A bit harder than the 11 peak SGW hike.

Final Stats:

26 miles, 8500 ft

Photos are geo-tagged
Click for more stats & gps files

Ok a lazy trip report. Last year we did 11 “peaks” of the San Gorgonio Wilderness in a very nice, hard hike out of Forest Falls. There were still 6 peaks left that would have added significant work and made a very long day ala Rick Kent. So the plan was to do another hike for those peaks, and that day was yesterday.

My initial plan was to start out of South Fork, but I thought that would just be way too many miles. Then I thought about Vivian Creek, but realized that would be probably 10,000 of gain. Finally I thought I could get away with a direct assault on Grinnell via it’s north ridge. This would keep the total elevation gain “low” (7500) and keep the miles ~ 20.

We got a permit for the Lost Creek trailhead although I wasn’t planning on really being on it. However, looking at the lower terrain (no pic), I didn’t think it would be fun or fast to go cross country at this altitude. Not that there was heavy brush, but there was enough to slow us down. So we opted to start on the Lost Creek trail, and then diverge onto Grinnell’s NW ridge instead of N. This worked out pretty well as we gained enough elevation on the trail to allow the vegetation to clear up before getting on the ridge.

And eventually it turns into a really nice forested area for about 2,000 ft till the top of Grinnell.

The problem is that the the ridge has some flat sections, and it curves around to Grinnell, and combined with some additional miles on the Lost Creek trail, we probably lost time compared to what I thought we could do on the north ridge (in theory).

From Grinnell, we dropped down to Fish Creek saddle, and then headed toward Mineshaft saddle and along the Sky High trail. It was nice being on trail for a bit following the x-country up Grinnell. We dropped down to the Tarn and headed up the steep face of Bighorn Mtn.

Bighorn was a tough climb with scree, but Dragons Head was a bit easier but definitely a cooler and more imposing peak. There is a use trail up the NE side looking down all the steep, crumbly rock to the SE.

At this point, we were probably about halfway but had already been out about 6 hours. I thought we could get it done in 10 hours – I don’t know what I was thinking! We headed back up to the Sky High trail and back to Mineshaft saddle. We did a quick jaunt up Zahniser, then back down and over to Lake Peak.

Lake has a nice little summit with good views to the W and NW.

We headed off east to Ten Thousand Foot ridge. 2 guys took a break from the peakbagging and we would meet up with them back on our descent. It seemed I wasn’t picking a great route as we were continuously climbing over fallen trees and scrambling over rocks. It took longer than expected to reach the 10 K ridge high point, but were rewarded with great views.

We headed back to Fish Creek saddle x-country, yet more slow going. Finally we made it but had yet another 500 ft climb up to Grinnell, but at least there was a use trail.

The way back down seemed never ending; even though it was a ridge it seemed we weren’t losing elevation that quickly. Finally, around 7:30 (we started at 6:30), we hit the Lost Creek trail and took that back as it got dark out.

We finished with a whopping 26 miles, and 8500 ft gain, and a lot of cross-country. It was one of my worst underestimations, partly because of the changed route. Everyone talks about the “9-peak challenge”, but I think this hike was even more of a challenge.

I’m still not sure on what the optimal route on bagging these peaks would be. Perhaps using the south fork trail, or Grinnell’s north ridge. Well actually Fish Creek trailhead could be the best, but with the long drive and dirt road I wasn’t considering that.

It is cool that all these peaks really were different, even being in the same area. Different terrains, different trees, different views. A great time overall.

Final Stats:

21 miles, 8600 ft

That was not easy!

Meetup link here

GPS track here

KML Google Earth file

Gorgonio 11 Peak Loop at EveryTrail

Well this was a good one. Another ideal day for such a strenuous hike, we started out on the Vivian Creek trail at 5:45 am with very cool weather. We continued up 1.5 miles until the trail meets with the creek, and almost immediately we looked for a spot to cross the creek and climb up to the ridge that would head up to Dobbs Peak.

