EISPIRATEN

For a while I've been wanting to summit Cucamonga Peak from the South. It's very prominent-looking when viewed from the city, and the terrain looks challenging when viewed from the top. People rarely come up that way, and I gave it a shot yesterday.

Looking at the topos and the aerials, there's a pretty clear route to take: Deer Canyon to a gully that runs NW just past the West Cucamonga Truck trail crossing. The gully looks to be brush-free, and connects to the ridge past most of the bushwhacking. Then you'd take the ridge all the way up. Looking back, this is exactly the route headsizeburrito took when he did this earlier.

Unrelatedly, I rode up the West Cucamonga Truck trail last month to see how good is. It was much better than expected. I didn't reach the end of the maintained section, and wasn't clear on when that ends, exactly. So the plan this time would be to kill two birds with one stone: try riding the truck trail all the way to Deer Canyon, hopefully. Then stash the bike, climb the gully, then the ridge to the top.

Alright. For various uninteresting reasons I couldn't schedule this like normal people. So I worked all day, then showed up at the foot of the mountain at 2AM on Friday, aiming to hit the saddle at 4736ft at sunrise. That's where the really nice section of truck trail ends. Parking is restricted at the very top of Sapphire rd, but just below that, normal street parking is allowed, I think.

The local SAR is tired of dealing with dumb rescues:





And the start of the canyon road has VERY ambitious signage.



I'm assuming this is referring to the Joe Elliot camp, on the other side of miles of heavily overgrown road. Other than that, there isn't a single tree to be found, big or little.

And the falls are closed. Too many people get stuck and need rescue? Or too much trash and graffiti? Both?



This road is STEEP. I was ahead of schedule to get to my saddle at dawn, and there was no reason to grind out the climb. So I just hike-a-biked most of it. There has heavy fog on the ground, and I started breaking through it at about 4000ft. It was around in some form all day.

Even with the walking, I still made it to the saddle a bit early. Took a break, drank my coffee, etc. Continuing up the road, it starts deteriorating, and the end of maintenance TODAY is around the switchback at 5200ft. I stashed the bike there. From there until it meets the ridge at 5300ft (a pretty short section) the brush is pretty thick. There's actually a bypass trail on the ridge from 4915 to 5300 directly, and I guess the current trail builders are clearing both the bypass and the roadbed. I haven't actually walked the bypass, but it looked clear. There's some signage that feels comical given the conditions today:



Past 5300ft the roadbed is clear until the junction at 5385ft (the start of the ridge to Calamity Peak). Sean, tekewin and co came this way.

The big prize and Calamity Peak and point 6786 ("Greater Calamity" from here on) are clearly seen.



I tried to stay on the road towards Deer Canyon, but the brush was thick, and it was taking more effort than I felt like putting in. So I decided to go to Calamity Peak instead, as a consolation prize. To my surprise, there's now a clear trail all the way to the top. The trail builders (the hikerevolution people or maybe just @rockhoundhiker) totally rock. View down from the climb. Check out the thick trail cut at the center of the photo:



At the top is a solid register box.



with lots of hikerevolution stickers inside. As expected by now, Chuck Hodi has been there. Has anybody met this guy? He's like the Mars Bonfire of obscure peaks.



Cool views from Calamity. Turtle's Beak, Ontario:



The city and road I came from



The road I decided not to battle



And you can look ahead to Greater Calamity, and Cucamonga



The ridge to Greater Calamity looks rough, except the maintained line continues. It doesn't quite get all the way up to Greater Calamity yet, but probably they're working on it. No register or anything on top. The only human-made anything up there is this old broomstick with a wire:



The next section is the worst brush of the whole day. It sucks. It's thick and composed mainly of whitethorn.



It ends at the lateral ridge that runs to pt 6524. Past that is all the cool stuff. There's still a lot of brush, but lots of interesting terrain and knify ridges. Generally, the right side is cliffy and the left side is brushy.

There's some really cool green rock.





And you can see the next section



It's very steep and very unstable. The rock is bad. On the way up I went right (E), on the way down I went left (W). Both are sketchy. The sketchy lines are shorter on the left, but maybe are harder if climbing instead of descending. I wouldn't call this "climbing" even. Be careful.

