EISPIRATEN

Does anyone know what happened to the logbook on top of Mount Islip? I was up there over the weekend and discovered that someone had removed the cached logbook; I was thinking about putting another one up there this weekend.

I am so right there with you taco. Let's take for the hills and let the world worry about itself.

I know someone at work who's mom lives up Mount Baldy past the Village and I sent him a link to this thread in which he forwarded it to his mom. It turns out the locals have named the bear in question "Cinnamon" and apparently it is a frequent visitor to the area. His mom did add that cinn...

I will concur with Hiker Jim; the water at the Little Jimmy spring is safe to drink without treating it. I have drank it numerous times untreated (~20 or so times) with no ill effects. I believe that is the case for all the mountain springs in the Angeles Crest range.

Thanks for all the replies and info. I think I've decided on going up the Ski Hut trail on Sunday and I plan on getting there ~0630 so hopefully I will miss the crowds (not to mention miss the heat of the day on the ascent).

Jeff, After your post I'm starting to rethink going up the Ski Hut trail since it does not seem as brutal as the trail from the Badly Village. How is the parking situation by the Manker campground? I have heard that it can get really busy early on in the day. It has me thinking that I should head up...

I have been looking over some trail reports here ( http://www.simpsoncity.com/hiking/baldy.html ) and it seems that although the old badly trail is a bit longer the overall views are much better then the other two routes. I think I may end up taking the old baldy route from the village to the summit...

I am considering summiting Mount Baldy this Sunday for the first time and have been trying to decide on which route to take. I am looking for any advice regarding which specific route to take to reach the summit as a first time Baldy trip. I have been trying to decide between the Ski Hut trail and D...

I have been using one of the Prolite Plus pads from thermarest for a while now and I have to say I wish it was a little thicker. I don't like feeling the hard ground when I am readjusting myself on the pad. I did discover this past "winter" (if you even want to call it a "winter"...

yobtaf,
I'm actually going to be heading up to Little Jimmy tonight after work for two nights so I may actually run into you and your wife on her maiden backpacking trip.

Diving off Sturtevent....someone must have a death wish to be doing that!!!

So my three day trip changed into a two day trip due to a knotted muscle in my lower back. All in all it was a good trip. It was very cold up there on Saturday (37 F) and very cloudy. I hiked into the trail camp while the clouds moved past me. Due to the cold the bugs were non-existent and the ones ...

I've spent considerable time up at Little Jimmy and I have never ran across a bear a single time. I have, however, heard a story from someone who was staying there with no tent, just a tarp, and in the middle of then night he awoke with a bear tabbing at him like a dog. It scarred the hell out of hi...

Generally its not too bad. There are quite a few non-biting flies and other tiny nuisances like gnats, but there are very few skeeters. Relative to some of the other places I have been to the bug conditions are generally pretty good. I am actually planning on heading up there Saturday morning for a ...

Tomorrow I am heading out on a shakedown trip with my new backpack to Hoegees trail camp. The hoegeeman trail is a great gear testing route.

I've been looking into PLBs since the majority of the backpacking that I do is by myself and I was curious if any one else uses a PLB, and if so what PLB they prefer. I have read several reviews states that the Spot GPS unit is expensive and their customer service is horrible, not to mention that mo...

Chantry Flats is a great place for gear testing; it kinda sucks though having to deal with the tons of flatlanders that like to take walks in the woods at the same time.

It seems that things have changed since that last time I was in that area. That's a shame that it's crazy busy all the time now. I'm like you: I try to get to the trail head before 7AM or after 4PM since I miss the crowds that way. Its the crowded nature of that place that has made me go further int...

The crowd normally only descends on Chantry Flats on Sat and Sun (and Monday too if it's a three day weekend). You should be fine on Friday since that parking area is a ghost town typically Mon-Fri.

Yes, Hoegees has fire rings and some stoves as well. I think they require you to get a fire permit, but they are free and they are good to the end of the year. Regarding the parking situation at Chantry Flats, it fills up very quickly. I have arrived at the trail head at 6:45AM and got the last spot...

You just have to pay a one time fee of $20 and then you are a member for life. They have really awesome return policies for all their stuff too; and the 10% back at the end of the year is really nice too. I spent a ton on winter equipment last year so I ended up with a $328 refund this year. Not too...

Remember Mike, we are not all automatons. What is silly to one is reasonable to another. Just because you think something is outrageous doesn't mean that everyone on the planet feels the same way. I respect your personal decision to not carry a firearm (even though I do not agree with it), so I do n...

The .45 is more for piece of mind then anything else. I have been in some very remote places in the Sierra Nevada Range and both my buddy and myself felt much safer being armed versus unarmed. In fact, there were some other backpackers that made camp near us and they all felt a lot better camping ne...

I was up at Hoegee's about a year or so ago and my buddy had a bear encounter. I was planning on meeting up with him on Saturday morning; he was going to head out to camp on Friday. That Friday night he had just got his brand new bear can setup and ready to deploy when he saw a bear (~300 - 400lbs) ...

I always carry my .45 pistol on me whenever I am out in the wilderness cause you never know what kind of four legged threats or two legged threats that one might encounter.

When I was up there last weekend they had the 2 opened completely but you will have to carry chains. I'm not sure what it's like this weekend, but I would imagine that some of the snow has melted during the past week. The only real snow and ice that I encountered was on the trail itself. Traction is...

I think this quote is rather appropriate:

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Ben Franklin

Thanks for posting those photos. It really helped me visualize what the conditions up there are like. This will be my second attempt to make it to this trail camp in the winter. The first attempt the snow started to get rather deep; snoeshoes would have saved that day. It looks like I should be able...

Sounds like I may be able to get by only using micro-spikes. Since the weather service is saying that 2 - 4 inches of new snow accumulation is possible in that area I am wondering if I might need to use my crampons and ice axe instead of only using the micro-spikes.

Thanks for the info. I wonder how clear the north side of those slopes are since I will be making my approach using PCT from Islip Saddle; I know the north slopes always get more of the white then the south slopes. Based on what you reported I would imagine the worst that I may encounter would be pa...