[b]Date Hiked:[/b] August 25, 2018
[b]General Condition:[/b] Passable (some brush and/or deadfalls, tread evident)

Trail is passable and easy to follow, but very over grown. The first 500 yds requires bush whacking your way through tall, dry vegetation. From the saddle down into Fresno camp there are many overgrown sections where dodging and ducking is mandatory. Poisson Oak is out in force, especially the last third of the trail. Wear a long sleeved shirt and long pants as there is no way to avoid coming into contact. Fresno camp is beautiful. The river had a good flow of clear cold water, a welcomed sight on a dry, warm late summer afternoon. We could not locate the trail to San Antonio camp as we traveled about a mile downstream hugging the river bed so we stayed at Fresno camp.

[b]Date Hiked:[/b] March 4, 2018
[b]General Condition:[/b] Passable (some brush and/or deadfalls, tread evident)

A surprisingly easy trail for one that is not traveled or maintained much. The first quarter mile is brushy, but no chance of losing the trail. After that, it is very clear with good tread and no deadfalls you can't step over. There will be lots of poison oak as spring sets in. Fresno Camp was so nice I just hung out there, rather than wade the river or cross the slimy log.

Dick Graybill

[b]Date Hiked:[/b] December 15, 2013
[b]General Condition:[/b] Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

I hiked from Cone Peak Road DOWN San Antonio Trail and it was SEVERELY overgrown... at least for the first quarter mile. I'm used to overgrown trails in Big Sur, but this one beat me. I gave up after that quarter mile, and turned back. Very difficult, but passable... if need be.

[b]Date Hiked:[/b] November 9, 2013
[b]General Condition:[/b] Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

I hiked the San Antonio Trail from Cone Peak Road to Camp Fresno and back. The trail is pretty overgrown and there are a lot of downed trees across the trail. In spite of this, the trail is easy to follow and the tread is always evident. Poison Oak and ticks are abundant! I don't know if I enjoyed the hike but Camp Fresno was nice with plenty of running water.

[b]Date Hiked:[/b] April 5, 2013
[b]General Condition:[/b] Impassable (completely overgrown or tread obliterated)

Trail is non existent, the trail head sign is hidden under heavy brush, I took a picture of it, sorry I can't upload it. The tail is impassable, it is completely overgrown.

[b]Date Hiked:[/b] March 22, 2013
[b]General Condition:[/b] Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

Section: San Antonio Trail to Fresno Camp

This trail is quite overgrown & brushy and the poison oak is proliferating now into the Spring time growth period, pretty much impossible to avoid so be warned if going to attempt! I also picked quite a few ticks off as I hiked. There were also a number of deadfalls to maneuver. The tread is evident, however, and very much able to be followed down to Fresno camp if you don't mind the oak and pushing through some brush. There are a few different campsites in the area and a really neat area to explore with a large meadow and beautiful creek.

[b]Date Hiked:[/b] February 11, 2011
[b]General Condition:[/b] Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

This report is for the section from Fresno Camp to San Antonio Camp.

Beyond Fresno Camp the trail has not had much use lately. I assume the fact that the trail is now a dead-end and will require back-tracking to get out has discouraged its use. Crossing to the North side of the San Antonio River at Fresno Camp, the next 1.0 mile is very difficult, with much downfall and vines, no clearly discernible track, and an additional 6 river crossings - the trail is supposed to be following an old roadbed but that is often not apparent. You find a pretty 30 ft waterfall, in season (see photo below), after the fifth crossing - a fire ring shows people have camped here to enjoy the falls. After the last river crossing the roadbed/tread becomes more apparent - although easy to lose from time to time in the downfall and growth, this section is less brushy and more easily followed than the section with the river crossings. Beyond San Antonio Camp. you can leave the roadbed, which heads towards private property, to follow the river for another 1/4 mi to reach a stone cabin (see photo below) - note the new picnic table, it's obviously being used by someone!

While the path could be followed by a backpacker, the amount of deadfall that one would have to maneuver around or below would likely not make it very enjoyable.

Because of difficulties following the "trail", I found that in many places my track coming out differed from that going in, since I was purposely not using my outbound knowledge on my return but simply attempting to find the best route I could in each direction. Based on my notes, I've placed what I consider the net "best" route into my on-line trailmap (http://ventanahiking.net) - it does go though all the obvious trail signs I found (flags, sawed branches, and obvious tread) with a few "spurs" indicating spots where the route in-between could easily differ. To encourage folks to make their own visit to San Antonio Camp and the stone cabin, I've includes waypoints giving locations for the crossings, the waterfall, and cabin in the GPX file you can download from the trailmap.

I note that Schaffer's description differs from what I found. He mentions 10 river crossings whereas I only found 7 (actually he should have found an odd number!?). And he calls the section after the last crossing "cross-country" out to San Antonio Camp, not mentioning the old roadbed. He mentions seeing the waterfall but not San Antonio Camp, so possibly he did not go much further than the waterfall. His mapped trail only goes down to Fresno Camp.

PS: it was interesting to find that the correct location for Fresno Camp illustrated the errors which can be in the terrain data used for both the USGS quadrangle maps and Google Earth. For both, the correct location of Fresno Camp appears to be up on the slope north of the river gully - but if you look closely at Google Earth you can follow the actual river location and see that it does not follow the mapped river gully, instead seeming to flow up the side of the terrain-data-based "hill".

[b]Date Hiked:[/b] February 11, 2012
[b]General Condition:[/b] Passable (some brush and/or deadfalls, tread evident)

This report is for the section from Cone Peak Road down to Fresno Camp.

The trail was brushy in places and had some downfall, which required short-cutting the apex of the last switchback, but was followable and backpackers would not have too much difficulty.

[b]Date Hiked:[/b] May 1, 2011
[b]General Condition:[/b] Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

Hiked the San Antonio Trail from Cone Peak Road down to Fresno Camp. Trail is very overgrown and Poison Oak is thriving. Lots of downed trees but all are passable. Fresno camp is in decent condition ready for a reasonably sized group. Machete is recommended for this hike. The trail itself is in good condition, very easy to follow. Enjoy!

[b]Date Hiked:[/b] April 9, 2011
[b]General Condition:[/b] Impassable (completely overgrown or tread obliterated)

We kayaked the San Antonio River. During that trip we did walk some portions of the San Antonio trail. The trail is followable and has good foot bed down to Fresno camp. Beyond fresno camp we used the trail to portage around some obstacles on a few occasions. Related to the trail, from what I saw the trail is either Impassable, or extremely difficult. The short portions of the trail that we walked on were almost unidentifiable as trail.
We stopped at the "Casey stone house" along the way. The house looks nice from the outside. The inside is in a very sad state. The inside of the house is strewn with trash in various states of decay. Among the trash are two blue 50 gallon drums and a lot of smaller debris. Outside is a nice picnic table. It is unclear how so much ugly trash accumulated. One of the doors is missing and the other is a bit damaged. I did not actually go inside because it was very un-inviting in there.
We stopped by the location of the former "Sargent camp" (lost camps of the ventana). That is a nice flat area just downstream of the casey stone house.


I applaud Timothy Bottoms reaching out to the VWA in an effort to clean up the stone house site. It is in a sad state.