At the top there're some narrow ridges, and eventually the next climbing section comes into view



I wanted to avoid all the brush on the left, and just climb the gully on the right instead. Some sketchy moves are needed to even get to the gully, and once in it, it feels kinda dangerous. I eventually gave up, and went left to deal with the brush instead. headsizeburrito made the same decision. Once done with all that, you get to point 7585. It's full of cool narrow ridges and some trees, even. The route ahead:



It's steep but manageable. The brush isn't as thick, the rocks are cool and the trees are nice. Looks like this



Then I summitted, and got to see the view I came here for



And it started to snow



There's a wooden board thing at the summit



And another (with a bigger number) at the false summit



Eventually the clouds cleared, and the view opened up. The brushy section, Greater Calamity, and so on:



View of pt 7585 on the descent:



Approaching the green saddle



It is really cool. Have another photo



So yeah. This was a cool ridge. But now that I wrote this, I see that in fact, it actually kinda sucks. In either case, I'm not coming back soon.

So what do you think of mr.trail to Cucamonga chances of completing the trail?

Havent encountered Hodi's signature....I think. Could have seen it on Ross.

Like the determination and get it done attitude.....sometimes it kicks in on my trips. Although I have to pay for it later.

I left a note in the register box, so maybe the trailbuilder(s) will comment here. It'll be a lot of work to clear out the brush past Greater Calamity, but they seem determined, and did a ton of work already. If they want to get it done, it'll get done.

Hodi has been absolutely everywhere. He signed in at the pole of inaccessibility. And Ross. And at the random bump E of Burro. And Bliss (more than 10 times).

I'm almost done with the payback: fished out most of the thorns out of my legs by now, and ready to go for the next one! My tires may be tubeless, but I am not.

Hodi is a beast as well, he hikes massive distances. I went up to McKinley and he had been there 6 or 7 times but he was hiking from Mendenhall Saddle. He obviously also reads this forum as he knew about the Pole.

What a great trip (for you!). I love the name "Greater Calamity", but I know what the brush is like on that ridge and I am still digesting the original Calamity trip from a couple years ago. Above that, the ridge looks really steep and loose, but I am sure it is much worse than the photos make it look.

The green ridge section deserves it's own name, like Green Goblin or Godzilla's Backbone.

I think the headsizeburrito route is easier with less nasty brush.

Hey, Tekewin! If you want to come back to Calamity Peak, it's now super easy. I was wondering, when yall went over there, how was the road from Deer canyon to the ridge? It was painful-enough this time that I really didn't want to mess with it. A part of that section, viewed from above:



You can see a clear switchback in the center of the photo, but the roadway leading up to it is rough. Click the image.

The road was not too bad. It was completely washed out where it passes Calamity Canyon, and there were some buckthorny spots but nothing like the last bit of ridge before the summit. Great that they have cut a path though it. The road continues past the ascent ridge and according to a report I read gets much worse. It's hard for me to tell which part of the road that is.

Today, the road from Cucamonga Canyon to Calamity ridge (opposite the direction you came from) is mostly clear. Past the ridge, towards Deer Canyon (what you walked on), it's rough; I didn't walk that part. The photo above shows a bit of that section between Deer Canyon and Calamity ridge.

Wow! Thanks for the TR. That's an awesome ridge route, full of pain and glory. When we did Calamity via Deer Canyon part of the fire road was pretty thick with thorns. We were chopping at it to break through in some spots, but it wasn't as consistently painful as the final stretch along the ridge to the summit. That took four of us with tools about an hour and forty-five minutes to move one-third of a mile.

Wow! I’m in awe that you made it to Cucamonga Peak, perhaps alittle jealous even lol. We spent months working our way up to Greater Calamity Peak and I needed a break. I am also planning the Sage to Sky Challenege Aug. 13-14th from Etiwanda Preserve - Etiwanda Ridge - Joe Elliot - Cucamonga- to Baldy and have turned my attention to trail maintenance on the Big Tree Trail between Joe Elliot and Etiwanda Peak. I have one bad section left to clear of deadfalls and that route will be much more passable again. Sometime after August or September, I will probably turn my attention back to Greater Calamity Peak and ultimately Cucamonga Peak. You can follow my journey on Instagram @rockhoundhiker and our group effort @hikerevolution

Knowing that you made it though has inspired me to return for sure! I was looking at that ridge from Greater Calamity Peak and thinking the connector looked insane lol

Oh hey! Good to see you comment! I didn't realize you already posted here a few times.

