Our hike would take us up the Mt. Wilson trail to the Jones Peak connecting trail. Once up here, we would then take the ridge past Hastings Peak until we got to the Mt. Wilson Toll road. At the road we would head west until we got to the base of Harvard Ridge. We would then follow the ridge all the way up to Yale.

This was a mid August hike which means heat. At the start it was nice and overcast. The temperature here was nice and cool and I had made the mistake of thinking it would be the same all the way to Jones Peak at least. However, this overcast only lasted a quarter mile into our trek, and after that it was sun and heat all the way.

The Mt. Wilson trail has good gain associated with it. The ascent up to First Water really gives you a taste for what you’ve gotten yourself into. Follow the trail up until the T-junction where to the south it directs you into what looks to be a canyon. Follow this to head up to Jones Peak. This is another good ascent filled with switchbacks and some over grown shrubs. Note, if you get to Orchard Camp, then you’ve gone too far.

At the end of the junction start heading up. This ridge will take you past Hastings Peak and all the way to the Toll road.

From this point follow the road until it rounds the base of Yale. There’s a water tank east of the road and besides it is the remnants of an old trail.

Here is where the trail becomes over grown and bushwhacking becomes a must.

The fun thing about this trail also is that once you get past the bushwhacking, there’s some rock hopping up to the top. This adds to the excitement of it all. Oh yea, watch your step. The drop off is a hundred feet or two onto the Toll road.

Once at the top, there’s a register hidden among a pile of rocks. Also, you can seek refuge from the sun among some brushes towards the east end of the peak. But if you go north, there are some rocks that offer you a great place to sit and gives you great views of Mt. Harvard to the north all the way west towards the ocean. In my opinion, this is one of the best views from a front range peak in this part of the San Gabriels.

We made our way down the same way we came up along Harvard Ridge. However, just to lengthen the hike, we followed the road all the back to where it meets the Mt. Wilson Trail. This is the route we took back down to the cars.

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

1. Check out the snow level.
2. Get up to Wilson in 3.5 hours and be done with the entire hike in 7 hours.

We kept a quick pace throughout stopping very little for breaks. The normal stops that are normally taken weren’t. First Water, skipped. Orchard Camp, just a blur. Manzanita Ridge however we had to stop. It’s very tempting not to stop at a place with a bench. Also, some of us included myself needed some food in our stomach.

After a 15 minute stop, we headed out and made our way along the ridge to the Toll Road. This was quite a different site. Last week the entire road was covered with about 1-2 feet of snow all the way up to Mt. Wilson. Now hardly a foot left.

Walking along the road, a lot of it on the road had turned to ice which made walking at times a bit challenging. A good safety measure for us though was that the road was plowed so the side embankments had a nice 3 foot high mound separating us from the steep declines.

We got to the trail connecting the road and the trail leading up to the parking lot. This part was still decently covered in snow which was at times slightly iced over. The ice here though was mixed with some snow which gave some traction. We kept trudging along, and soon enough we reached the top and enjoyed the snow for a brief time before lunch.

Looking back now, I suppose I should have taken a shot of the actual view. I was just too preoccupied with snow and food to remember.

The way back down we decided to make a mini-loop of this hike. So we continued along the Mt. Wilson Toll Road to connect with the Hastings Peak ridge trail.

We took the connector trail down back to the Mt. Wilson Trail. From this point, some of us decided to jog the rest of the way down. We did pretty well and stopped briefly at First Water before taking the technical portion full on.

This day was a pleasure because we beat our goal by almost 30 minutes! 6.5 hours for the entire trip, and to the top, 3 hours 10 minutes. Fantastic day with great company and after hike food at Lucky Baldwin’s for some chicken pot pie and Guinness.