My plan is to take the ridge to the west of Bailey Canyon up. That’s it. Here’s my intended path:

The gain is about 2850′ in only 2 miles! That’s some pretty serious gain. But the only thing that concerns me though is the steep incline right before the one mile mark. Not sure of what kind of terrain this is going to be either. This part looks like a loose scramble up. But we’ll see.

Gain: 5300 ft
Distance: 12.5 miles
Uphill: 913 ft/mile
Downhill: 790 ft/mile
Moving Time: 4hr 30min

My photos here

Some time constraints led me to do a solo hike. I have wanted to checkout the southeast ridge of Jones Peak for a while, so today was a good day to try. And I decided to make a nice figure 8 loop out of it.

GPS track here

KML Google Earth file

Jones Peak via SE ridge to Mt Wilson Trail at EveryTrail

I parked in the Bailey Canyon parking area, and walked along Carter to the Old Mt Wilson trailhead 0.7 miles away. As usual, I could see the trail would be crowded

One can see the effect of the fire from last summer on vegetation:

Up about 500 ft, I found the place to gain the ridge. You can tell which ridge to take by passing up a few until you get to a ridge that also continues down across the other side of the trail. Immediately, the ascent was steep.

There is some sort of use trail, but it is definitely not well used. I followed it off an on. The ascent is very steep in general, gaining about 1800 ft in just under a mile. There is one portion of 100 ft or so, near the bottom, that definitely requires the use of hands to ascend.

The burnt chaparral left me me black streaks all over, but the brush was nary a nuisance.

Getting up the ridge was hard work!

I continued on to Hastings Peak (which needs a new flag) and beyond up to the Mt Wilson Toll road.

A nice entrance to the toll road:

Some work had been done on the road:

I reached the junction with the Winter Spring / Wilson trail, and headed down to Manzanita Ridge for a break, after 4200 ft of ascent. When I arrive there were a few Chinese guys that offered me a hard boiled egg. Always a delight!

I continued down the Old Mt Wilson trail, being bypassed by some runners

The trail is in good condition as usual.

Then, for some more abuse, I took Hiker Bob’s connecter trail back up toward Jones Peak saddle. The trail is getting in better shape than I remembered

To complete the figure 8, I headed down the Bailey Canyon trail. I saw about 10 hikers or so on this part of trail, in a bunch of groups. Pretty busy day.

Now I’m looking to explore the adjacent ridge which meets up at Hastings Peak

WTF 1

and 2

I had on a new pair of Vasque GTX shoes, worked pretty well for a first go around