ARRIGHT BOYS AND GIRLS and androids and other sentients, hope you're all having a grand old fourth of ju-lie today ranting about your opinions on social media and how fireworks scare your pet newt collection and how blah blah blah. im next door to la puente so its pretty loud and i still dont give a shit but i guess thats what i get for shooting machine guns and blowing shit up when i was in my late teens and early 20's cause i cant hear shit and im too tired to engage in social media or whatever. death to tyrants. so im here today to type some words about BIG MOUNTAIN BIKE STUFF. Yeah, you read that right. BIG. Big is relative to the individual issuing the statement, and im not serious about any of it so dont get hung up on anything or youll just be wasting your energy.
On June 13 I rode up to crystal lake, took the road to the summit of south mount hawkins, then took the ridge north to hit sadie and middle hawkins and then REGULAR hawkins, before turning west to windy gap for water from little jimmy spring and descending back to cityplanet (tm). Boy did I have a nice trip report written up before it uploaded a tiny version of one of my images, followed by me pressing back to stop seeing said tiny image which then got rid of everything i had written. Fucking bummer man! That's why I'm not particularly careful right now about grammar and shit. Just drink your beverage out of a fancier cup while reading this and let that make up for how much less effort im gonna put into it.
I took my bike to the summit of all the Hawkins's. One can ride close to the summit and just stash their bike and hike to the top. This makes sense but I am training and need to see what sucks and what doesn't so I can improve my training and setup for my future absurd trip ideas where I try to explode my heart and hang out with badass trees and shit like that.
My big flat pedals with pins in em sorta sucked. They're big and wide which is great while riding in trail runners, but they get caught on everything when you're pushing and the pins rip the flesh up on your legs. I'm sure its fine if you just ride regular stuff but when you gotta do mountain shit and carry/push/haul your bike, I doubt anyone likes pain enough to keep on really tearing up the flesh on their shins and calves over and over and over again getting blood all over everything and taking forever to heal and occasionally ripping off scabs in bed getting blood all over the place... know what im saying? i get real tired of people who dont do what i do suggesting things to me like "ah yes that will work terribly". sorry i gotta rant. ill be nice and nod and thank people but once youre doing this sorta shit you figure out painfully and usually rather quickly that the sexy bullshit marketted towards so called adventurers is often just dumb bullshit. who woulda thought. not going further down this rabbithole, this is already more rant than trip report and im tired and im sure you are too.
ANYWHO, that was 82 miles with 10,500ft of gain. Real nice. I really liked the Hawkins Ridge portion, and spending time at Little Jimmy Spring is always pleasant. The water was flowing very strongly (1 liter every 3 seconds). The sunset while riding down into crystal lake basin was wonderful.
On the 27th I pointed my bike like a shotgun at the Baldy area, also leaving too late cause I'm always tired from work and bike commuting and being a member of this tiresome, wasteful, and generally pointless society of animals who think they're not animals who confine themselves to boxes all day long and chug pills to fool themselves into thinking its alright (whoops calm down there guy dont you say that!)... where was i? Ah yes, so I pointed myself towards baldy with the intent of riding up it and hitting at least a few other peaks nearby. I made good on this, mostly, only missing out on two peaks I had in my sights. I rode up Baldy Road from Claremont, took SA Falls Road to the notch, then devils backbone to the summit. Next up was west baldy, which i havent been on in some time. its like baldy if it wasn't outside a massive sprawling concrete open air penitentiary, uh i mean los angeles. its not a prison, its voluntary! Anyway, sorry guys, ill put my thoughts away for a minute! so west baldy was nice. saw a lot of bighorn sheep up there. a male was on the trail on the way back so i gave him a ton of room, doing my best to give him 200ft or so of space and the vibe that i dont wanna fuck with him. he watched me and slowly walked around. i got an awesome series of photos of two jumping down a snowfield further down san antonio ridge. real amazing. riding a bike up here is incredibly badass, very far removed from whats below, and some of that is really special.
I was able to ride more on the descent than i expected. my skills riding down switchbacks are pretty lame, but my bigass tires and low pressure meant scree doesn't really bother me much. i just kinda glom over the scree without making much of a mess. sunset was coming up soon so i moved with a purpose to the summit of harwood, which has always been one of my favorite mountains.
A fire had started in Stockton Flat and myself and a few others called 911 to report it while i was pushing up DBB. i was unable to get on the phone with 911 so i texted my buddy who relayed the info. Turns out you can text 911!! i guess im old now cause i didnt know that. seems obvious now. aircraft appeared overhead shortly thereafter and they put the fire out quickly. looks like it was right near the gate on 3n06 north of baldy notch at the bottom of the hill, right where it climbs out of stockton flats. i watched one tall pine go up in seconds.
The return trip down DBB was easier, probably cause i wasn't breathing hard, and people have done a number on the so called 'sketchy' part, making it a lot easier. there's even a bolt on a rock halfway across. im not super cool so i pushed/walked pretty much the whole way on the skinny part to the top of the lift, then rode down the ridge. I decided against riding up thunder mountain this time, as the sun was setting. i bombed down the road (extremely fun on this bike), refilled water at the lodge, then rode to Sunset Peak. Hit the summit of that just after sunset, then took the sunset truck trail down to San Dimas. It was in kinda rough shape. Havent done it in years. Easy on this bike though. Got into town glad to be off the road, then headed home.
That one was 84 miles with 12,900ft of gain. I suppose the next thing would be to ride up baldy and camp somewhere up there. anyone wanna go? you dont hafta ride, could just be a forum thing where you get up there using fair means. would be good to see everyone and im sure the weather will be pleasant as long as we pick a spot out of the wind.
Some pics
Heading down baldy through one of the easy snowfields. i was slightly keen on making good time descending so i didnt fall down like an idiot on hard snow.
anywho thanks for listening to a tired mountain idiot ramble about crap and show you photos. id really like to have done a better job of making a presentable trip report but honestly bro ive been working with computers since i was a little kid and im just tired. im tired in general and i dont have much patience for holding down the shift key and trying real hard to make things real pretty or correct. i dont have a lot of free time spent indoors, which is good and a little bad, so i dont really wanna put too much into this sorta stuff. im too busy doing normal stuff and then pushing my bike up big hills. i hope youre all taking care of yourselves and each other and breathing the mountain air deeply. go get some.
