EISPIRATEN

What a glorious day to do a big hike. The temps were reasonable, there was a slight breeze, and besides the summit and devil's backbone, the trails were somewhat deserted (go figure). Me and a friend of mine started from the church at 6:25 a.m. and held a pretty consistent pace to the summit at 10:45. It has been a year since I hiked baldy from the village, so my memory didn't serve me well and forgot how steep the trail can be, but my friend held his own for my pace. We spent 15 minutes at the summit because there was a barrage of people there, something I haven't quite gotten used to yet since coming back from the pct. We headed down the backbone and had a small bite to eat and a nice ice cold IPA at the notch. I departed ways with my friend, who swore up and down he would hike back to his car, but upon arrival decided to take the ski lift down. He is an avid long distance bicyclist, but has decided he wants to complete each of the "San" peaks this year from the hardest trail reasonable. He has completed San J from devil's slide so all is left is to drag him up San G, which from his performance on both hikes, shouldnt be a problem. I left the notch at 1 pm and summited the 3 T's and got back to the trailhead at 5:45 pm. There was only 2 groups at the parking lot, both of which were not willing to give me a ride back to my car at the village so I hoofed it. All in all, it took me from 6:30 am to 6:45 pm, which I consider pretty good for myself considering that is approximately the amount of time on the pct it would take me to cover those miles, but there wasn't a day on the pct that I did that much elevation gain. The only pictures of me are at the summits since I have seen and taken pictures of it all before, so it isn't really worth posting them. I would recommend this hike for anybody that wants a hard days worth of hiking to keep those calves nice and plump, or anybody training for C2C, Iron Mtn., or any of those good ol' sufferfests/death marches, or just for some good ol' masochistic "lets see how far we can go in a day" fun. I would like to do this hike in the future, starting earlier, and summiting west baldy, harwood and ECBO to make it a 10 peak day. Happy Trails.

He has completed San J from devil's slide...

C2C is not reasonable? It is certainly harder than Devils Slide.

C2C isn't reasonable to him. I brought the idea up to him because I am planning to take a few friends with ambitions to do the hike out later this year and he said probably not but he will think about it.

Wow, that's a big day, congrats for finishing. Trying to imagine how much water I would need to carry from the Village to the Notch... Last time I did that route I was pretty dry and it was a cool November day.
Do you have an idea of total miles and elevation gain/loss?

If you mean mileage to the notch, my map shows about 9.6 miles with 5744 ft. gain to baldy then 2224 ft. loss to the notch. If you are talking about baldy plus the 3 t's then my map shows aprrox. 20 miles including the road walk from icehouse to the village where you parked and a gain of just shy of 8000 ft. and the same loss. I think the high for the day was supposed to be just above 80 degrees and it felt really nice out. I went through 4.5 Liters of water, which was about what I expected to go through since I usually get 5 miles to the Liter

HikeItOrLoseIt wrote: ↑He is an avid long distance bicyclist, but has decided he wants to complete each of the "San" peaks this year from the hardest trail reasonable.

Altadena to San Gabriel Peak. Yeehaa!