In Search of Anderson Valley Cabin

It was a hard hike, and one that ended up not reaching the goal, but I was glad that I could still do it and the scenery on the way up was magnificent.  We have been wondering ever since the 2020 forest fire on Pine Valley Mountain if the Anderson Valley Cabin survived the fire.  The hike to get there goes from the big sequoia tree at Browse Guard Station on up the mountain and then over to Anderson Valley.  It is a very difficult, straight up hike.  There is one forest section that is really beautiful and the rest is either rocky and up hill, or straight up a very unmaintained and brushy, edgy mountainside.  The elevation gain is very big over a very short area.  Lots of stops to breathe take place.  We got a late start too.  We did make it to the top and then the fire devastation was so great that no trail was there and the landscape was completely changed...and we decided that getting lost and not finding the trail back down was not a great idea, so we ate our lunch and then went back down.  It's slow going down the steepest part because footing is tricky on the decomposed granite and the trail is so hard to find in the brush.  We took some side detours on the way up and a few more on the way down.  It ended up being about 11 miles.  And they were hard miles!  I felt them for the week afterwards.  BUT, the views of the Zion skyline and the Kolob Fingers section of Zion were so beautiful, that it did make up for some of the hard about this hike.  I finally found a blog post that said the old cabin had burned down and only the foundation is left.  Now I don't feel the need to do that hike ever again.  I hate to see so many great trails lost to the fires and erosion.