From the parking lot Zach and I headed straight up 1,200 feet to the north east picking up a small gorge (which I beleive is Snowslide Canyon?) that leads up to the fire road, instead of taking the main trail at the north end of the camp grounds. Once on the fire road at 6,880 feet we turned south east and continued to the summit of S. Hawkins, the views along that road and at the summit were really nice.
From S. Hawkins we followed the ridge and ridge trail over to Saddie Hawkins, then Middle Hawkins, and then we picked up the PCT heading east to N. Hawkins, then Throop Peak, Barnham Peak, and then Mount Baden-Powell. After a short break, some conversations with other hikers, pictures of the summit obelisk, adding one more “ice pirate sticker” to the one’s already there and the obligatory sign in we headed back down the PCT to our final summit Mount Islip. We covered the 6.6 miles to Islip in less than 2 hours we were starting to feel the heat and the trail miles, once on top though we were rewarded with some nice views of the desert, and the whole Crystal Lake basin. From there we made it back to the car in 55 minutes just glad to be done.
The Crystal Lake store was still open so we stopped in and introduced ourselves to Adam the nice man that runs the store. We slammed down a soda each, talked about our fearless leader TACO and headed down canyon to Azusa to grab my car and get some good grub at Zach’s favorite “Thai restaurant”. On the way down the canyon we found some really slow drivers that did not seem to want to pull over or let us pass so we did the next best thing, we went around a them (and by no means what-so-ever am I admitting that we did anything wrong in posting this, so if big brother is reading this I’m pleading innocent and none of the words used here are to be rebrocast in any form without the express written consent of my mother, my brother and my three dogs
), in doing so we got the attention of not one “law enforcement agency, not two, that’s right we got the attention of three different agencies. They were so enamored by our ability to hike 22 miles and peak bag 8 summits that they decided to stop us and get at least one of our autographs. Mind you I have a very let’s say “checkered past”, I’ve been pulled over more times than I care to admit, been in cars raided while sitting in parks partying it up, but this was a whole new experience for me. They were coming out of the woodwork, two more came and went while they had us on the side of the road – now if only they could stop those thieves from breaking into cars, what say you? 40 minutes later we were on our way again, they needed that much time to decide if the “autograph” was the one they really wanted. The Thai food was outstanding and we were on our separate ways.Mileage’s to the best of my ability without GPS.
Car to South Hawkins 3.2 miles, 2,203 feet ascended.
S. Hawkins to PCT with side trips to Saddie and Middle Hawkins 3.1 miles, 722 feet ascend, 438 feet of descend.
PCT junction to Baden-Powell with side trips to N. Hawkins, Throop Peak, then up and over Mount Barnham 5.6 miles, 1,024 feet of gain, 525 feet of descend.
From Summit of Baden-Powell to Islip Summit 6.6 miles, 1,811 feet of descend (plus a little more for the up and downs here and there and 962 of gain.
From the summit of Mount Islip to Car by Crystal Lake Store 3.5 miles, 2,670 descend
Total mileage was 22 (to the best of my ability to figure) 5,444 gain and loss
Elevations, S. Hawkins 7,783 Ft, Saddie Hawkins 8,047 ft, Middle Hawkins 8,505 ft, N. Hawkins 8,850 ft, Throop Peak 9,138 ft, Mt Barnham 8,997 ft, Mt. Baden-Powell 9,399 ft and Mt Islip 8,250.
Proof that one of the ladies beat us to this area, Tina is this yours?
Looking back down canyon after reaching the fire road (Snowslide Canyon?)
Can anyone tell me what this device is?
This was laying on the ground next to it
Forestarmageddon - (bark beetle and curve fire damage)
Crystal Lake Store owner and cook waving goodbye (Adam) super nice guy
Rest of Pictures here