Thanks for all the trail work. This route wouldn't be remotely possible without all your efforts. How bad was the old road when you started? Did you need to start clearing the brush all the way at the bottom gate on the truck trail?

Yes! I believe Cecelia or Sean told me about EisPiraten. You’re welcome for the trail work. I was checking out Frankish Peak and discovered the Cucamonga Truck Trail was passable from Baldy Road all the way to Sapphire. So I was curious how far it was passable and returned. I ended up walking all the way up to the 9 mile sign with no problem with vistas of Ontario Peak. From there the trail started getting bad with fallen trees and bushwhacking. We worked on that section for awhile up to the firebreak that connects to the road and that section of road is still needing work unless others like Boyd Zack finished it. He was working on it before us and had cleaned up the first four miles nicely to the 9 mile sign. He wants to clear another mile to Calamity Canyon so people can do a loop run or hike. That will require another mile of bushwhacking. I didn’t want to deal with it at the time and turned to Peak Bagging instead for some payoff for our work and hope that people will have incentive to start using the first half. If people start going there again then that will help immensely with trail maintenance, and the hike to Calamity and Greater Calamity Peak are just as challenging as other popular hikes like Rattlesnake Peak. I would like to see the road opened back up to Joe Elliot Campground so I can do an entire massive loop...but that’s a long term goal.

FYI here's what the end of Haven Ave looked like yesterday 8/4/2021:

That's too bad. Do you know if it's actually private?

No sorry I dont know. There were quite a few trucks driving back and forth on it though.

FYI I hiked CCT from Sapphire St on 4/19. I met 2 e-bikers at the 4,750' saddle who said that the road just past the turnoff to Calamity Peak at 5,400' (where it starts to go east downhill into Deer Canyon) was "totally gone due to a massive avalanche and was impassable".

Also I trimmed/sawed the forested section from the 4,750' saddle to the barbed wire fence at 4,900' on 4/5 and again on 4/19 so that section is pretty clear now. The e-bikers said that past that there were many overgrown sections.

That section is the worst near Calamity Canyon and it’s been like that for awhile...It will take some work to get just a single track again. Your help on the forested section is appreciated! I had cleared a lot of it too but there was still more brush buried under snow that I couldn’t get to. I’m probably going to go back and work on the route around the base of Calamity Peak to the saddle on the other side in the coming month

Oh, ok I was wondering who the other person was who was clearing that - nice job and thank you! Justin right? I had met you twice last year when you were coming down from Greater Calamity both times on a Sunday. First time I was with my girlfriend, second time I was solo.

Yes, Justin Williams is correct…one of these times we will have to go up together and put some more work in. Me and my friend Ryan cleared the first four miles during the major snow because everything was hanging so low across the trail. We couldn’t hike into the forested section because it was so deep with snow and the postholing was bad so we focused on the lower front country and removed anything that would hit a cyclist or hiker in the face. Then later I went back and cleared through the forested section but it was bad the second time I went through again and didn’t get a chance to clear it as we were on a mission to summit Greater Calamity in the snow. We were successful and I made a YouTube video which is easy to find on my Rockhoundhiker channel or key word ‘Greater Calamity.’ It looks like more upkeep will need to be done but I figured I would wait for all the snow to melt. I figured past the barbed wire fence that section is getting bad again and haven’t walked it since I usually take the fire break. I definitely want to get the trail good to Calamity again and figure out after that how to get a single track again between Calamity Canyon and Deer Canyon. Just a lot of rocks and dirt to move, that’s the issue, (and some of the rocks above the slide look like they could roll at any moment and look unsafe as well)…but I’ve walked all the way through, it is passable though a scramble at times. I bushwhacked about a half mile beyond Deer Canyon to the first canyon and made it up the canyon to the peak at the top of Smith Ridge. We are calling it Smith Point. We put a register box there and peak sign and I traversed from Day Creek side up to Cucamonga Peak about a year ago and it was gnarly. Would love to get though to Joe Elliot because I’ve been working on that side up to Cucamonga Peak too and begging my trail boss at SGWA to help me out there. We almost had a trip planned to cut the dead falls between Joe Elliot and Etiwanda Peak but the weather turned bad and the San Sevaine Rd had some small rock slides as well and the weekend trip planned was cancelled. Hoping to get out there again once the snow melts and keep moving forward with the restoration. I post a lot on Instagram at @Rockhoundhiker and @BushwhackersAcademy and @HikeRevolution