| Peak | Cucamonga Peak |
|---|---|
| Group | N/A |
| Trailhead | Icehouse Canyon Trailhead |
I summit Cucamonga Peak twice this year. Once with my dog on July 5th, 2017, just him and I, and my sister and I on August 6, 2017.
My dog (Brownie) and I started at 7 am and finished around 8 pm. We took 13 hours in total. I let my dog take several naps and many breaks going to the top. I carried him over many rocky areas. He is 11 years old, I believe he is 60 in dog years. He had the best time of his life going up, peeing everywhere and attempting to chase the new wild life he’s never seen. We summit around 3 pm and took a 1.5 hour nap at the top. He was doing fine until we started to come down the mountain was when I began to feel guilty about taking him up there. The rocks were tough on his paws. He would not wear his hiking shoes no matter how many times I put them on. His paws were tender by the end of our trip. I tended to his wounds and now he would not sleep anywhere else but with me. He usually sleeps with my dad or sister in their rooms, but ever since our trip together, he has never left my side.
The second summit was with my sister Susan on August 6th, we began our hike at Noon. Unlike our first attempt back in June, we sleep and slept some more before beginning our journey. Because of my last experience with the rocks, I doubled my socks this time. The hike was beautiful, there were less nats flying around this time and I was able to pay attention the the beauty of the trail. We summit around 5 pm, hung out, drank coronitas at the top and headed down around 6 pm. We knew we would hike back in the dark and probably the last ones off the mountain, but that’s not entirely new to us. We were 30 minutes down until we saw two other ladies still going up. We wish them luck and kept moving to get as much trail done with daylight as possible. Once we were about 2 miles away from the car, it got dark and we were worried for those girls that still went up and just about 1/4 mile before we got to our cars, we saw two headlamps speeding down. We asked about what they did, and they said they ran the entire way back which was pretty impressive. We were thankful we saw those girls again and glad they made it back safely.
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