Trans Catalina Trail - 24 miles

We started our adventure with a departure on the Catalina Express out of San Pedro (cost was $34 each way). Bill, Cheryl, John, Alan, Caren, Audrey, and Tim departed at 9 am and made our first stop at Avalon before heading to Two Harbors which is where we spent the first night. One of the things you hear is that you are only allowed 2 pieces of luggage but we found that they don't care. We were camping so we brought everything from camp stoves to tents to coolers of food and alcohol. Here's what our luggage looked like. We were waiting for them to say something but it was just like "come on board and stick all that stuff over here".

Typically hikers start in Avalon and hike to Twin Harbors but if you do that, as you can see from the map, your first day is pretty much all uphill. We decided to ease into it and start at Twin Harbors and head to little harbor so the first day wasn't such a slog.

We arrived at Two Harbors around 11. We spent the first night in the Banning house's - Santa Cruz Villa, which was a very nice 3 bedroom house with a loft. The view out the front and the back of the house was beautiful. You had a view of the Isthmus Cove off the front and the view off the back deck was of the Catalina harbor. We paid about $900 per night and they hand-delivered (probably because of COVID) a nice wine and cheese and cracker platter and in the morning also brought us a continental breakfast with fresh fruit, yogurt, and bagels

We had cocktails off the back porch and cheered this sunset

You can easily walk from the Banning house to the beach and they have a store and bar and restaurant. So after happy hour on the back porch, we walked down the beach and had dinner on the sand at the harbor reef bar. The weather was peaceful and serene, the temp was about 70. It was a beautiful evening.

The next morning we packed up and put our gear out on the porch because we had Catalina Back country picking it up and taking it to the first campsite which was on the west side of the island, called Little Harbor (note they also took it to our 2nd campsite, blackjack and then took it to Avalon - cost was $600 and well worth it). They are very accommodating and helpful and they charge by the drop (so go with a big group), not by the bag or weight which was great so we tried not to abuse them but in the end, they got a workout- LOL.

So all we had to do was walk with day packs.

As we started up the hill to Little harbor we did a quick stop at the main Banning house.

View of Catalina Harbor from the Banning House

Main House with multiple room rentals

Main living room

Hike from Banning house at Twin Harbors to Little Harbor - about 5.2 miles

As you start the hike you are "treated" to a straight-up-the-hill start. It's pretty steep for the first quarter mile. One observation in looking back over the entire hike - whoever designed these trails took the most expeditious route from point a to point b. In other words, don't count on switchbacks on steep climbs as you would normally expect, it's more or less straight up or straight down. So with that in mind, I would recommend hiking poles. The ground can have loose rocks so I was glad to have poles on the downhills.

As you climb to the ridge you are treated to some

really nice views of the west of the side of the island

This is typical of the terrain from Banning to Little Harbor. For a lot of the hike, you were on a ridge line until you finally dropped into Little Harbor.

As you hike down to Little Harbor you are treated to some of the best views on the island.

What's really great about Little Harbor is the isolation (so don't tell everyone!). When we were there, there was one boat in the cove but most of the campsites were taken. I think we were the only ones who had our gear dropped off at the campsite while everyone else had backpacked their gear to the campsite. Sooo consequently we weren't "roughing it" like the rest of the campers were.

Our Gear drop at the campsite

Cocktail hour on the beach

(note our campsite was just in the background)

Treated to pristine views

And gourmet dinners - note plenty of picnic tables

and you can see the concrete BBQ behind the picnic table

Topped off with a great evening fire -

complete with s'mores of course

So as you can see we really roughed it. Folks this is really the way to go! Enjoy the beauty of Catalina, away from the crowds and all the comforts of "glamping"

Couple of notes - Catalina Back country will deliver (along with your gear) if you request it -firewood, ice, and charcoal for the BBQs.

Little Harbor to Blackjack Hike - 9 miles

We packed up our campsite the next day and back country picked it up and moved it to Blackjack. Here we are hiking out of Little Harbor and on our way to Blackjack. The palm trees in the background is where our campsite was but you can also see more open campsites away from the water, up on the left side.

The trail is easy to follow - you just need to pay attention to the "Trans Catalina" trail signs.

Saw some bison on way but not as many as I thought and

then I remembered there are only about 120 on the island

This is the entrance to the airport. We timed it so we were there around lunchtime so we could order a Bison burger - not sure where the bison came from :0

We had heard the hype and the burger definitely lived up to it.

From the airport to Blackjack campground we still had another 2 miles of hiking (this is after a couple of beers and bison burgers)

As you can see some of us are obessed with our metrics

but we rolled into blackjack around 4 pm

Our gear was waiting for us at Blackjack and we set up camp

This campsite clearly wasn't as nice as Little Harbor but still very accommodating. There were toilets (pit) and an outdoor shower along with running water BUT at this time you weren't allowed to have any fires :(

Yes, you see the fire pit so depending on the time of year you can have a fire. One note - we did have cell phone reception here.

Blackjack to Avalon - 10 miles

Last Day - we packed up and headed to Avalon. Along the way we met up with our friends Eric and Linda who joined us on the final 10 miles.

So here's the tease. Fairly early on you get to a point where you can SEE Avalon (that's it in the background) . As the crow flies it looks like a mile or so away but do you think you head straight to Avalon? Noooo the trail takes you in the most circuitous route possible. I swear we practically walked almost back to the west side of the island before we headed into Avalon. I could just picture the person who designed the trail laughing at us - yeah let's show them Avalon and then take the trail around to the other side of the island LOL.

So we made it down to the Sandbar which is at the golf course just outside of Avalon for tacos and beer (both were only a couple of bucks each)

Coming into town we walked to the Atwater hotel and checked in. Our luggage and gear had already been brought to the hotel bellman and he was storing it for us.

The next day we spent on Descanso beach relaxing and drinking

So after a while, the manly men decided to order the "Hamburger Bloody Mary"

And after we had one of those, WE ALL FELT REALLY STRONG

And then we took a nice nap..........

And caught the ferry back to San Pedro.

Post Note:

This trip took a lot of planning.

You need to book reservations for some of the campgrounds well in advance, depending on the time of year you go. We made the plan and went in October and we missed the worst of the heat and also there was little chance of rain. But ,Parson's Landing campground had no availability thru to December. Reservations can be made either thru Reserve America or thru Catalina Island Nature Conservancy which was actually easier and the people are very helpful. Your campground reservation is your back country permit. You don't need to get an additional permit.

Have Fun!