Date Hiked: May 17, 2025
General Condition: Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

This trail is in decent condition but somewhat difficult to navigate. Starting at the Carmel river, the trail climbs a hillside then descends to puerto suello creek. This section is passable/difficult with somewhat unstable tread but sporadic brush. One of the easier parts of the trail. Once you get to the riparian areas, I would say it gets a lot more difficult. Blackberries and poison oak are common in this section and often completely conceal the trail making it not only hard to follow but physically difficult to go through. After this section the trail then leaves the main stem puerto suelo creek and goes through ceanothus patches as you near the headwaters. This section is passable and I found the brush tunnels to be in pretty good shape, thanks to Alan and others who have done the work here, it has paid off a lot. As you near the top it becomes a little more overgrown and the path of least resistance is not always the correct trail tread, but it is doable. Passable/difficult for the last stretch to puerto suello gap.

Date Hiked: May 6, 2025
General Condition: Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

Able to follow the trail, though lots of pauses to find the next flag or marker. Poison Oak heavy. Steep and loose dirt banks . Lower port of trail was harder to follow, and required a lot of patience and trial and error.

Date Hiked: March 26, 2025
General Condition: Passable (some brush and/or deadfalls, tread evident)

Wow this trail was great. Very appreciative of Alan's work. I tried my best to brush the top bit that was still overgrown. There are two sections where the trail splits and each way you go includes a steep scramble. I think there are a few missing switchbacks. Though the brush here has been cleared enough for one to make it through.

Attaching my GPS track of the trail. Matches pretty well with the one on bigsurtrailmap.net, except one section near the last creek crossing where the trail is now a bit further west.

Alan Harder wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 11:36 pm Date Hiked: January 20, 2025
General Condition: Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

Summary: Trail in good shape, passable with occasional difficult parts for middle 2 miles, more overgrown in 0.2mi at each end.

...

Date Hiked: January 20, 2025
General Condition: Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

Summary: Trail in good shape, passable with occasional difficult parts for middle 2 miles, more overgrown in 0.2mi at each end.

I spent a couple days clearing brush and adding flag markers. I was able to hike the entire trail, but didn't have enough time to do any clearing near the top (I did lose the trail for a bit on the way up this part, but was able to follow it on the way down).

My guide to hiking the Puerto Suello trail, described in the uphill direction.
The most important items to know before hiking are #4 and #9.
1. Trail start
The trail heads out the back of Hiding Camp. In spring '24 there were two huge deadfalls right there; one has been cleared (not by me) but the other is still there, so for now the bypass I put in place is still needed: cross the small stream right at Hiding Camp and follow it up the right side.
2. Landmark: after a few in&outs to cross small streambeds there is a right turn leading into one long switchback up a dry slope (that is eroding in places).
3. Once reaching the main stream in the canyon there are five crossing close together:
a. After first crossing trail immediately turns left.
b. Second crossing very close, 1-2 minutes; after crossing, head straight uphill over trampled bushes.
Above bushes, turn right and faint trail follows along the top edge of the bushes until trail becomes clearer.
c. Next crossing 3-5 minutes away, trail goes left right after crossing (visible path also goes straight;
take that for ~30 yards and then up a 10’ steep slope on the right to find enough flat space for a small camp.
I’ve stayed there twice, so it is “Harder Camp” )
d. Next crossing 3-5 minutes away, this one has a nice pool just above the crossing (I call it the “cold tub”).
e. Next crossing of the main creek 5-10 minutes away (cross one sizable tributary creekbed on the way).
After crossing, climb up steep slope on other side along a fallen log; trail then goes left.
4. Rocky creekbed:
Trail meanders through fairly open terrain for a while, at times up against the right side of the canyon next to steeper slope.
This ends at a rocky creekbed (always dry when I’ve been there).
Follow up the creekbed for 50-70 yards, looking for trail on the right side.
5. Last crossing of main creek:
Trail descends into bushes, then immediately turns right and goes up ~50 yards, then turns left for creek crossing.
6. Landmark: After a long stretch carved through bushes it will open up a bit, eventually crossing a streambed large enough you have to descend into it and climb up the other side.
7. A few minutes after that there is a slide across the trail; simply continue straight until trail is visible again.
Just a few steps after that there is a switchback (do not continue straight into dense bushes).
8. A bit later the trail crosses a gully; mentioned only because the next item is about a gully, so good to know there are two.
9. Dirt gully:
Trail emerges in a big gully of mostly just dirt and fallen trees.
The trail goes up a bit on the right side, but is faint and eroding away.
It is also ok to go up the middle of the gully.
Continue up the gully by either method looking for trail that exits on the left side.
Then there will be a couple switchbacks and the trail continues 0.2mi up to the top.

