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Twin Peaks and Bear Cub

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:42 pm
by David R
I was feeling a bit under the weather so decided to hike a moderate hike that would keep the outing under 5 hours. I hiked Twin Peaks from Buckhorn. I enjoy this hike since you can make xcountry routes anywhere you want. I left the trail pretty quickly and climbed a prime drainage which got me to the ridge just before the switchbacks up to the junction.

Just after the junction leaving Waterman was where I surprised a curious bear cub. I've been reading up a lot about bears and have developed a healthy respect for them, they aren't cute and cuddly. I want them out of my way and fast. The cub was going to be trouble with Mom lurking around so I jumped up in the air like an idiot and yelled. His curiosity evaporated and he tore down the slope. I had planned to drop down that slope to hit the saddle but decided to stay away from any more bear encounters and continued along the trail.

I haven't hiked Twin Peaks in a while and found the climb from the saddle quite pleasurable, it was as steep as I remembered. I was able to make it to the top in 1:45 which was a pretty good time. I met two hikers coming down who were surprised to see me. The odd register holder had signatures from Iron Mike twice and Elwood once.

From there I went to the lower west summit which has some fantastic rock formations along the way. The high point is actually after the point seen from Waterman, 1/8 of a mile further along the ridge. From there I went back to the saddle between the peaks and contoured very nicely along steep slopes back to the climber's trail.

The trail back was a bit unpleasant with the heat but once again my legs were pretty strong and I only had to stop once to rest on the upwards climb back to Waterman. From there I again chose a xcountry route back down to the trail and to the car. The whole hike took me 4:25 was probably about 11-12 miles with 4K elevation gain. No pics as usual. :|

Re: Twin Peaks and Bear Cub

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:02 am
by hvydrt
That was John and I (Mark) that you saw near the saddle yesterday. Neat sighting! We were'nt so lucky, saw lots of lizards though! We started from cloudburst and also took the more direct route from waterman to twin but we opted for the swithbacks on the way back up to waterman. The forest around twin peaks is beautiful, one of the nicest parts of the san gabriels I have seen so far.

Re: Twin Peaks and Bear Cub

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:02 pm
by Phil B
Hey David,

Sounds like you made good time and had a bear sighting to boot, pretty awesome.

Did you start off from Buckhorn camp ground because Buckhorn Spring ( if it still exists) is up the drainage near there, you would then ascend to the saddle below the un-named point at 7190ft, and then traverse west to pick up the trail before the Waterman split, seems that would be a nice alternate to the usual trail.

Cheers

Phil