Baldy 26-mail super-loop

Those of you that have been following me know that for years I’ve been hiking the area south and east of Mt. San Antonio in the San Gabriel Mountains, colloquially known as Mt. Baldy. Some weeks ago I decided that I would do a super-loop of the whole area to see just how much elevation gain I could do in a day and over what distance. I debated the route for weeks, finally deciding to include 7 peaks, because others had already done 6 peaks and it is a fairly standard, albeit difficult, to hike these in a clockwise manner, starting at Bear Canyon and hiking up to West Baldy, Baldy, Harwood, Thunder, Telegraph, Timber, and then exit via Icehouse t/h. Doing so gets you a 9,000′ elevation gain. Respect. However, I wanted to chase the elusive 10,000′ mark, so I decided to add another peak, Bighorn. I’ve been around Bighorn many times, but never to the top. Adding that peak made it 10,577′. Over 2 miles vertical.
I got up just after 4 so I could eat a good breakfast and get to the trailhead at sunrise. I saw an acquaintance at the parking lot at the Ranger Station in Baldy Village, but she said my route was too difficult and was going to stick with the 6,000′ climb up Bear Canyon and then going to come down the ski lift. So I was on my own starting just a few minutes after sunrise. First came the 1.7 mile hike along Mt. Baldy Rd to the Icehouse Trailhead, then I took the Chapman Trail, because I just needed to add another 1.7 miles to make this even more difficult! It was beautiful, as usual, and the spring was flowing and the sunrise filling the canyon was refreshing. I still felt good. I got to Icehouse Saddle and started over to Kelly Camp, but decided that the trail would be too long/slow, so I decided to follow the tracks of the local Bighorn sheep, straight up a ravine to the ridge. It turns out that Bighorn sheep don’t make switchbacks and can go up hills that are significantly steeper than I’m normally comfortable with. Nevertheless, I kept going and cut off about 2 miles of nice gently sloping trail by hiking up this ravine filled with loose rock and deadfall that would be PERFECT for snakes to inhabit. I carefully picked my way through the downed trees and found the ridge trail. There were a few hikers at Bighorn. One woman is an avid hiker and said that she and her gf were going to do rim-to-rim-to-rim in October at about the same time as me.
Still feeling good, I left Bighorn and took my shortcut down (amazing how much faster it is to go down a scree field than up it) and blazed back through Icehouse Saddle and on up to Timber Mountain. I met a couple of groups there while I ate some food. A group of 8 were preparing themselves for the Inca Trail in September and were proud of the fact that they were going out and hiking 6 or 7 miles every other weekend. I wish them well, but I think they are going to be woefully underprepared for that trail and the day they have to climb 4,000′ and go over Dead Woman’s Pass (13,800′).
I also retrieved water from my cache, and yes, Marissa, I used the water from last year. The first drink from the reservoir tasted a little like dirt, but I haven’t gotten sick yet!
So that was the first 2 peaks done. On to Telegraph.
Telegraph Peak, for the uninitiated, is a daunting mountain because it is an 1100′ climb with lots of false hope that you are near the top. Trust me; you are not. Beautiful views though, but it took an hour and 15 minutes to reach the peak. No time for more than a couple of pictures as it was already well past noon and this was just peak 3. On down the other side.
Thunder Mtn is straightforward and is the top of a ski run. Took a picture, nothing special. Four peaks bagged. Now down to lunch!
I made it to Top of the Notch restaurant by 2:30 and ordered 4 bottles of room-temp gatorade and a lemonade. They make the lemonade there on-site and its quite good. The guy taking my order looked at me a little like I was crazy, but he didn’t know what I was up to. I got some food too, and forced myself to eat.
