The trek to Mount Hillyer in the central San Gabriels is a meandering hike through impressive boulder formations and flat sections of beautiful pine meadows.  This land was once used by horse thieves, the most notorious was Tiburcio Vasquez.  This area was the perfect hideout for bandits to escape from the law and pasture stolen horses.  The trail starts off at Chilao just past the visitors’ center on the Silver Moccasin Trail.  The first section is a series of switchbacks through rocky terrain.  After about a mile, it smooths out and you’ll reach Horse Flats Campground.  It’s a beautiful camp equipt with corrals and hitching posts for equestions who ride in and want to stay the night with their horses.  From here you pick up the Mount HIllyer trial and this is where you’ll start a steady ascent through the ginormous boulders.  We took our time on this hike and had a lot of fun climbing around the various rock formations.  As for the summit, there are actually two.  The unofficial summit stands at 6,215’ and the second official summit is 6,162’.  You’ll come upon the unofficial first.  Once you’re done enjoying the views from there, you can hike just a little further up the trail and find a short use trail off to your right that goes to the official summit.  We stopped there and had some breakfast.  There was absolutely no one on the trail today.  After we were done enjoying the peace and quiet of the forest, we headed back down towards Santa Clara Divide Road.  We followed the road back to Horse Flats and then back to the Silver Moccasin Trail and Chilao.  Loved this hike today.  Short on the mileage, but very big on the scenery!