Baldy Village to Wrightwood

Winston · Post by **Winston** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 6:06 pm

I'm thinking of hiking from Baldy Village to Wrightwood and back in a day. The plan would be to leave early and get to Wrightwood around 11am or so for lunch, and then hike back to Baldy Village before sunset. For those who've done the hike, how was it? Any recommendations for lunch at Wrightwood?

lilbitmo · Post by **lilbitmo** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:49 pm

I'm thinking of hiking from Baldy Village to Wrightwood and back in a day. The plan would be to leave early and get to Wrightwood around 11am or so for lunch, and then hike back to Baldy Village before sunset. For those who've done the hike, how was it? Any recommendations for lunch at Wrightwood?

It's possible but a hell of a long day, 6.25 miles up Bear Flat Trail to Baldy proper with 5,950 elevation gain rougly, then it's 8.05 miles from the top of Baldy over Dawson, over Pine, up to the road that is just below Wright Mountain over to the Acorn Trail down to the street, then it's another 1/2 mile to Highway 2 where all the resturants are, about 1/4 mile down are a multitude of choices. The elevation loss from Baldy down to Wrightwood is about 4,500 feet of elevation loss with all the saddles and the drop into Wrightwood, you have about 1,100 feet of ascent going up the three approaches going South to north and if you average 2.5 miles an hour that's 7.5 hours to cover 15.05 miles approximately. The miles between Baldy and the road below Wright Mtn are ridgeline so it's harder to go fast but not impossible.

Now after you've had your nice lunch you will be going up 2,145 back to the road at 8,310 the trail descends ~130' to the ~8180' saddle between Wright and Pine Mountains. The way up to Pine Mountain is not straight up - the trail rises ~375' to 8,555', descends ~95' to a double saddle, and then ascends ~1,020' to a shoulder around Pine Mountain at ~9,480'. The portion past the 8,555' intermediate peak is the area where it is clear that if you fell off the side, you wouldn't stop for a very long time. It's followed by a portion that is relatively easy to go up, but descending is difficult due to the steepness and poor footing. After those two sections, the rest of the trail to Pine is a cake walk, at least in terms of placing one's feet along the trail to within spiting distance of Pine Mountain.

From there the trail descends ~330' to the saddle between Pine and Dawson at 9,151', where the low thorny ceanothus (mountain whitethorn) has closed over the trail in a few spots. Ascending ~340' achieves a shoulder close to Dawson Peak at ~9,500'. 1.25 miles between Pine summit and Dawson summit, the summit is at 9,575 feet.

Now the real fun begins, although you are only ~560' below Baldy, when sitting at or near the summit of Dawson, the trail descends ~720' to the saddle between Dawson and Baldy at ~8,780' before the final ~1,280' to Baldy. 2.25 miles between Dawson summit and Baldy summit, the summit is 10,064 feet and then you get that fun long descent all the way back to the village by way of dropping just under 6,000 more feet.

That means you covered 31 miles roughly, 9,000 feet of gain and loss in both directions, with an hour lunch and still keeping the 2.5 miles per hour, you can start at 4 AM and get back to the village at around 8 PM just as it's getting dark.

If you knock this off, everyone on this board will be calling you Rick Kent Jr. and we will be glad to invite you on the "Death March" if and when we ever get it accomplished - see this post - https://eispiraten.com/a ... highlight= and Rick Kent's attempt at - https://eispiraten.com/a ... highlight=

Please post your pictures and results we all are interested in these kinds of big hikes. It's been fairly hot lately so be safe as well.

Thanks and good luck.
Lilbitmo

Winston · Post by **Winston** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 11:58 pm

Whoah, thanks for the detailed breakdown, particularly the section between Wrightwood and Pine Mt.! I'm not going to do this right now, but I might give it a try later in the fall when it cools down. I've done Baldy Village to Pine Mt. a while back, so I'm aware of some of the difficulties and am familiar with a large section of the hike. My pace at that time was way too slow to go from town to town, but I'm in better shape now. I probably won't attempt it until I can do the Bear Flat Trail in under 3 hours. I'm hoping I'm pretty close now, but not really sure.

I've read some of Rick Kent's reports. I'm nowhere near his level. That said, I like doing long hikes, so I'd be interested in joining the "Death March".

edenooch · Post by **edenooch** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 6:25 am

even Ze is falling out of bed thinking of this!

Ze Hiker · Post by **Ze Hiker** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:34 am

here is someone who did it one way

looks like 28 miles, 14000 ft total. but maybe that guys numbers are off a little bit.

edenooch wrote:even Ze is falling out of bed thinking of this!

lol, I am thinking 'why oh why?' i would never want to do 14,000 ft down hill, ugh.

if i wanted something tougher than just the acorn trail, (since i haven't been in that area) i would add in a descent to fish fork via dawson peak trail and up pine mt ridge, or check out prairie fork

Winston · Post by **Winston** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 8:33 am

It would be cool to hike from town to town while bagging 4 peaks along the way! And I like the idea of having a nice lunch in the middle of a hike. Unfortunately, setting up a car shuttle for this would be a bit of a pain, so I'm just going to try and do it as a back and forth. I need the exercise anyway.

Post by **Hikin_Jim** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 6:32 pm

Zé wrote:if i wanted something tougher than just the acorn trail, (since i haven't been in that area) i would add in a descent to fish fork via dawson peak trail and up pine mt ridge, or check out prairie fork

Yeah, baby! Good country!

Rick Kent · Post by **Rick Kent** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 1:40 pm

Winston, I like the way you think!

Strange that I didn't already think of doing this. Sounds like a great idea to me.

-Rick

Ze Hiker · Post by **Ze Hiker** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 1:47 pm

which means its a bad idea for everyone else! don't do it!!!!

Rick Kent · Post by **Rick Kent** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:33 pm

You know you want to.

Hey Ze, are you familiar with Bob Burd's Sierra Challenge? Starts next Friday. We need more people like you to join us!

Ze Hiker · Post by **Ze Hiker** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 7:59 pm

sadly i am somehow considering trying to make it up for the final saturday and/or sunday, although my head might explode above 13k

Winston · Post by **Winston** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 10:43 pm

I'm definitely doing this hike! The only question is how long will it take for me to get in shape for it. Hopefully not long. Ze, Rick, let's do this!

The Sierra Challenge sounds awesome. I'll definitely give it a try next year. I hiked Langley and Whitney back to back over the July 4th weekend. Even caught some trout on the way to Langley! I'll post a trip report. Almost did White Mt. after Whitney, but decided to just check out the Ancient Bristlecone Forest instead.

jeffd · Post by **jeffd** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 12:25 pm

I know this is late notice, but I'm going to attempt this hike tomorrow (Saturday) starting around 5:00am from Manker Flats. Up to the notch and over via Backbone, and I was thinking about taking the Pine Mountain Ridge on the way back from Wrightwood, then descending via the bowl trail depending how I feel.

Going solo as of right now, but I welcome company. Usually hike with a dog but I don't think my dog would be up for something like this yet. I typically play a mountain biker in real life but I've got a bum arm, and can't convince any of my biking friends to go on a hike like this with me.

First post here, but I've been reading y'all for a while. Lots of good info, hopefully I can get out with some of you another day if this weekend doesn't work. Cheers!