Now came the hardest part of the hike. Not the last 3 peaks, but getting the motivation to hike UP rather than taking the very convenient ski lift DOWN! I spent 10 minutes nursing my feet, changing socks, etc. telling myself that it was only 3 in the afternoon and I ONLY had 10 miles to hike before dark, which was 5 hours away. In the end, my legs were feeling up to the task, so I started with a fresh load of water and 2 of the remaining bottles of gatorade. A slog is what you call the hike out of the ski area. Straight up hill, 30% grade, hottest part of the day. Then Devil’s Backbone. Pretty, but steep, and no room for error in certain parts, and since I was tired, I was concentrating on foot placement and kept on trucking. I saw the turn-off for Harwood and it seemed considerably steeper, longer, and slipperier than I recalled from coming down just a few weeks ago, but I made it. I got to sit there for a couple of minutes just staring off to the north with a light breeze and mountain sounds. Five peaks in the bag, on I go. The biggest yet to come.
Baldy is a steep approach from all sides, but none steeper than from the backbone. One foot in front of the other. Trying to keep pace with the 20 year olds that took the ski lift up to the Notch and are proud they are out-hiking me. Whatever. They’ll get their turn being middle-aged.
I got to Baldy and took my pictures and struck up a conversation with a few guys. One had hiked over from Cucamonga Peak and was spending the night at the peak, the other had come up the ski-hut trail. Both were floored by my description of my hike to that point and amazed that I was going to throw in West Baldy and go down Bear Canyon, which is 6 miles and 6,000′ descent. After a 5-minute rest I was off. Still feeling good. Temps were dropping, still lots of energy. Six peaks in the bag.
I started up West Baldy and came across a mamma and baby Bighorn grazing on the tiny flowers that grow among the rocks. No scenic pictures show the detail of these tiny plants, but if you look carefully, they are everywhere. They moved away when I got too close.
So then I finally made it to W. Baldy. I took my pictures and was almost about to head downhill when I just had to look back over the area I had crossed. Majesty. I didn’t get emotional, but there was a definite sense of awe and accomplishment. Seven peaks in the bag, but I wasn’t done. I still had to get back to my car.
I still had the 6 miles down, 6,000′ descent, and it was 6pm… Hmm lots of 6s in there. Sundown would be just after 8pm. This didn’t bode well, especially since where Bighorn sheep go, Mountain Lions follow. I did NOT want to be tired and going down steep slippery trails in the dark with the possibility of a lion watching me. So I decided I needed to run, even though prey runs and lions know this.
So, feeling good with lots of energy and one bottle of gatorade and plenty of water, I started jogging down the trail, which was fine, for a while. I passed two guys still slogging it out going UP hill with full packs. They were trying to make the peak by sundown. I don’t think they were going to make it, but maybe they would distract the lions. I’m glad I had done this trail before, so I knew what landmarks to look for, like little signs of accomplishment as I saw the sun setting. The views I had seen from those cliffs in the daytime look even better in the evening, but I didn’t have time to pause, I was on a mission. After 5 miles I was down to Bear Canyon, but the sun had long since stopped shining down here, and the trail becomes covered by tall trees, so I decided to take my sunglasses off.. couldn’t.. the gnats! Ugh. So even though I was “close” to the village and no longer concerned about lions and snakes, I had to increase the speed at which I was running because if I slowed down the gnats and mosquitos would catch up to me, so I wound up running even faster near the bottom of the trail, in the dark, with sunglasses on. This “challenge” was not going to let up!! By this time I was starting to feel an ache in my quads, but I pushed on all the way to the pavement portion down in the residential area where it was now fully dark and the gnats and mosquitos were up a little higher on the mountain. I walked the last 1/4 mile to the car realizing that I’d been running the last 2 miles with a rock in my shoe and with the adrenaline and endorphins wearing off, I was starting to notice all the other things that were sore/chafing. By the time I got to my car it was 8:30, 14.5 hours since I left the parking lot. There was 13 hours and 12 minutes of actual hiking, the other time was spent eating, staring at the view on the peaks, or chatting with the folks on Baldy. It was 26 miles of hiking and 10,577′ of ascent with a peak at 10,064′. It was my physical limit. I felt fine (tired, but fine) at West Baldy, but the run down really took its toll.
This was a challenge in the truest sense of the word, and I’m glad I did it and aside from two scheduled food stops, refilling from my water cache, and enjoying the peaks, I never had to stop for rest even a single time all day. I would have enjoyed doing it with someone else, but even the heartiest hike I know locally (Dave) said that he would have likely turned downhill at the ski lift.