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.
