Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 5:06 pm Post subject: Baldy Village to Wrightwood
I'm thinking of hiking from Baldy Village to Wrightwood and back in a day. The plan would be to leave early and get to Wrightwood around 11am or so for lunch, and then hike back to Baldy Village before sunset. For those who've done the hike, how was it? Any recommendations for lunch at Wrightwood?
Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:49 pm Post subject: Baldy Village to Wrightwood
Quote:
I'm thinking of hiking from Baldy Village to Wrightwood and back in a day. The plan would be to leave early and get to Wrightwood around 11am or so for lunch, and then hike back to Baldy Village before sunset. For those who've done the hike, how was it? Any recommendations for lunch at Wrightwood?
It's possible but a hell of a long day, 6.25 miles up Bear Flat Trail to Baldy proper with 5,950 elevation gain rougly, then it's 8.05 miles from the top of Baldy over Dawson, over Pine, up to the road that is just below Wright Mountain over to the Acorn Trail down to the street, then it's another 1/2 mile to Highway 2 where all the resturants are, about 1/4 mile down are a multitude of choices. The elevation loss from Baldy down to Wrightwood is about 4,500 feet of elevation loss with all the saddles and the drop into Wrightwood, you have about 1,100 feet of ascent going up the three approaches going South to north and if you average 2.5 miles an hour that's 7.5 hours to cover 15.05 miles approximately. The miles between Baldy and the road below Wright Mtn are ridgeline so it's harder to go fast but not impossible.
Now after you've had your nice lunch you will be going up 2,145 back to the road at 8,310 the trail descends ~130' to the ~8180' saddle between Wright and Pine Mountains. The way up to Pine Mountain is not straight up - the trail rises ~375' to 8,555', descends ~95' to a double saddle, and then ascends ~1,020' to a shoulder around Pine Mountain at ~9,480'. The portion past the 8,555' intermediate peak is the area where it is clear that if you fell off the side, you wouldn't stop for a very long time. It's followed by a portion that is relatively easy to go up, but descending is difficult due to the steepness and poor footing. After those two sections, the rest of the trail to Pine is a cake walk, at least in terms of placing one's feet along the trail to within spiting distance of Pine Mountain.
From there the trail descends ~330' to the saddle between Pine and Dawson at 9,151', where the low thorny ceanothus (mountain whitethorn) has closed over the trail in a few spots. Ascending ~340' achieves a shoulder close to Dawson Peak at ~9,500'. 1.25 miles between Pine summit and Dawson summit, the summit is at 9,575 feet.
Now the real fun begins, although you are only ~560' below Baldy, when sitting at or near the summit of Dawson, the trail descends ~720' to the saddle between Dawson and Baldy at ~8,780' before the final ~1,280' to Baldy. 2.25 miles between Dawson summit and Baldy summit, the summit is 10,064 feet and then you get that fun long descent all the way back to the village by way of dropping just under 6,000 more feet.
That means you covered 31 miles roughly, 9,000 feet of gain and loss in both directions, with an hour lunch and still keeping the 2.5 miles per hour, you can start at 4 AM and get back to the village at around 8 PM just as it's getting dark.
Whoah, thanks for the detailed breakdown, particularly the section between Wrightwood and Pine Mt.! I'm not going to do this right now, but I might give it a try later in the fall when it cools down. I've done Baldy Village to Pine Mt. a while back, so I'm aware of some of the difficulties and am familiar with a large section of the hike. My pace at that time was way too slow to go from town to town, but I'm in better shape now. I probably won't attempt it until I can do the Bear Flat Trail in under 3 hours. I'm hoping I'm pretty close now, but not really sure.
I've read some of Rick Kent's reports. I'm nowhere near his level. That said, I like doing long hikes, so I'd be interested in joining the "Death March".
looks like 28 miles, 14000 ft total. but maybe that guys numbers are off a little bit.
edenooch wrote:
even Ze is falling out of bed thinking of this!
lol, I am thinking 'why oh why?' i would never want to do 14,000 ft down hill, ugh.
if i wanted something tougher than just the acorn trail, (since i haven't been in that area) i would add in a descent to fish fork via dawson peak trail and up pine mt ridge, or check out prairie fork _________________ http://socalhikes.com/
It would be cool to hike from town to town while bagging 4 peaks along the way! And I like the idea of having a nice lunch in the middle of a hike. Unfortunately, setting up a car shuttle for this would be a bit of a pain, so I'm just going to try and do it as a back and forth. I need the exercise anyway.
if i wanted something tougher than just the acorn trail, (since i haven't been in that area) i would add in a descent to fish fork via dawson peak trail and up pine mt ridge, or check out prairie fork
Yeah, baby! Good country! _________________ Hiking? Aw, gee, do I have to?
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