Hiking the Thompson Creek Trail

In this new year I plan to have an increased focus on wellness on this blog. Don’t worry I’ll still write about my fair share of desserts and sedentary recommendations…I just plan on mixing them up a bit with posts that focus on healthier treats and activities. My goal is to get out more into the SoCal wilderness. OK. Maybe not wilderness but nature at least. So on the very first weekend of the year a friend and I embarked on a hike on the Thompson Creek Trail in Claremont.

As I’ve often found when searching for trails they’re not that easy to figure out. Take good old Thompson Creek. According to my All Trails app the trail head was located at the end of Pomello Drive. So we headed over and, sure enough, there it was. But there was one problem – Pomello is a residential street and street parking is available by permit only. Hmm. So we ended up heading back to the nearest major street – North Hills Blvd. and parked there. It was a bit of a walk but no biggie. We headed back to the trail head, turned right and started hiking.

We hadn’t walked very far when the trail spit us out into an ample parking lot (d’oh!) and we found ourselves in the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park. We couldn’t find any continuation of the Thompson Creek Trail so we decided to turn around and take it in the other direction. Turned out to be a good choice. The trail continue on for over 2 miles through lovely foliage.

And then we came across a rare sight for us city folk – a pair of grazing deer.

(Your eyes aren’t deceiving you…only one of them is in the above picture.)

The Thompson Creek Trail ended up being a lovely way to start the year. But word to the wise, the trail ends at Base Line Road. If you happen to have parked on North Mills, do yourself a favor and take the trail back. Don’t decide to take Base Line to North Mills. Let’s just say I learned this tip the hard way.