Final Stats:

14.8 miles, 5600 ft

GPS track here

KML Google Earth file

Cucamonga, Etiwanda, & Bighorn Peaks at EveryTrail

At a relatively last minute, I decided to join up with a hike scheduled in KathyW’s hiking group that was headed up Cucamonga, Bighorn, and Ontario Peaks. I wanted to hike to Etiwanda as well since I hadn’t done it before. Eric (edenoch) was game.

We started out with the rest of the group at 7:30 from Icehouse Canyon trailhead. The lot was already full, leaving people to park elsewhere. Then comes Taco walking up the road with his climbing gear. We start hiking up the trail and meet another SGMDF guy (sorry I can’t remember your sn!). Eventually Taco veers off to go do some climbing. After hitting Icehouse saddle, Eric and I go ahead as we wanted to add Etiwanda and hopefully then catch up with the group on the way down Cucamonga.

We made good time and reached Cucamonga first, then descended down the east side following a use trail that links up with a maintained trail a few hundred feet below. We followed this for a mile at most, and then veered off to the right for a 300 ft climb to the summit of Etiwanda.

The views inland were hazed over (and I took crappy photos in general). We noticed the extensive burn on the southern slopes, I wonder when that fire occured. But in general, Etiwanda does have some worthy views.

We headed back, but I decided to go back up Cucamonga to see if the group was there (and add elevation gain), but they had already left. We continued down the trail to the Cucamonga-Bighorn saddle, where we saw the group starting the ascent up the ridge to Bighorn.

The SE ridge up to Bighorn Peak is a very nice, steep climb. At somepoint I must have put my hand on a sharp rock, b/c a few minutes later I noticed that my hand is covered in blood and I had a nice laceration across the palm. Weird. It wasn’t bad at all really at least.

We were fine with being done after Bighorn, and descended cross-country to the Ontario Peak trail, then back to Icehouse Saddle. From there, it was a nice 3.5 mile hike back to the cars.

Eric seeing that cutting swithbacks is bad!