Thru-hiking the Backbone Trail (BBT) – Mission Accomplished!

[Kenny V]

I wanted to share our incredible backpacking adventure through the Santa Monica Mountains Backbone Trail in hope that more people will become more aware of this epic 68 miles of unbroken hiking trail right here in SoCal. My 15 year-old daughter and I entered the trailhead from Will Rogers State Historic Park in Pacific Palisades and exited at Ray Miller Trailhead in Point Mugu. Below is the short breakdowns of this trip for 2 people.

Day 1 – June 9th – Will Rogers State Historic Park to Musch Hike-In Camp ~10 miles
–Started from Will Rogers at 9AM and arrived at camp around 3PM. We camped at Musch
Camp. Decided to take it easy on the first day.
Day 2 – June 10th – Musch Camp to Mesa Peak Motorway ~16 miles
–Took short naps along trail
–Packed additional 32 oz of water for cooking, in addition to 3 liters of water
bladder for drinking.
Day 3 – June 11th – Mesa Peak Motorway to Circle X Ranch ~25 miles
–Took short naps along trail
–Packed additional 64 oz of water for cooking, in addition to 3 liters of water bladder
for drinking.
Day 4 – June 12th – Circle X Ranch to Ray Miller Trailhead ~17 miles
–Took short naps along trail
–Exited Ray Miller at 10 PM

[Jeff H]

Congratulations to you and your daughter, Kenny! Sounds awesome!

Do you have some photos from the trip you can share? How was the camping? Were permits or campground reservations difficult to obtain? Where did you get your water?

Sorry for the slew of questions… I’m just excited!

[Kenny V]

Hi Jeff,

I tried to upload some photos and got discourage with the file size limit message. I’ll try again later.

Camping was great at Musch Campground. 4 of the 6 sites were occupied first-come-first-server on our first night (Friday). Other than that, I didn’t have any luck trying to get a reservation at Circle X during the pre-planning, as booking agent saying it’s a group campground and they’re all booked for the summer. I didn’t even try Malibu Creek Campground since it’s a little off trail and would have caused us to skip a 4-5 miles section of the BBT. On day 2 and 3 we didn’t really camp at all, just had short sleeps here and there, day and night off-trail otherwise I don’t we could have made it through on our 4-days plan. As for water, we refilled 3 times during our trip. Musch Campground, Tapia Trailhead parking lot (restroom with a sink inside), and finally at Circle X Ranch. I also brought along a water filter as a precaution, but it was useless because every creeks we crossed were pretty much dried up.

I think BBT is very lightly traffic considering that the weather was 65-70 degrees and on a weekend. We probably encountered about 30 people on the entire 68 miles of the BBT. We didn’t see any backpackers (a little disappointed), but ran into plenty of trail runners, some hikers and mountain bikers. Rock climbers near Saddle Peak was quite a sight to behold.

JMT next? I’m dreaming.

[Kenny V]

A video of our adventure hiking the Backbone Trail.

Backbone Thru-hike

[Scott H]

They need to add a few more trail cmapsites. This explodes if they do

[Andrew A]

Hey Author,

I’m thinking about doing the BBT next Saturday through Tuesday. I’m hoping to do a similar plan to yours. But I’m curious about your sleeping night 2 and 3. You said you took naps along the trail. Are there no campsites during those stretches?

[Author]

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