Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area lies south of the town of Pearblossom along Hwy 138 – coming and going from Wrightwood, we’ve driven past the turnoff dozens of times now. The visitor’s center at the park (which is a part of the LA County Parks and Recreation system) is perched on the west side of a unique set of canyons – here, pressure from the San Andreas and other local faults have lifted, folded, and twisted sandstone layers of the desert floor into spectacular formations. There are a couple of trails at the visitor center itself, but the hike we’ve had on our radar for a while now is the 7-1/2 mile roundtrip trek to Devil’s Chair, a prominent outcrop that overlooks the eastern part of the canyon complex. Fenced in by iron railings and mesh fencing, visitors are protected from the exposure while being offered a bird’s eye perspective of the contorted layers of rock below. We thought that arriving late in the day would offer 1) interesting lighting for our photographs, and 2) a cooler setting for the hike – accordingly, we arrived a little after 4pm, checked out the display of live snakes in the visitor center, then signed in at the trail register and headed out about 4:30. We headed first southwest up the Burkhart Trail, a path that winds some 15 miles up through Burkhart Saddle into the Little Rock Creek drainage north of Waterman Mountain – after a mile, we would turn east along the base of the mountains and traverse above Devil’s Punchbowl, eventually losing most of our elevation before traversing westward again to Devil’s Chair itself. The walk up the Burkhart Trail was quite pleasant under clear skies and moderate breeze, consistently graded and not too steep to leave us winded – starting in a pinyon pine and juniper grove, we emerged into more open country as we followed the edge of the canyon southward, joining up with a ranch road for the majority of the initial ascent. The signed junction at the foot of the mountains was unmistakable, and we began our eastward traverse along what is currently the official PCT detour around the wildlife closure below Mt. Williamson to the south (just how many PCT thru-hikers are willing to take a 20-mile detour out to the desert is unclear – we think most opt for a 2-mile hike down Hwy 2 to avoid the closed area). This portion of the trail is most enjoyable – although we probably gained and lost the same 50′ of elevation a half dozen times, the trail is in great shape and the walking was very easy. The attendant at the visitor center had mentioned we only had about 3 hours to do the hike if we wanted to be back by dark, and though we had our headlamps, that timeframe sort of became an unofficial goal as we made our way east down the interim PCT. After about 3 miles total, we began to quickly lose elevation as the trail switchbacked its way down toward Holcomb Canyon (one drainage further east than the Punchbowl), and soon enough we found the spur trail to Devil’s Chair – we had earlier spotted a trio of young men behind us on the trail, so, wanting the place to ourselves for at least a few minutes before they caught up with us, we hustled the last quarter mile out to the tip of the formation. The views from the spur trail were awesome enough, but there was something even more special about being on the tip of this narrow ridge that extends northward from the south canyon wall – the visitor is enveloped by 270 degrees of twisted sandstone, long eroded by wind and water into shapes of stunning beauty, in dozens of different colors and textures. We could see particularly in the western wall of the canyon the various strata that now warps and weaves its way north, cleaved at several points by sharp faults and fissures that break up the otherwise smooth curves. It was quite windy by this time, and we could have been here perhaps 30 minutes earlier for the most dramatic lighting – after about 15 minutes taking in the sights, we started back as the sun touched the top of the ridges far to our west. The ascent back up the PCT was a little less intense than we expected, and we were soon cruising back along the flat traverse at a brisk but comfortable clip of 3 mph. We were targeting a 7:30pm trailhead arrival, and we made it right on time, just under the 3-hour mark. There was a night hike in progress on one of the shorter trails through Punchbowl Canyon proper – we thought briefly about trying to catch up with that group, but decided to head home instead. We’d do this hike again in a heartbeat, and we’ll come back next time with others – the scenery is so unique and impressive.