What a Difference a Week Makes

One Week. Seventy degrees. A wildfire. And, happily, permits.

Phew! Just last weekend I decided to overnight up at the Little Jimmy campground in the Angeles National Forest, just a couple miles up the trail from Islip Saddle (where the Angeles Crest Highway abruptly ends at a road closure). Nice cool weather, and the snow pack is still substantial (i.e., my last-minute decision did not include crampons, which would have been a welcome addition to the pack).

Lucky for me, I was the only person in camp – just howling winds, lots of pine trees, and a low of about 28 degrees in the middle of the night.

Now, fast forward to this weekend in the LA basin (only 40 miles from last weekend’s camp site) with near record-setting temperatures, which means about 98 degrees in Pasadena as I write.

Consequently, we have our first big fire of the season just above Sierra Madre. As of right now, almost 500 homeowners are under mandatory evacuation, the road up to Chantry Flats is closed and bunches of hikers, including 60 Boy Scouts stranded a couple miles in, had to be escorted by deputies to the parking lot.

Here’s a view of what a typical front-range fire looks like as of midday:

Authorities are saying that the fire began yesterday about 3pm near Chantry Flats, and is currently burning westward and downslope towards Sierra Madre. I looking in my records for some relevant pics, and found at least one showing the shady, verdant canyons leading to Hoegee’s and Spruce Grove campgrounds – one reason why this part of the front range is highly popular in warm weather.

Finally, and I’ll be updating more stuff in the near future, I received my back country permit for Sequoia/Kings Canyon. In June I’ll be doing the Kings-Kaweah Divide Loop over a nice four days at a leisurely pace.

So, it’s back to trimming pack weight, doing some serious peak bagging on the weekends, and hitting the gym more often. Now, I’m not uber-ultra-light backpacking aficionado, but neither do I struggle under heavy loads. Still, I’d like the weight to be shaved off a bit, and I’ll be writing more soon about my efforts to do so.

Greetings from Icehouse Canyon

Thanks for visiting. This blog is a small space for me to share my experiences hiking and exploring the San Gabriel and San Bernadino mountains of southern california.

I've been hiking in the area for almost 30 years, learning the trails from my late grandfather. I also grew up rock climbing in the Idyllwild area and Joshua National Park, among others (in addition to backpacking the Sierras, and skiing at local resorts and up north).

On Monday of this week, I hiked up Icehouse Canyon to the saddle. Icehouse is one valley over from Mnt. San Antonio (commonly called "Old Baldy" - the only 10,000 ft peak in the range).












The saddle is normally a nice 3+ mile route, but being late-winter, early-spring in the foothill range, most higher slopes still have record amounts of snow and ice (if you haven't heard, we had a whole bunch of winter storms in the mountains, depositing near-record amounts of snow). This means that lower down on most hills, the trails are dry, but turn a corner higher up - presto! - you need crampons and an ice axe to negotiate your way to the summit.

Case in point: Here are the two signs at the saddle pointing off to Ontario and Cucamonga Peaks. Notice how they had to dig them out!












Anyway, a simple, quick hike. As of this weekend, we received another dusting of snow above 5,000 ft, so I might have some more snow pics later this week.