I took mve's word for it hiked up Mt. Baldy via the Ski Hut Trail on a gorgeous day. Temperatures were in the 70s and 80s and it was calm and warm on top. mve was exactly right. There is some snow left, even a few hundred feet to walk across on the trail, but the conditions are really summer-like. There is no call for any sort of winter gear, even jackets. I went down the Backbone trail to the Baldy Lodge. The ski lift was being worked on, but I would have hiked down the dirt road to Manker Flat anyway.mve (on another thread) wrote:You can go all the way to the summit -- there are few slick parts on the ridge but without any serious exposure. We had no crampons/axes, just trekking poles.
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