Mt Baldy, 2017
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I’ve been trying to get Lucinda to go and hike Mt. Baldy with me for a while. And since she’s off to college in the fall, today seemed like a good day to do it. The plan was to start at Manker Flat and take the Bowl trail up, and then come down by way of the Devil’s Backbone and the Baldy ski area service road.
It was going to be very hot down in the valleys today, but it was pleasantly cool at 6,100 feet at Manker Flat. We hiked the first 2 1/2 or so miles to the ski hut, and we took a break there. Then the trail went across the bowl, and then up the steep side of the ridge. We rested a bit at the top of the ridge, and then started up the last 1,000 or so vertical feet to the summit. At that point, we weren’t going very fast. But we were still moving. I kept an eye on the GPS to see when we were close to the summit. When we got there, we took the obligatory picture with the plaque, and then we sat down and had lunch.
After resting a bit and looking at the view, we started back down the ridge. I made a point of taking a picture of Lulu on the knife-edge ridge part of the trail.
We finally made it down to the ski lodge, where we got some ice and cold drinks. We briefly considered taking the chairlift back down, but in the end, we both wanted to actually do the entire hike. So we started down the service road. The road isn’t very steep, so we were able to make good time there, and it only took a little more than an hour to do the 3 1/2 miles back to where we started. It was a long and tiring day, but it was fun. And it was a nice treat to spend the day with Lucinda.
