Penny (aka Dollar) Lake for the night before, bagged Shields, then hiked down the ridge to bag one of the San Bernardino peaks.
We took our time heading up Anderson. By now, it was getting quite warm and the biting flies were out with a vengence -- they were even going after Sally. We started heading down about 1 PM and met Sally's daughter Allison about 2 PM (we'd planned to meet her at some point along the trail -- she started later).
Alli and Sally know wildflowers, so it was fun to have them point out various types as we descended. Even though I'd already donnated blood to appease the mountain spirits, I tripped over something and landed on my knees and elbows. Sally and Alli felt the earth move when I landed
We continued down without incident, battling biting flies everytime we stopped.
It was wonderful to reach the TH and escape the biting flies. We had awesome cheeseburgers at the Oaks before heading home
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
Here's the pics: 