The addition of Dobbs (and East Dobbs, a ‘peak’ per Rick Kent) by this ridge route allowed us to add 2 peaks to the 9 peak loop classic. I read some descriptions of this route previously and thought it would be a good, shorter alternative to the Vivian Creek trail, and I think it was. It was definitely steep, covering 3300 ft in 2.2 miles. A few spots at the lower end were steep enough to use hands to scramble up

After hitting Dobbs and East Dobbs, we climbed north up a steep slope intesecting the San Bernandino Divide trail, and followed this relatively flat trail all the way to San Gorgonio. On the way back, we veered off trail and ascended Jepson Peak.

From Jepson, you have to descend to a saddle between it and Little Charlton Peak. We decided to drop down the northwest side, where we found a nice sandy scree gully that really made the steep descent easy on the legs. We followed the maintained trail for just a few minutes before veering off and following the ridge over Little Charlton and Charlton peaks.

Our route up to this point was free of going down any rough terrain. Not so on descending Charlton to Dollar Lake saddle. It is very steep and rocky, slowing and spreading us out quite a bit. While still tough, I would have prefered to ascend than descend this.

At Dollar Lake saddle, John and Joseph A took the Momyer/Alger trail back to Momyer trailhead, while the other 7 of us continued on. While the worst was over, we had to move pretty quickly to finish the hike in a reasonable time. Of course at this point people were starting to tire out a little bit; many had never been as high as San Gorgonio nor stayed hiking above 10000′ for as long as we did for this hike. But at least for this portion of the hike we were following much more maintained trail with smaller detours off trail to climb 200-300′ to each peak.

Alto Diablo is but a small 30′ climb off the trail. Shields Peak is certainly the most time consuming of the bunch. It is almost entirely made of rocks, making for a nice climb up but slower climb down.

Once back on the trail we continued on up and down Anderson Peak. Here, the old Momyer trail starts. Being ~ 3:40 pm and still the hike down, 4/7 decided to descend here, leaving Winston, Mike T, and I. I didn’t really want to get down after 7 so I sent quite a fast pace as we quickly ascended San Bernadino East and San Bernardino peaks by 4:15. Our 11th peak!

Coming back, we certainly did not want to hike all the way back to the old Momyer trail start; fortunately Tim sent me his gpx file with a nice shortcut that we could descend cross-country to meet up with the trail. We started the shortcut even a little bit earlier from the trail, but this worked pretty well as we interesected the old Momyer trail right at a switch back turn 700′ below.

The rest was a fast paced descent. The old Momyer trail has a decent amount of brush hovering the trail at the upper end. We cut off some of this and just endured other parts as it was mostly low lying and not a problem with pants. There were a bunch of fallen trees, especially in one area, but this is preferred over brush! We actually ended up catching up with the other 4 toward the end, making it down at ~ 6:30 pm. With a quick car shuttle, we were done.

We then went to a sufficient, but somewhat crappy restaurant in Mentone. I need to pay attention to restaurant planning next time!

To label a hike as ‘hardcore’ must not be done carelessly, but I’d say it would fit considering the goals of this dayhike.

The plan, simply, is to hike as many of the peaks as possible in the San Gorgonio Wilderness. It’s not actually that crazy, as many others have done it before. The ‘classic’ way requires about 26 miles, 8000 ft gain to hike 9 peaks. I have tentatively fined tuned some paths so that we have the following options.

10 peaks: 22 miles, 8500 ft gain.

13 peaks: 28 miles, 10000 ft gain.

The minimal route will be similar to this trip report. Please read.

Only the very fit will be allowed on, and the permit only holds 12. I don’t expect everyone to do all 13 peaks, but based on the route we will take, those that end up doing a few less will still take the normal route just without a few side trips.

More information to follow.

Map of the tentative route for 10 peaks. The other 3 peaks are on the right side, including San Gorgonio.

Gorgonio 10 Peaks + Plan at EveryTrail