The route I took up Mt. Tom is class 2 and mainly consists out of steep and loose class 1 terrain. There are options to avoid the loose gullies by sticking to rocky terrain, which is probably class 2-3.
I drove out of the bay area Friday night (>7hrs), slept 3 hours and hiked for 13hrs 15min. Total: 17mi, 6850ft elevation gain
Last minute I decided to dayhike Mt. Tom instead of a 2-day backpacking trip, simply because hiking to Horton Lakes is way too short and I want to avoid an 6+hrs drive after a serious day of hiking.
Part of the fun is the drive. Don't trust old pages stating that low clearance is fine to get to the junction to the Horton Trailhead on Buttermilk Road. I recommend high clearance. A ranger on the phone said that I should be fine without High Clearance till the junction. Buttermilk is pretty easy to drive until the last part. It gets narrow close to the end with deep tire tracks. Myself driving a Sedan, I had to drive with one side on the middle "ridge" and the other side close to the edge, avoiding to scratch the car onto bushes and regularly switching sides. These are the moments I wonder why I bothered buying a new car if I drive it this way
. The road to Horton Trailhead has larger rocks and becomes increasingly more difficult towards the end. In the map I tried to pinpoint the 2 roughest sections. If in doubt, either park at Buttermilk (shown in the map) or drive to the first big parking spot on Horton Trailhead. Most SUVs didn't drive past the first rough section. And I couldn't spot a single low clearance car up there.From Buttermilk it only takes around 30min to hike to the trailhead - better than risking serious damage to your car.
Buttermilk Road: Mt Tom from Horton Trailhead:
Route description
The hike till Horton Lakes is straightforward and easy. There is one bigger creek crossing where the water looks weird and I could find one small creek between the meadows and Lakes that contained water. In late summer you probably can only rely on the big creek and Lakes. The hike up to Hanging Valley becomes more serious and at some points you may have to look twice where to go up. Don't do my mistake. I missed one turn and followed - without thinking - a usetrail up the slope. It was worse than everything on Mt. Tom as the slope is incredibly loose. I kicked down a huge boulder and had to be very careful below which boulder to hike up. No wonder the whole mine road is mostly buried by rocks
Atop the hanging valley I really felt the altitude - nausea, slight headache, sluggish and no appetite. I took an Ibuprofen and forced myself to eat. I even had to fight falling asleep. At this point I gave up on Mt Tom but at least wanted to see the mines. There was one small snowpatch to be crossed close to the mine. I met 2 people that just descended Mt Tom. After talking to them, I realized to my surprise that the effects of altitude wore off completely and I was motivated to continue.
From the mines, go up the gully. There are 4 gullies total (some count 3). At first it is fine to follow use-trails, but soon they will become loose and I highly recommend to avoid using the use-trails on the way up from thereon. You will see a barrier at some point: Hike towards the left, there are plenty of options. You are now in the second gully, which you can follow up while hiking slightly to the left. At some point you will see the third gully where the screwdriver towers on top of it: Don't climb into the gully! It may look tempting, but everything including the big rocks is a loose mess. It took me a significant amount of time and energy to get through. Instead, it is probably best to continue up the ridge/ribbon you can see at the right side of above image. The rock until this point was pretty solid so that travelling is straight forward
Once you reach the screwdriver, Follow up the fourth gully on the left side. You should see the summit from here on and there are plenty of use trails - very loose, so best to avoid them. The last stretch feels easy compared to the third gully, the summit block: At the top it was very warm and pleasant. I rested 40min before hiking down. At the top I booked a hotel - so much for my preparation.
Thanks to the looseness the way down is really efficient - if you don't mind to kick off a ton of mini stone-avalanches.
The hike out was uneventful and I was surprised how well I felt towards the end. It probably was the longest time I spend hiking on one day and I still feel slightly dehydrated.
Driving down 6.7mi Buttermilk took me 40min, where 15min where spent on the first 1mi.
