Mt. Baldy

Last weekend a friend of mine and I met to hike Mt. Baldy. It has the official name of San Antonio. The hike begins at 6000 feet elevation and finishes at 10,064.  I began my journey leaving my house in Joshua Tree at 4:30 am. I met my friend where we dropped a car off and began the drive up to the start of the hike. When we arrived just before 7am, the parking area was overflowing with fellow hikers. There are 4 different ways of arriving at the peak. We chose the longest, but most gradual for gaining 4000 feet elevation gain. We hiked up the road for about 3 miles arriving at the ski lodge. Since the lift was running, we were able to take advantage of indoor plumbing.

Upon starting the next phase, we noticed two ways to proceed. a fellow hiker stated that the one we were on was shorter and steeper but they both lead to the same place. As we arrived at the top of the very steep one, we saw a sign indicating we had just climbed up a ski run. No wonder it was so steep. We proceeded up the trail to "Devil's Backbone" where the trail is on the top of a narrow ridge. We continued hiking taking advantage of the small shade spots provided by intermittently space trees. The last half mile or so is the steepest part of the hike and the trail becomes loose rocks. After carefully ascending with some fellow hikers evenly spaced, we were welcomed by a crowd of people scatter around the top. All 4 of the trails must have had many people on it as there were plenty of hikers we had not seen on our trail.

Instead of making a loop as originally planned and descending a even steeper but shorter trail, we decided to retrace our steps and descend the same way. This meant the hike ended up being 13.2 miles instead of 11.2.The weather was perfect the entire day: sunny with occasional breeze. It was a wonderful hike with a good friend.