July 3rd, 4th & 5th
Patti and I have been both searching the net for different hikes here in Southern California. It’s hard for us, because we dismiss hikes that are less the 7 miles as a waste of our time. So we found this hike that sounded fun, to the summit of Mt. Baldy via the Devil’s Backbone. The summit of Mt. Baldy (the real name is, Mount San Antonio) is at 10,068 ft, is the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountains, and the highest point in Los Angeles County.
Our original plan was to get up real early, get to Manker Flats at 7:00 AM and make the summit around 10:00 or 11:00. Well that didn’t happen. I had driving instructions from a blogger that was coming from a different direction then we were. We were heading East on the 215 and the blogger was giving directions from going West on the 215. Soooo lets just say we were lost for an hour or two. I didn’t have the address to punch into my GPS. I have since looked up the address and it’s 6777 Mt. Baldy Rd., CA 91759. Instead of starting our hike during the coolness of the morning, we started out at 10:00.
From where you park at Manker Flats it’s a 3.5 mile hike uphill to the ski hut. It seemed like those 3.5 miles took a few hours. Once we hit the ski hut we had something to eat and headed for Devil’s Backbone. What I didn’t do at the ski hut was to refill my water pack, and this would come back to haunt me. So now we’re on our way and the first obstacle we come across is a huge uphill that looks like it goes straight up, and you can only walk a few hundred feet at a time. I had to stop and rest a few times.
Now it’s high noon and the sun is really hitting us, the air is thin, and at one point Patti said I had turned purple. I don’t do well in thin air, and I was now out of water. We kept going, and we reached the Devil’s Backbone and we both were shocked that this was the trail. On either side there is a huge drop off. Pictures do not do this trail justice. The mountain is made up of shale rocks, and in some places is you slip, you’ll side down the shale rock and off a drop off, and most likely you won’t be feeling very well once you hit the bottom. After we crossed Devil’s Backbone, you climb up the trail a little, hoping not to fall, then the trail winds around the mountain, at some points the trail is really only a foot wide, again if you fall, it’s not going to be pretty. After doing this for awhile I started getting dizzy due to the heat, thin air and lack of water. I decided I needed to turn back, and we did. Once we got down off the top and back to the ski hut to refill our water, I felt great, and we made our way back down the trail towards our car. We stopped by San Antonio Falls to have a look before continuing the ½ mile to Manker Flats.
Early in the morning, Patti made sandwiches so we took our shoes off and enjoyed lunch on a picnic table before heading home. Even though we didn’t make the summit it was a fun hike. I think it was our most challenging hike so far. Devil’s Backbone was really something and I’m surprised that we don’t hear about people falling off that part of the trail all the time. Total distance was 11.29 miles.
Our next summit try will be San Jacinto Peak, July 17th. We already have directions and we’ll get there early and be hiking by 8:00 AM and I’ll make sure I bring enough water for this one. We’ll revisit Mt. Baldy for the summit hike in August.
The next day, Sunday we decided to take it easy and hike El Moro. We always love our El Moro hikes. We do wish the weather would have been better. It seems that the June Gloom has continued on into July. It was a nice hike, and surprisingly to me, I felt great hiking up Moro Ridge. Really thought I would have struggled after the Mt. Baldy hike the day before, but I felt great, as did Patti. Didn’t really see much in the way of wildlife. We did hear a strange noise and we turned around an it was a roadrunner that was pretty close to us, and we saw a rattlesnake heading into a hole, and that was really cool. I was able to grab a hold of his rattle, never thought I would have held onto a rattle of a live rattlesnake before. Total distance was 13.42 miles.
So Sunday night we were thinking of taking it easy the next day, Monday, which was a holiday for the both of us. Last week, Patti found a nice hike near the coast at Cardiff by the Sea on the net. It was only 3 miles, but since we already have hiked 24 miles in the last two days, we thought a break was in order. Well Sunday night we couldn’t find that hike again on the net. Monday morning I found a nice hike and it was local, about 45 minutes away from Huntington Beach called, Caspers Wilderness Park.
Caspers’ is located, 33401 Ortega Hwy., San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675. The park is really nice, with nice facilities, and the entrance fee was only $3.00 which is great when you compare it to the $15.00 El Moro charges.
We were given a map at the front gate, and was directed towards the end of the road to the Bell Canyon trailhead. After checking the map out I guessed the around the park loop to be about 10 miles. I was close, I was only off by 6.6 miles! Our total roundtrip was 16.6 miles. We hiked up Bell Canyon to Oso Trail along these trails we saw deer tracks and signs of other animals too. We also came across a huge fat rattlesnake track that went across the trail. Hiking up Oso is where we gained the most elevations. We went from 400 feet to 1,450 feet really quick. Towards the top at the Oso / Badger Pass trailhead there is a resting spot. We stopped there and had a power bar, and enjoyed the view. I guess most people don’t continue on the Oso trail, coz once we left the Oso / Badger Pass trailhead it looked like we were the only hikers to hike that part of Oso for years. It was a nice part of the hike, but in the back of my mind, I kept thinking this is Mountain Lion country and there have been attacks on humans before here at Caspers and I was wondering why this trail hasn’t been used in awhile, was I leading Patti into a Mountain Lion breeding habitat that wasn’t marked??? We kept on hiking. The trail went from one sided on the peak to the other, allowing us to see 360 degrees in every direction.
Once we started down hill we came across another trailhead. This was the Oso / Cold Springs trailhead, except the Cold Spring’s sign appeared to have been stolen, but by looking at the map, it had to be the trail we were looking for. We started down Cold Springs, again this trail hasn’t been used for awhile either. This trail wound down to the San Juan Creek trail. Here we encountered Poison Oak for the first time of this hike. It wasn’t as bad as our Holy Jim Canyon hike, but there was a lot of it. We followed the creek for a little bit then the trail started uphill again. Somehow I got us off trail and side tracked over a steep part of the hill that was made up of a lot of loose dirt. I slipped once, and got a few cuts, Patti faired a little better then I did. Once we were over the rough part we found the trail again and headed downhill, looking for the Juaneno / San Juan Creek trailhead.
The San Juan Creek trail was our least favorite trail, because it runs parallel to Ortega Highway, and you can hear the cars pretty much right next to you, not a very outdoorsy feeling. Once we hit the Juaneno trail we were lead away from the noise of the highway. The Juaneno is a hiking / equestrian trail only. It’s narrow, but a fun trail that is mostly under the cover of huge oak trees. The shade was welcomed, since we’ve been hiking for hours, traveling 14+ miles up and down huge hills. I again ran out of water. Patti and I weren’t doing much talking. This hike was putting us towards 40 miles in the last three days, maybe a few too many for weekend warriors like ourselves, but we did it. After 3.6 miles on the Jauneno trail we emerged to find civilization once again. After making a pit stop we had another ¾ of a mile hike down the parks’ main road to our car. At this time, we both were exhausted. I grabbed the ice chest and sat it down on a picnic table, sat us up with ice tea and sandwiches and we started to relax and recoup then all of the sudden we were attacked by bees! We gathered everything up and headed for the car, with the bees following us. Once we got into the car, the bees kept on trying to get in by flying into the windows. One bee came in on Patti and was flying around inside the car. I finally was able to kill it. Once that was done we ate our lunch, and headed home.
So all in all we had a great 4th of July weekend. We never saw the fireworks’ show by the pier in Huntington, liked we planned, but we did push our bodies to do more then we should have, and 24 hours later, I feel like doing it all over again, well maybe not. Total distance for the three days was 41.31 miles.
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