The HPS has snuck in a couple of new peaks over the past year or so that happen to be as long a drive away from my house that I can get in the San Gabriels. To make matters worse the peaks are kind of lame as far as the climb so how to make a 2 hour drive worth it?
I realized that a loop was possible utilizing the fire roads between the start for the Other Devil's Backbone and Lupine Camp. I hadn't heard of anyone hiking the full Pine Mtn. Ridge but it looked pretty doable as the connector. I got my usual late start this Sunday, parking the car right after the turn-off to Lupine Camp where the PCT meets the road at 10. I began jogging down the three miles to the start of the Fish Fork Trail. I actually met two backpackers and a truck driving up from this most remote camp site.
From there it was a hike up the old dirt road AKA trail to Pine Mtn Ridge. I knocked off Pine Mtn. Ridge high point and then was off to Wild View Peak along the Fish Fork (excuse for a disappearing) trail. There appears to be an old dirt road that drops a bit quicker to the river but I can't tell if it is passable further down. The view from Wild View of the back of Baldy and Iron is impressive. I met three backpackers who had stayed down at the Fish Fork for the weekend, I was really surprised at the quantity of traffic in this area. I read a write-up from 30-40 years ago of a group who had hiked from Lupine up to Iron and was looking for a ridge that would support that climb and think I found one.
Now the real hike started where I had to gain 2,500 feet in less then two miles. I started directly up the ridge that Wild View was on. It was ridiculously steep but the tree cover made it quite pleasant as I finally connected to the main ridge. There was some evidence of a use trail and one duck, maybe a Fish Fork shortcut for a group? From here the route was still steep for about another 1/2 mile where I got my first view of Pine Mtn.
From here the ridge turned into a nice rolling ridge where the main focus is avoiding buck/whitethorn. The ups and downs started to take a toll on me any my pace slowed a bit, it was also getting hot with no shade. The final section of the ridge narrows with a nice drop off to the north and the south is covered with buckthorn. Pick your poison as you do your best to remain unbloodied. The final push to the top after this narrow portion was the most covered with "thorn" and heading all the way over to the south is the way to avoid opening up your cartoid artery.
At the top of Pine I met two hikers who had done the hike over to Baldy and were heading back and another group had also signed in for the day, man was it busy! From there it was a simple matter of following the trail back to the road and back to my car.
The whole hike was about 13 miles with just over 4K of gain in 6 hours and made the long drive worth it.
Pine Mountain Ridge
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cougarmagic
- Posts: 1409
- Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 5:21 pm
Thanks for the report - that's interesting stuff. I love the dropoff/buckthorn choice! haha Sometime's that's a tough one....
In Rubio there is (was?) a section of use trail where it was poison oak on one side and yucca on the other. In Allison Gulch, Ryan and Miguel bypassed the first rappel in our beta via a route the featured a choice between a solitary yucca and an exposed 5th class move. And in Hypercloud, there were many times when the decision was between Poodle Dog and crumbly 4th class.cougarmagic wrote: ↑I love the dropoff/buckthorn choice! haha Sometime's that's a tough one....
So many choices!