Permits are not required to enter the San Gabriel wilderness.
Access trails
The following trails provide access:
Bear Creek Trail - This trail is approximately long, one trailhead for Lower Bear Creek located one mile West along West Fork Road and the other trailhead for Upper Bear Creek located at the Valley of the Moonparking lot along Highway 39 at approximately mile post 29.65. The trail crosses Smith Mountain Saddle, entering into the Designated Wilderness West past the Saddle peak.
Mt. Waterman Trail - A ten-mile trail, from Three Points to Buckhorn, with a one-mile side trail to Twin Peaks Saddle.
Devil's Canyon Trail - A four-mile trail down into rugged Devil's Canyon.
Hiking trails in the Designated Wilderness are built and maintained utilizing hand tools and materials which are strictly limited in terms of environmental impact. The use of chainsaws to remove trees that are down across trails is prohibited, requiring the use of crosscut saws, block-and-tackle chains and ropes to pull trees off of trails, griphoists, and other mechanical tools which do not produce noise or petroleum-based pollutants. In addition, wheeled tools and equipment are not permitted to be used in the Designated Wilderness, neither for trail maintenance nor for recreation, causing the wilderness to be classified for pedestrian and equestrian use only with mountain biking prohibited. Blasting to remove rock outcrops is prohibited, as is the use of fire-fighting tools like tractors, Phos-Chek air drops, Tovex Firebreak II explosives, and chainsaws to cut fire lines. Everything must be done by hand, even when fighting fires within the Designated Wilderness. The people who maintain hiking trails within the San Gabriel Designated Wilderness attempt to achieve a passable hiking experience within the wilderness that does not appear to be too greatly unnatural. To achieve such an effect, tree limbs and branches that must be cut back are finished with an effort to appear natural, bucked tree trunks that are removed from the trail are relocated so that they appear at a distance and do not look to have been cut by people, and even sawdust from crosscut saws will be collected and buried off of the trail.
