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Peak Cucamonga Peak
Group James + Liz
Trailhead Ice House Canyon

“You don’t need an Adventure Pass today – it’s Laaands Day!” we heard the ranger tell the young hiker in front of us at the station. Land’s Day, huh, never heard of it. Of course Liz and I tend to plan ahead so we already had our annual pass in the car. We were surprised how easy it was to get the permit to hike into the Cucamonga Wilderness as we grabbed another map and headed on our way. The Fit winding it’s way up the mountain road we observed a shortage of parking and ended up on the side of the road maybe a quarter mile down from the trail head.

The trail starts off pretty easily with many hikers strolling their way through scattered cabins along a peaceful creek. Some of the cabins were just ruins from days of old but many were clearly still occupied. Once we passed the last one with a power line running to it I was looking forward to finally reaching the wilderness boundary with hopes that it would be less crowded beyond that point.

Hitting the wilderness we laughed at the sign which advised hikers to be respectful by keeping their voices down and, of course, not wearing bright clothing. Climbing up toward the saddle an extremely cold wind began to pick up and I began regretting my thin Asics running jacket. The wind rose as we did and the number of adventurers on the trail began to become unbearable with slower hikers holding up seemingly dozens of others behind.

Finally approaching the saddle we knew things would open up a bit since many would turn around at that point. I looked at the signs for the several other peaks reachable from the saddle inwardly planning future adventures and we continued on a few hundred feet to a resting place out of the gale force winds. From the saddle the trail hugs the side of a canyon which kept us warm, for a while at least, until the trail veers toward Cucamonga Peak itself and some very tiring switchbacks up the rocky mountain.

We hardly knew we were approaching the summit until we were essentially on it, in fact we searched around a bit on top for a USGS marker denoting the actual highest point and couldn’t find any. Settling on a resting place slightly away from the crowds we sat for sandwiches, fruit and an IPA each watching the clouds gather below, licking at the sides of the mountains.

The way down was mostly uneventful but my crazy work schedule began to really catch up with me as I got more and more fatigued, in fact, I can mark this hike as the one on which I decided to get trekking poles, yes trekking poles which I have mocked for roughly 16 years. Liz was very patient with me as we took many stops and went quite slowly until my spirits finally lifted knowing we were nearly out. Absolutely exhausted I slept in the car nearly all the way home, dreaming of our next high altitude escape.

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