Click here to see the pictures from our hike.
Parking is at a turnout on the south side of the road. The trail is marked on both sides of the road with Pacific Crest Trail signs. However, the signs are small and easy to miss from the road. I (Eric) never found them on a scouting trip the week before. On the hike day, with five of us in the car, only Rex's eagle eyes spotted the signs as we drove by. An adventure pass is needed to park at the trailhead. The Santa Clara/Mojave Rivers Ranger District (661 296-9710) is where to find info. It is listed on the Forest Service contact info page. The trail crosses Spunky Canyon after 6.1 miles, but we probably won't make it that far. The trail also crosses San Francisquito Canyon and Elizabeth Lake road, offering other possible future hikes. Trail mileage is taken from Hiking Adventures.
The trail we took is highlighted in purple. The originally plotted fire road is in yellow. The trail is hard to plot because a lot of it is not marked on the topo maps. It was necessary to go to Gmaps and use the satellite photo. In the satellite photo you can clearly see the turnout we parked in and the trail on both sides of the road.
The plots are from Gmaps Pedometer. Here is the hike route. (This is not the plot John made, but it seems fairly close with a one way distance of 2.5277mi.) Here is the Fire Road.
Here is the map on TopoZone.
Here is a link to Yahoo Maps.