Forum

Hi, just stumbled across this site and it's cool, so I decided to register.

I'm going to make my first hike up to the summit of Mt Baldy in two days.  It's funny…  I grew up basically at the foot of the mountain and never once went to the top.  I figure on a Monday morning the trails won't be crowded at all so it should really give us that “away from it all” feel. 

We were originally planning on taking the Devil's Backbone trail up and then descend the Ski Hut trail, but now I'm thinking we might reverse that.  It seems most people go up the tough way and then down the backbone, does anyone know why that is?

Anyway, I'll post pictures and a review of the trails afterwards. 

Well, we did it. 

Didn't go exactly as planned, though. 

The day started out perfectly, clear skies, very light breeze if any, and a temperature probably somewhere in the low 70s.  Couldn't ask for better weather the whole day, actually.  I do wish it had been a little less hazy at the top, but nothing you can do about that…

We were going to take the Ski Hut trail up and descend down the Devil's Backbone, but we missed the trailhead.  I think we underestimated how far we had gone by the time we really started looking closely for it.  No big deal, I thought, we'll just reverse course.

The road up to the Notch wasn't as bad as some have described…  Sure, it's far from the most scenic part of the trail, but it's not ugly like some have suggested.  So we passed under the ski lift and took a quick break before heading up to the real hike.

We opted for the direct ski slope (Turkey Shoot, I think) rather than the service road and I'm glad we did, even though it hurt.  I'm not sure what's steeper, this part or the final climb to the summit.  Both are reeeaaally tough, but in a good way.

So we climb up the slope and head through some nice meadows before beginning the Devil's Backbone.  What everyone says about the views from the backbone is 100% correct.  It was far less hazy on the north side, so we had much better views of Victor Valley and Antelope Valley than the valleys to the south, but it was breathtaking nonetheless all the way around.  I was with my brother, who was far less comfortable around the steep drop-offs on the trail, but I really didn't find it too intimidating at all.  In fact, this may have been my favorite part of the trail.  Now, if it were windy, I might have a different opinion.

I was tempted to try and find a way to knock Mt Harwood out of the way since we were right there, but decided to just stick to the plan.  As the trail wraps around the south side of Harwood it looks pretty cool, just a thin slice in an otherwise steep slope.

And then of course the brutal switchbacks leading up the final portion of the trail…  ouch.  Nice muscle burn going on, and we only had to stop a couple of times.  There were still some pretty good sized patches of snow towards the top, too, and at one point the trail broke up into several sections and sort of disappeared.  We scrambled up some really loose, rocky ground and then the trail re-established itself.  Before I knew it, the summit marker was right in front of me.

We spent a good 35-40 minutes enjoying the summit before preparing our trip back down. 

The trip down was…  Well, a bit longer than I thought it would be.

We started down what I thought was the Ski Hut trail, but stayed up on the ridge way too long and never saw the trailhead.  According to someone we talked to down at the bottom, the Mt Baldy Trail (which turns into the Bear Canyon trail) meets up with the Ski Hut trail near the summit?  At this point, I'm convinced that the Ski Hut trail doesn't exist.

So, long story short, we ended up taking the long and steep Bear Canyon trail down, which traverses through a stunning variety of scenery, from the unbeatable views of the San Gabriels from the ridge:

down through the granite outcroppings and massive boulders, to switchbacks through a green, heavily flowered slope, through the grassy Bear Flats and finally into the dark shaded forest alongside what I'm going to guess is called Bear Creek, though I'm not sure.  I haven't had the chance to find a trail map of Bear Canyon to really trace where we went (anyone know where I can find a good one?).  The only two problems with this mix-up were: a) my feet and my brother's knees were shot, and b) we ended up 3 miles away from our car.

What a day, and fortunate are we to have this mountain so close?  In retrospect, I'm absolutely glad that we messed up and headed down this trail, as it will definitely be the way I go up the mountain next time.  Talk about a challenge…  We came prepared for the unexpected and that's exactly what we got.  And I'm absolutely determined to find out if the Ski Hut trail even exists next time.

The trip back up to the car was easy, we hitched a ride with a volunteer firefighter!