On top of Old Baldy
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Well, I’m still on furlough-cation this week. I’ve recovered from last Thursday’s hike, so it’s time for another. I wanted to go and climb Mt San Antonio, colloquially known as Baldy, since I haven’t been up there since 1996. I’d only been up there three times ever, so I figured it was time. So I made plans to do this with Karina from my office.
We got an early start, and hit the trail from Manker Flat up to San Antonio Falls at 8AM. After a short walk up the fire road, we turned off onto the trail up the Bowl on the south slope of Baldy. The sign at the bottom mentioned that there were Jeffrey Pines in the forest above, and those are the ones with the bark that smells like vanilla. So I had to stop and smell the trees on the way up. We stopped for a break at the Sierra Club Ski Hut.
From the hut, the trail turned and went across the slope for a bit before it started a very steep climb up to the top of the ridge that comes off the summit on the south side. When we got to the top of the ridge, we had to take a rest. I checked my GPS, and it said we were close to 9,000 feet, so that meant the summit wasn’t too far away.
The final climb up to the summit was hard. It was steep, and there wasn’t enough air to breathe. When the GPS said 9,800 feet, I knew it wasn’t far, and that and the magnificent scenery were the only things between me and the crushing wave of “What the HELL are you trying to prove here?!?” that I always get while doing stair-climbing races. So this wasn’t so bad. And of course, we made it to the summit all right.
We had lunch on the summit, while trying to get away from all the bees. (Why are there bees living on top of a 10,000 foot mountain, anyway?) Then we headed down by way of the Devil’s Backbone Trail. This trail is famous for the section where it’s on a knife-edge ridge, with steep drops on both sides of the trail. And yes, that kind of gave me the willies. But we made it down all right, walking down into the ski area, and then down the very long fire road from the ski area back to where we started. That fire road was a long walk, but at least it was something where we could pretty much walk normally, rather than having to climb over boulders or anything like that. So it was pleasant enough. In the end, we made it back to the start in just a bit more than 8 hours. Not bad for 11 miles and about 4,000 feet of climbing. So yes, this was a fun day.
