We had planned to hike today to The Pinnacles north of Lake Arrowhead, but halfway there decided we may not have time to do all we had hoped for – we chose instead to explore the West Fork of the Mojave River drainage west of Silverwood Lake, about a half hour east of Wrightwood off of Hwy 138. Cleghorn Road leaves the highway and heads due west, leading in a broad arc west, south, then east again to several summits, and our thoughts were to see how close we could get to either Cajon Mountain or Cleghorn Mountain for a quick hike. We followed the road westward as it changed from paved to dirt after the first mile or so, passing a junction with the PCT and gradually gaining elevation. The surrounding hills were beautiful, very green this time of year, and we crossed over a small stream running south over the road. After maybe 30 minutes, we reached a broad saddle at Cleghorn Pass – we had thought the road continues down the west face of the ridge to a junction with I-15 (where there is a Cleghorn Road offramp below Hwy 138, but that Cleghorn Road and this one never actually meet), but the road simply made an abrupt turn southward toward Cajon Mountain and points beyond. Chris had seen a map online that indicated there is a use trail from here to the summit of Cleghorn Mountain to the north, but a brief reconnaissance yielded nothing but heavy brush wherever a trail might be. We pondered following the road another two miles to Cajon Mountain but chose instead to head back to Wrightwood to take care of some projects and get a sunset hike in later that evening. So, back down the dirt road we went, meeting a silvery-green snake sunning himself in the middle of the track about a mile from the pavement – we would have had to run him over to continue, so Chris took his picture and shooed him off the road. The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully, until we found ourselves heading west on Hwy 2 to Vincent Gap, where the PCT crosses the highway to ascend Mt. Baden-Powell to the southwest. Our plan was to hike north up the PCT about a mile to where the trail traverses the western end of Blue Ridge – here, we figured the open slopes would offer a nice view of the sunset. The trouble was that sunset was listed as 7:02pm, and we didn’t reach the trailhead until 6:30pm. This would not have been a big issue if the hike was to be on flat ground, but the northbound PCT at this point gains about 900′ of elevation in its first mile, and the steep climb quickly winded us as we raced up the trail, on the way passing through a remarkably dense grove of oaks. By 7:00pm we were still about a quarter mile south of the vantage point we had planned to gain, so we turned west where the trail crosses a Forest Service road and walked about 200 yards down it to see the last moments of the now-waning sunset. It was a marvelous view, although it would have been much better had we arrived 30 minutes earlier. By this time, the breeze had picked up and it was getting chilly, and the light was also fading fast – out came the jackets and headlamps, and we retraced our steps back to the trailhead. Hwy 2 westbound is still closed from Vincent Gap, but we’re hopeful that it opens soon so we can do more sunset hikes to other vistas further west.