EISPIRATEN

After writing a book on Thursday's hike to West Mermaid/Peak 4654 I'll keep this one about my Saturday outing short!

I had to get a late start for a hike with my wife, so I picked Sugarloaf Peak and Ontario Peak via Falling Rock Canyon because I hadn't done it before and it's a short drive, but the route would keep us away from the crowds even on a weekend. We didn't arrive until 10am and had to park along the road quite a distance from the trailhead, which was no surprise. I think pretty much everyone on this forum is familiar with this one, so I'll skip the description other than to say it was fun scrambling up Falling Rock Canyon and the scree slope wasn't as slippery as I expected it would be. Going from Sugarloaf to Ontario was a pretty good climb, but the ridge is easy to follow between sightings of the use trail and cairns along the way. There was some patchy snow starting around 8400ft, but nothing we even needed microspikes for.

We figured going down the way we came wasn't going to be much fun due to the steep rocky sections, so we took the regular trail back through Kelly Camp, Icehouse Saddle, and Icehouse Canyon back to the trailhead. Once we started Falling Rock Canyon we saw a single person coming down from there, then nobody until a few campers at Kelly Camp and then of course a decent number of people on our way down from the saddle. Not bad for a popular area on a Saturday!

Overall this was a lot of fun and it was nice to do something new in an area I've spent a lot of time in.

Trip stats: 10.1mi, 7h42m, 3800ft gain/loss.

Icehouse Canyon


Starting up Falling Rock Canyon


Scree slope below the saddle for Sugarloaf


Panorama from Sugarloaf Peak summit



Typical section of climb from Sugarloaf to Ontario


Eventually the ridge to Ontario starts to level out before it intersects the trail


Ontario Peak summit facing west


Trip stats

Nice! I'm going to plant a seed in your head now: look up Turtle's Beak.

I actually found your trip report when I got home and was doing a little more digging on the surrounding area, looks fun! I was looking down that ridge from the Ontario summit and wondering what it was like, so that question is answered and I'll get out there myself at some point!

Of course once that got me looking at maps, it got me thinking about possible routes from the south for Ontario and Cucamonga... I'll be outside on Thursday, just need to decide what I feel like doing!

I also had a laugh and thought of you when I flipped open the register on Sugarloaf and the first thing I saw was serial register signer Chuck Hodi!

Cool. I've been to Sugarloaf but not up the ridge to Ontario. How's the route-finding? By your report, it sounds like navigation isn't difficult.

Yeah, from the saddle from Sugarloaf there is really only one ridge to take, so it's quite obvious as long as you know you should be going SE and then S once it starts to level out and you can see the final ridge to Ontario. The use trail is faint and cairns are intermittent, but if you get off the semi established use trail you find it again pretty quickly. Worst case, just keep going up and in the right general compass direction and it's pretty hard to screw up.

Going down from Ontario to Sugarloaf, on the other hand is not as "easy". Picking the wrong route can lead you into some very steep descent options according to several TR's on this forum.

Good point! I would certainly recommend doing the loop in the direction I did for that reason and because descending all that loose rocky stuff isn't much fun.

HikeUp wrote: Going down from Ontario to Sugarloaf, on the other hand is not as "easy". Picking the wrong route can lead you into some very steep descent options according to several TR's on this forum.

That's actually really useful info Beer Man. I had contemplated descending the ridge the first time I did this to get my bearings. Now I think an ascent is the better option.