It was pretty chilly when I got to the Stoddard Peak parking lot, I left my jacket on and dug out my 2nd favorite beanie and cruised up the fire road. At the .75 mile mark I reached the gate and .72 miles after that I was at Cascade Canyon!
The hike up the canyon was crazy to say the least. I have never seen so many log jams above and below waterfalls with hundreds of saplings growing amongst the chaos. It was an epic bush-wack to get up the canyon. As I gained altitude there were huge burned trees that had fallen across the canyon, some were low enough that you could climb over them, others you had to get on your hands and knees and crawl underneath. Either way by the time I made it a mile I was covered in soot.
got some soot on my face, my shirt and trousers were covered in it!
At the first fork I hung a right and discovered this old snag covered in ladybugs! There were thousands of them all hibernating.
A little past this fork I discovered that there are some amazing cliffs up in Cascade Canyon, with some old routes from the 80's.
I had brought my climbing gear in the hopes of throwing a rope off the top and doing a bit of rope soloing with my mini Traxion. I spied a nice route with a large tree right at the lip with a fairly straightforward approach up the side. I was getting psyched to climb the route and decided to go a bit further up canyon to check out some more lines. As soon as I had walked about 15 meters up canyon a chunk of rock, about the size of a toaster, broke loose and bounced down the rock face, straight down my intended route! It crashed into a few trees at the bottom and exploded when it hit a large boulder. At that point I decided maybe I would hold off on the soloing seeing as no helmet is really going make a toaster sized block feel like a pebble and I was alone with no cell reception. This cliff wasn't going anywhere plus I had brought my ice axe just in case I found some snow. So I decided to keep pushing and see if I could find some snow.
I stashed my climbing gear in a cave, no sense in lugging it up the mountain if I wasn't going to use it. Plus my pack weighed about 40lbs and would just slow me down. After I ditched the rope, shoes, harness and rack I felt like I was floating
I came to another fork, I was torn go left or go right. Right looked a little easier but with more vegetation, the left looked steeper but looking at the map it looked like it was a longer route to the ridge-line, so naturally I chose left. I made the right choice, I found a nice 10-12 meter dry granite waterfall that I climbed up, probably about 5.5 or so. A little spooky but it felt nice to be on some vertical rock.
I stopped for lunch on a nice outcropping overlooking the valley and grubbed out on my puny sandwich, I was still hungry but knew I'd need my Cliff Bar for later.
What a nice spot to eat lunch!
I traversed the hillside and gained the saddle and man what a view! Absolutely stunning! But I still had a little further to go, earlier I had spied a nice looking peak and I wanted to bag it.
After some 4th classing and scrambling I summited! Elevation 6,615ft! I am not sure of the name anyone got any idea? (Not sure how accurate that is, my GPS was freaking out today at one point it said I had lost 30 feet when I had been hiking for almost a mile and the map showed a gain of almost 1,000 feet, weird...) Anyways the summit was awesome, I could see Claremont Peak, Mt San Bernardino, Mt San Gorgonio, Mt San Jacinto, Catalina, Mt Wilson, Mt Baldy & Ontario Peak!
Mandatory summit shot
view to the east
view to the south
On the way down I purposefully hiked down a rather large snow patch (snow level was about 6,000 feet in small patches on north facing hillsides only) and broke out my new ice axe, I found a good spot to practice my self arrest. That REI Yeti axe sure does bite!
The descent was routine, very steep and almost no sun (Cascade Canyon is in the shade all day long, might be a good place to find ice when it gets colder...) I picked up my gear on the way back down and by 2:30 I was back at the car. It was about 8 miles total, 6,000 feet gained and lost and I saw zero people the entire day!