Enjoy!

Date Hiked: December 11, 2024
General Condition: Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

This trail is certainly difficult, but passable. The bottom half is pretty good, by Ventana standards.. eroded tread, some brush crowding. Alan's work is appreciated, and I spent a couple hours in the lower half..clearing brush and linking 3 disconnected sections (where the trail is lost, due to downfall or brush). The upper half is quite brushy, very steep, no recent maintenance, and at least 3 disconnected sections.

Date Hiked: April 28, 2024
General Condition: Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

I set out to do some maintenance here but spent most of the trip working on Carmel River Trail, leaving just a few hours to get started on Puerto Suello. But it was good to begin because there were two HUGE deadfalls right at the start. The first visible from Hiding Camp, completely hiding the existence of Puerto Suello Trail at all.. and if you managed to get around that, there was another one just 50 yards on. I was forced to reroute the trail here.. there's a small run coming down to the Carmel River right at Hiding Camp; the trail originally went up the left side a bit before crossing. Now it crosses immediately out of Hiding Camp and goes up the right side to join up with the original trail (where you immediately hit another fallen tree right at a switchback so you have to climb over it twice!). I put up several flag markers on the reroute.
From there I cleared brush and deadfall for about 0.4mi, or about halfway from Hiding Camp to the first creek crossing.
Based on what I found in this short stretch, if you hike this trail expect a significant obstacle every few minutes.. bring good gloves for pulling out smaller deadfall, tough clothing for bushwhacking around larger deadfall, and preferably some loppers to cut back brush.

Date Hiked: November 13, 2022
General Condition: Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

Trip overview:
2 night / 3 day loop, starting at Los Padres Dam, following the Carmel River Trail in southern direction until Hiding Camp (1st night), then Puerto Suelo Trail uphill in western direction, then Ventana Double Cone (VDC) Trail in northern direction until Pat Springs Camp (2nd night), then Big Pines Trail in eastern direction until it hits the Carmel River Trail again near the Los Padres Reservoir. Back on the Carmel River Trail to Los Padres Dam. I hiked alone.

Map:
https://caltopo.com/m/VG1HE

Hiding Camp to Pat Springs Camp via Puerto Suelo Trail (and VDC trail):
Puerto Suelo Trail starts directly at Hiding camp and climbs out of the valley. The trail is very difficult and barely passable. The vegetation is extremely dense. It not only covers the visible trail in many parts completely, but the thick vines and abundant leaves make it physically quite difficult to move forward. In some places the trail has disappeared and is basically indistinguishable from the surrounding environment. Dead trees and branches block the trail very often and I had to remove my backpack several times to crawl under them. There are occasional red trail flags (thanks a thousand times to whoever put these there) that help tremendously at the most difficult parts where the creek is crossed. However, I found several of them on the ground, torn or ripped, so the markings are fading. Twice I completely lost the trail and only found it back after searching for some time among thorny bushes that blanketed entire areas. I would rate the trail as impassable if you need a somewhat clear path to follow, but it is ‘passable’ if you are prepared for hours of uphill bushwhacking and path finding. It took me 3 hours to get to the top and according to the gpx track I covered a distance of 3.6 miles including all the back and forth and trail finding and bushwhacking. At the top, the Puerto Suelo Trail meets the VDC trail, I didn’t see a signpost though. When I turned around to look at where I just came from, I couldn’t even identify the pair of bushes between which I had just emerged…

Date Hiked: November 2, 2021
General Condition: Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

We hiked the section of this trail from Hiding Camp to the Ventana trail junction on November 2 as part of our trip from China Camp to Ventana Double Cone. Generally speaking, I agree with the previous poster but it sounds like it is now more overgrown than it was in March. There is definitely a lot of ducking to dodge poison oak and scrambling to get over downed trees. A week later, we are still suffering the effects of head-to-toe poison oak gotten mostly on Carmel River trail but to a lesser extent on this one as well.

Date Hiked: March 28, 2021
General Condition: Difficult (brushy and/or many deadfalls, faint tread)

The Puerto Suello trail has been restored.

It is now reasonably cleared and marked with flags at creek crossings and other spots in the middle section where it might otherwise be hard to follow. This is still a very difficult trail: plenty of logs to climb over, encroaching brush and several short sections that are very steep. However, the impenetrable walls between existing sections of trail have been cleared and are now passable.