It may or may not have been my last trip to the Angeles--I'm hoping to do an awesome x-c route linking up Iron Mountain with Mt. Baldy and maybe some others, and I still haven't done the Bridge to Nowhere and the Fish Fork Narrows. Perhaps later in June when I'm back from CO. Brock wants to do Sans G and Jac, but that can be a Farewell to the San Bernardinos.
7AM came early on Saturday after a late night for both of us. Chris confessed he was about a hair's breadth from texting me that he was bailing--he said he almost called Brock and asked him to come along but was so afraid he'd want to bail that he didn't. But he rallied, because if he hadn't I don't know what I would have done. Maybe I'd have gone, maybe I'd have done something else, I don't know.
It was a perfect day, though--bright, not too warm, not too windy. The lot at Icehouse was its usual jam-packed self, but most people don't seem to make it up even as far as the Saddle, so I wasn't too worried. We set out at our usual brisk pace, and began catching people group by group. Somewhere around the 2 mile mark we came on the first group of what must have been a huge Scouting trip--I swear we must have passed nearly 30 of these guys by the time we got to the Saddle. What we immediately noticed was how. much. stuff. they were all carrying. Not only were the packs huge but they were also hill-billied out with all kinds of stuff festooning the outsides--stuff I'd never seen on a backpack, like full-size lawn chairs, hack saws, and the like. Turns out the were heading over the Saddle to Comanche for one night only...I remember backpacking through there on my way up from Lytle Creek and about losing my shit because the little gnats kept getting into every conceivable facial orifice as I crawled up that drainage trying to catch up to my group that had left earlier that morning.
Onward we sped with our feather-light daypacks until we reached the Saddle, where a stiff cold wind was screaming through the gap. We found a spot in the lee of a tree to stop and refuel, and then on up the Cucamonga Trail to our destination. The backside section of that trail is really fun--mostly undulating sidehilling that goes fast. There was almost no one back there either...so quiet! We passed that creepy mine opening, and soon we were at the second saddle that put us onto the final ridge we would be climbing. Up, up, up...at least a mile of those switchbacks and damn we marveled how quickly they get you up or down! Before we knew it we were at the fork. Where most people went right, we went straight onto a much less-traveled trail that would take us over to Etiwanda.
Etiwanda isn't labeled on most trail maps, including the USGS quads, but it IS on the Sierra Club 100 Peaks list. It doesn't see much traffic. As we contoured around the ridgeline, we got to cross more small snowfields...snowfields that had NO tracks at all, so we knew that no one had been there at least since the last snowfall. We had a bit of uncertainty deciding which of the little bumps on the ridge was the peak, and got to do some steep x-c exploring to figure it out (it's not marked on the map, right?). The climbing register nestled in some craggy rocks gave it away. The last entry was 11/27/07. We added ours and spent a few moments looking about at the stark and fire-scarred landscape. A look over the ridge down into the valley lands to the east below showed that the fire had burned all the way up to this point, had probably burned over most of Cucamonga or at least around it and up the east side of Ontario/Big Horn.
We found the use trail going to the peak immediately, and tromped happily along the main trail until we lost it--easy to do when trails don't get used much. We kept walking through virgin snowfields and knew that we had not come this way before. We sought higher ground, and there it was...which we followed until we lost it on the backside of Cucamonga again. Except for no water it would have been an awesome place to camp...perhaps a winter "expedition" when there is snow to melt? We opted to just charge straight up onto the peak rather than try to find the trail, follow it all the way around the frontside and then take the fork back to the top. What I like about Cucamonga is that there are so many nice open sandy spots relatively protected from wind that you can stretch out in and relax before the descent. Chris started talking to a guy who had recently moved here from Kazakhstan while I made a sammich from my last bagel and some swiss cheese. After signing that register and taking some more pics, it was time to head down to the car.
The descent dropped us as quickly as it had pushed us up. Before we knew it we were at Icehouse Saddle and amazed to still find people coming up from below (it was about 2PM at this point). Around the 2 mile marker we caught up to these 2 high school kids who decided that they would rather descend in front of us than behind us, except that they weren't particularly faster than us, but not really slower either. The kid in the lead kept a fairly steady pace to keep away from us I think, but his buddy kept lagging, and Chris was having a lot of fun picking up the pace until the kid would hear footsteps behind him and start booking again, without ever looking back. It may sound stupid here, but it was pretty funny there, and I was laughing so hard I was afraid I was going to trip and fall.
It made the descent go all the more quickly, however. Soon we were at the cabins and after than we were spit out into a now pretty deserted parking lot. As always, it felt good to put on sandals and head for home. We'll see if it was good enough training for Snowmass or not...
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