Driving up Baldy Road from Claremont, there is an electronic message board saying that the turnouts are closed and anyone parking there will receive a ticket. Plenty of new little signs are in place at the turnouts near the Potato Mountain trailhead (Evey Canyon), which means people are parking at the dam and walking up to the trail. I think this is an accident-in-waiting since folks drive pretty fast through that section and there is not a lot of walking room on the sides of the road.
There were also a lot of cars in Baldy Village, parked along the road down below the fire station to Glendora Ridge Road. I drove up to the saddle and that little parking area had at least 15 vehicles there - I didn't see the no parking signs, although if there they were definitely ignored.
Anyway, I found a spot along the road and headed up. The first part of this route is really undefined so it takes a beating and is mostly rockslide. Despite the calendar saying it's November I quickly worked up a sweat but kept grinding up the hill. Even though all the cars were nearby, I didn't see anyone else until I intersected the road, where I said hello to three hikers and then went up the ridge once again. At the summit were just four others, making me wonder just where everyone was hiking this day. That made things better for me, I got to have a snack in some glorious solitude while enjoying the view from Baldy to Wilson. On the way down I saw a few more people, still not enough to fill all the cars so I'll just leave that mystery for another day.
The part of the road that goes to the saddle isn't getting any love these days, definitely a lot of fallen trees along the way. Maybe that's a good thing, it will change from a road to a trail at some point in the future as more hillside washes down. I may go back and do some trimming one of these days to make it a little easier to pass. I think I said that earlier this year but I never did return with tools.
Snow on the trail!
Tricky part around some rocks
Posing on the summit
No snow on this side of Baldy. I did see a vehicle on that road down there, that was part of another discussion here.
The road on the shady north side had some of these longer stretches of snow and ice. Slipped but did not fall.
Some clearing needed.
