Baldy Baker's Dozen 8-17-08

Page Type Page Type: Trip Report
Date Date Climbed/Hiked: Aug 17, 2008
Activities Activities: Hiking
Seasons Season: Summer

aka Baldy 13–peaks

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been trying bigger and bigger loops around Mt Baldy and seeing how many peaks I can tag in a day. Well today I managed to tag 13 Baldy area peaks in a long day. I'm not sure if I can get anymore peaks in one reasonable day.....but I'll keep working on it :->)

I started out of Icehouse parking area under a full moon and as I walked by the trout ponds on the way down to the Mt Baldy village, I noticed a large group of people getting ready for some sort of full-moon celebration.

Hiked up the Bear canyon trail and got to West Baldy and was surprised to see some people there enjoying the setting full-moon. After a snack on Mt Baldy I headed over to Pine & Dawson. On the way back, I hiked about ½ way up the north backbone trail back up towards Baldy and then headed SE cross-country towards the shoulder of Harwood. This slope involved about 1/3 mile of traversing scree at the angle of repose, fun stuff.

After tagging Harwood, I quickly trotted down to the Baldy Notch for some lunch and water re-fill. After suffering from dehydration 2 weeks ago while trying to follow GigaMike’s 11-peak lead, I got smart this time and filled up with about 4-liters of liquids and headed across the 3-Ts trail and tagged Thunder, Telegraph, and Timber.

Got to Icehouse Saddle around 2:10 and then headed over to Etiwanda-Cuca junction. I decided to hike out to Etiwanda 1st because I hate hiking out there and figured I’d get it out of the way 1st and then head back up to Cuca.

At the Cuca-Bighorn saddle I started the slog up the use-trail to Bighorn, ugh! The hike from Bighorn to Ontario seemed to take forever and I was getting concerned about running out of sunlight. I spent about 2 mins trying to find the Ontario summit register, but couldn’t.

Starting the descent off of Ontario is tricky because of all the downed trees and thick manzanita bushes. Once on the lower section of the ridge, a good series of trail-ducks leads down the steep trail to the (Sugar)Loaf-saddle.

My legs started cramping as I tried to move as fast as possible over to Sugarloaf. After tagging the lucky #13 Loaf, it was a race against the sun and trying to get down Falling Rock canyon before dark. I flew down the scree slope fast enough to ditch the skeeters and deer flies that had been buzzing around me and then danced down the water polished rocks to get within 200 yards of Icehouse canyon trail before I had to get the headlamp out. I staggered down the trail and got back to the car around 8:10pm (total just short of 17 hours).

My internal GPS indicated a lot of miles (~33) a whole bunch of up & down and lots of groaning.

Icehouse parking area 3:30am
Baldy Village 4:00am
1. West Baldy 6:50am
2. Baldy 7:00am
3. Pine Mt 8:25am
4. Dawson 8:45am
5. Harwood 10:15am
Baldy Notch 11:00 – 11:20
6. Thunder 12:05
7. Telegraph 12:55
8. Timber 1:50
Icehouse Saddle 2:10
9. Etiwanda 3:45
10. Cucamonga 4:20pm
11. Bighorn 5:30pm
12. Ontario 6:30pm
13. Sugarloaf (the “Loaf”) 7:20pm
Icehouse parking area 8:10pm

Here are some photos
Baldy Baker Dozen Loop (aka Baldy-13 peaks)Photos


Comments

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Augie Medina

Augie Medina - Sep 2, 2008 5:35 pm - Voted 10/10

Great Job

Awesome feat.

Augie

graham

graham - Sep 5, 2008 4:04 pm - Hasn't voted

Re: Great Job

Thanks Augie,

Looking from Mt Baldy summit, it doesn't look that far to link them all together; but hiking it is a different matter... ;-/)

I'm tempted to do it again (but not too soon) with a GPS to get an accurate mileage and elevation gain/loss.

Cheers,
RickG

Viewing: 1-2 of 2