Three would go up Register ridge, two up Ski hut and I would lead my friend Maria up “No Name Ridge”. Except for the three leaders everyone else was a Newbie. Newbies in good shape just not a lot of hiking experience.
Expecting rain in the forecast I prepared everyone for high winds and cold weather but driving up in the morning I could see rain would be out and at Manker there was hardly any wind and it turned out to be a nice day.
After dropping off people at Mankers, Maria and I drove down past Snow Crest Inn? (the one with the pretty green water in the pool
) and parked just ahead of the Big Butch Wash drainage into San Antonio Creek. Stepping carefully over all the junk that is cleansed from the winter play area into the drainage every year (what a mess) we descended about 100’ to the other side of the first small drainage ditch where I found some pink ribbons marking some kind of “trail”. (Some friends had done this route last year and said to look for the ribbons)We followed that around a point where it split into two directions. One went up and one went down. I went up and ended up in a backyard with a cabin. Noting the large AX laying there
I quietly turned around and went down the other way.We descended another 200’ following a very faint use trail, finding ribbons once in a while until we got down to where two creeks met and the ribbons disappeared. We worked our way around the south end of the ridge and went up the large gully west of the ridge when we started contouring our way up to the ridgeline eventually getting on top. The ridgeline was pretty steep as we weaved our way around scree slopes, manzanita, buckthorn (you know, the usual) until about 7000’ where it thinned out and turned into more rock obstacles. For a time we had good views of the Ski Hut Trail and the Backbone but eventually the clouds below us started to ascend and all we could see was the ridge in front of us. We hit a couple of rock bands, mainly just class 2 if you picked your way through. Eventually around 8000’ it flattened a bit until the top at 8900’ where we met some people having lunch where the Ski Hut trail meets the saddle. Maria had slowed down by now with the steepness and the altitude (but she was still smiling) getting to her so we stopped and had lunch here. It had taken 3:30 to get to the saddle. After lunch we proceeded to the summit where we met the Register Ridge group coming down. They would wait at the hut for us. It was to cold for them at the summit. The other two had waited at the summit and after congratulations all around we proceeded down to the hut where we all went down together.
At San Antonio Falls we saw a large group of canyoneers rappelling down the series of falls. Pretty cool.
All the Newbies had a great time (Baldy first time for four)so maybe some future hikers for the S.G.
No Name Ridge is a lot like Register Ridge perhaps just a tad steeper. Except for all the messing around at the bottom I liked it better then Register. I did notice a LOT of Bighorn droppings so I imagine they also like this ridge that is less traveled.
Sorry no picts. Left the camera in my other pack.
Gotta save those "sick days" for the summer