Stand at the gate on Mira Monte Avenue on a Saturday morning and you'll see it: someone with their phone out, scrolling between three different answers. One app says partial closure. Another says the whole loop is shut down. A third insists the trail is open year round, no caveats, hike away. All three are describing the same patch of mountain, and all three are technically right about something, just not the same something.
Here's what's actually true right now. The historic climb out of downtown Sierra Madre toward Orchard Camp is open. It has been tested by hundreds of hikers and runners this year and it's held up. What's closed is Bailey Canyon Trail, the loop option that normally pairs with Mount Wilson Trail for a longer circuit through the foothills, along with the upper stretch toward the summit and the old Toll Road. Two different trails, two different stories, and most of what shows up in a search bar has been mashing them together for more than a year.
Two trails, not one
The confusion traces back to January 2025, when the Eaton Fire swept through the foothills above town, followed by a run of atmospheric river storms that hit an already burned hillside. Both events did real damage to Mount Wilson Trail and Bailey Canyon Trail, and both were closed by the Forest Service through the end of that year.
Mount Wilson Trail reopened in early 2026. Bailey Canyon Trail did not, and it remains closed indefinitely.
If you're planning a hike from the trailhead at 189 E. Mira Monte Avenue, here's the distance math that matters:
| Route | Round trip | Status as of 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Trailhead to Orchard Camp | About 7.3 miles | Open |
| Kersting Court to Orchard Camp (the race course) | 8.6 miles | Open, tested May 2026 |
| Full summit hike to the Mount Wilson observatory | About 14.5 miles | Not currently possible, upper trail and Toll Road closed |
The 14.5-mile summit hike is the number that still circulates on general trail sites, because that's the trail's full length when everything is open. It isn't right now. The 8.6-mile figure is the one worth remembering if you're starting from downtown, since it's the exact course that got a real stress test this year.
The camp that gives the trail its halfway point
Orchard Camp sits at roughly the 3.5-mile mark, a flat clearing in Little Santa Anita Canyon with stone foundations poking out of the brush. It wasn't always ruins. From the 1890s through the 1930s it operated as a mountain resort, complete with tent houses, cabins, a store, and eventually a pavilion and dance hall. At its peak in 1911, roughly 40,000 visitors signed the camp register in a single year. Flooding in 1938 took the buildings out for good, and today the foundations are what's left for hikers to sit on and catch their breath.
The trail itself is older than the camp. In 1864, Benjamin Wilson, known locally as Don Benito, widened and graded a path that had already been used for generations to reach the peak that now carries his name. That's the route Mount Wilson Trail still follows today, climbing through Little Santa Anita Canyon past a spot called First Water and on toward Decker Spring before reaching the camp.
Who's actually paying for the repairs
Here's the detail that changes how you should think about this trail going forward. Neither the City of Sierra Madre nor the U.S. Forest Service funds any of the labor or materials that go into keeping Mount Wilson Trail and Bailey Canyon Trail open. All of it, the rebuilt sections, the rock-filled wire baskets shoring up eroded slopes, the new trailhead gate, comes from an all-volunteer Trail Maintenance Crew paid for through donations to the Fletcher Trail Maintenance Fund, administered by the Sierra Madre Community Foundation.
As of September 2025, the fund had raised a little over $7,300 toward a $25,000 restoration goal, according to reporting from Pasadena Now. That gap is the reason the lower section reopened before Bailey Canyon did. It isn't a matter of which trail the Forest Service prioritized. It's a matter of what a community-funded crew could physically rebuild first, one washed-out switchback at a time.
Pete Siberell, who chairs the Mount Wilson Trail Race, faced a real decision when the closures hit the race's 2025 running. Cancel for a second straight year, or find another way to keep the tradition going. His answer, as he told Pasadena Now:
"We don't do things that way here."
That instinct produced a 5K recovery run on city streets in October 2025 that drew 600 registered participants, three times what organizers expected, on pavement instead of trail while the mountain healed.
The race that proved the trail could handle it
If you want proof the reopened section can handle real foot traffic, look at what happened on Saturday, May 23, 2026. Three hundred twenty-five runners finished the Mount Wilson Trail Race, the full 8.6-mile course from Kersting Court up through the trailhead gate to Orchard Camp and back, the first time the race had run in two years.
James Timphony, who works at Pasadena's Run With Us, took the win in 1:03:42, his seventh career victory on this course, an all-time record for the race. He crossed the finish line two days after becoming a father for the second time.
The race itself dates to 1908, making it one of the oldest trail races in California, and it traces the same ground Don Benito Wilson graded more than a century and a half ago.
If you're looking for a change of scenery
Bailey Canyon Trail isn't the only foothill option affected by the fire closures. Eaton Canyon, Echo Mountain, and Sam Merrill Trail remain part of the extended Eaton Fire closure area, expected to stay shut through December 2027. If you want a different front-range hike without waiting that long, Chantry Flat farther east in Arcadia reopened in 2026 after four years of closure following the 2020 Bobcat Fire, and it's a reasonable substitute when you want a loop instead of an out-and-back.
Planning your own trip
The trailhead sits at the end of Mira Monte Avenue, a short walk from Kersting Court in the middle of downtown. From the 210 freeway, exit at Baldwin Avenue and head north until Baldwin meets Mira Monte. Street parking is free but tight on weekend mornings, so plan to walk a block or two if you arrive after sunrise. There's a park with restrooms at the trailhead, though they're not always unlocked, and a drinking fountain at the corner of Mira Monte and Mount Wilson Trail Road for both hikers and dogs.
The lower trail is exposed for the first mile and a half before it settles into oak shade past First Water, so an early start matters more in the warmer months. Bring more water than you think you need. The climb to Orchard Camp gains roughly 2,100 feet, and there's no reliable refill point along the way.
If the trail matters to you, the most useful thing you can do beyond hiking it is send a few dollars to the Fletcher Trail Maintenance Fund. The crew rebuilding these switchbacks isn't waiting on a city budget line or a federal grant. They're waiting on neighbors.
Sierra Madre's small footprint is part of what makes it feel like a town instead of a suburb, the kind of place where a trailhead a few blocks from downtown can carry more than a century of local history. If you're thinking about what it actually means to live near this trail, this canyon, and this town, Kawika Hiroshige has spent his life in these foothills and is always glad to talk through what a home here looks like. Reach out anytime for a conversation, no obligation attached.
