Here's a link to last year's full moon Baldy Bikeaneering trip report:
https://eispiraten.com/viewtopic.php?t=8768
I headed out around 730 or so in the morning, picking up a sausage and bacon combo breakfast burrito at P&G Super Burger in Covina, which had an interesting flavor. Big recommend. Nice tasty start to the day. The weather called for a thunderstorm between 2-3pm, so I figured by then I'd be on Glendora Ridge Road (just Ridge from now on) or Baldy Road and would put layers on and maybe take shelter somewhere or whatever worked. There were clouds building up around the San Gabes, but nothing looked particularly strong. When I do these sorts of bikeaneering things around the Eastern San Gabes, I usually prefer to go up frontside of GMR out of Glendora and take Ridge east. It's a bit more work than the city, BUT you're not in the city! Way less traffic, way less dumb shit. You can zone out a bit and look at bugs and flowers and have a smoke break on a berm and look at the mountains instead of nearly getting creamed by some idiot in a Tesla. Seriously, it used to be Prius drivers, now it's Teslas.
On a related note, it would be nice if I could telepathically sound off a car horn in someone's car. Car horns are loud, because drivers are in cars which are quite insulated. Bikes are not insulated. If you had any idea how loud your horn was, perhaps you'd think differently. My minor illegal bike maneuver that I did to get you to honk at me was born out of the fact that following the law on a bike usually puts you in a position in which you're extremely easy to kill, and following said law is incredibly stupid. But who's gonna argue for that when everyone drives cars... it's always the cyclists fault. I can't wait to be a fossil!
Anyway, no shit there I was, in Glendora, PRIDE OF THE FOOTHILLS (or maybe that's Sierra Madre? Altadena? No, they're 'beautiful'). Certainly not Azusa. I'd say they can't spell pride but that illiterate dishonor goes to Baldwin Park. Whoa, hey now, don't talk shit on communities here man! Anyway, Glendora is the clean F250 with both a Gadsden Flag sticker as well as a thin blue line sticker on it of the cities. Bless em. I'm not as LA-ish as many so I don't dislike Glendora for being more conservative or whatever anyone will call em, but I do like how much cleaner it is than other towns. Also I figure if I lived here I wouldn't get my shit jacked, which is a big plus. I'm sure that'll all start to change once the Gold Line extension is completed. This will drop tweekers off in Glendora and I guarantee things will change. Also fun little factoid, last year I saw a hooker in Glendora, a first for me!
I refilled and stretched but it was barely raining. I was also ahead of schedule, since I had to be at Manker around 5-6pm. I didn't really wanna talk to anyone, as is often the case after a few hours alone on a bike. Just not feeling it, workin' on things in your own head. I continued up the hill, keeping it in low gear since I had some extra time. Graupel started to fall when I was slowly climbing the first switchbacks above Icehouse, and would continue on and off for a while. My super wide range drivetrain I put together was working splendidly, as I didn't have to work hard to carry all my crap up the hill. I love bikes. Anywho, the switchbacks always feel like they take forever on a loaded bike, but I still got to Wanker two hours early. It was snowing lightly, no thunder or anything dramatic, and I parked myself under some trees and changed into mountaineering clothes. I put my butt pad down and took a nap, getting up in time to leisurely pack my stuff into my tiny backpack for the climb.
Dima showed up in sandals and I complemented him on his 'drip', as the youths call it. I have been considering climbing Baldy in wintery conditions in city-person gear, maaaaybe with microspikes. I think that would make for great writing. We got our shit together and walked up the road. I hid and locked my bike somewhere nobody could possibly ever guess or see it, and we kept on truckin. Up the Ski Hut Trail with the most beautiful sunset light bathing the north side of Ontario Peak. We huddled in the vestibule or whatever of the Ski Hut and got our crampons on and all that while the wind whipped outside. We talked about bailing if things got too fancy for us, though I had already invested so much effort in getting up here that I really didn't want to. I was armed with a secret and highly illegal in California weapon specifically for this event: a balaclava. I didn't bring one last time and the wind really tore my face up. Dima fiddled with his Zippo-type handwarmer for a while, unsure of its functionality, and we stepped off. The wind was strong but not too bad, not stronger than two apes determined to place themselves in a position in which they could utter the most important phrase of all time: we out here. The stream beyond the hut is still buried in snow, and the hike into the base of the bowl is over quickly. Just like last time we went up the right side of the bowl, which gives a very consistent grade almost to the summit. The idea was to stay out of the worst of it by being sheltered by the ridge that makes up Devils Backbone, and then pop over it at the last minute to hit the summit and then just get the hell outta there.
It was real windy in the Bowl so we spent a fair bit of time looking down to keep the ice crystals from abrading our beautiful faces. The full moon lights everything up so you don't need a headlamp, save for the few times clouds cover the moon and everything is a deep grey-white color and depth perception goes away. Thankfully I was a little tired or sore or something from the 10,000ft of gain I already had under my belt so I just stopped and breathed while staring at my undersized Italian ultralight alpine boots, the moonlight casting a pale glare upon their melted Lego man camouflage pattern. Repeat as necessary while inching closer to the summit. The terrain eases off which makes us faster but does the same for the wind. Last year I walked backwards the last few hundred feet to the summit to keep the wind at my back. I employed a variation of this special technique this time, walking a little sideways past two signs to the top, which is still covered in a lot of snow. We cheered, and I moved towards the north face to see how that looks (it looks full). Then we got the hell outta there. We beelined down Devils Backbone to Baldy Harwood saddle, then down into the bowl. At one point I looked up towards the summit and not far from me was a snownado, the first I'd ever seen. It was pretty beefy looking, like a huge ghostly dust devil, and I thought I should go grab that scrawny Fir tree over there and hang on. It dissipated shortly thereafter and we continued on. Not far below we were caught in a snownado! It spun around us with the ice crystals flickering in the moonlight, showering us with spindrift, more playful than painful. How cool is that?
I couldn't find anything open at 1:30 in the morning that I wanted out there so I just kept going. I eventually stopped at Donut Man in Glendora where there was no line since it was 2am. There's always a huge line here so I rarely go in. Got me a chocolate bar which was real tasty, and kept on goin. Got home a little before 3am for about 19 hours door-to-door. Today I'm not sore or anything, but I'm not doing anything athletic so who knows. I heard everyone got a hell of a storm in the city but we didn't experience much, except I guess for intense winds, some snow, and two snownadoes.
Dima took way better photos than I did so maybe he'll throw a couple more up.
Until next year...
