After a morning spent hiking near the Ventura/Kern borders with an HPS group, I wanted to get one more peak in, as I close in on my 200th HPS peak. So I headed to the San Gabriels to grab Occidental. I used HPS route 1, with a variation; the parking area described as "a large parking area, mostly barricaded by boulders" is, in fact, completely closed off by those boulders and inaccessible. I parked at the Wilson Observatory, which bumped up the mileage a bit. I didn't find any marker, cairn or register at the summit. Perhaps not many folks visit Occidental? The hike was super buggy; I was happy to pull out my bug net for only the second time ever.

The trail isn't hard to spot or follow, but it's surprisingly slippy in places because of all the soft earth, pine needles and fallen leaves. I followed the chain link fence for the first part of the ascent; on the descent, I stuck to the use trail, which is generally 20 feet lower than the fence line.

If you park at the observatory like I did, keep in mind that the gate closes at 5pm. I got back to my car around 6pm, but managed to slip in like a ninja to return to my car. (The gate has sensors on the inside to let you out.)