He headed out late Friday night, seemingly camping on the summit of East Twin before attempting the route Saturday. He did not return Saturday night, so he must have hunkered down two nights before getting rescued. It seems he was well prepared and made the right decision to stay put when the weather turned worse. And based on the video he agrees that Triplet Ridge is BRUTAL. And you shouldn’t hike / climb this alone.

Scott, if you happen to read this blog, please leave a comment or contact me. (ze dot apelido at gmail). I’d love to get some more info, if you would be willing to share it.

The least accessible peak, and possibly the toughest route in the San Gabriels.

16 miles, 7500 ft gain

Triplet Rocks, have you heard of this name? If you’re well-versed in unique places / hikes in the San Gabriels, you probably have. Otherwise, this peak with no name on a topo map might not mean anything to you. But it should.

When I first began hiking and picked up hiking books by John Robinson and Jerry Schad, it was stated that Iron Mt was the least accessible peak in the San Gabriels. And the San Antonio ridge was the toughest cross-country hike. All is good until you fall upon Sierra Club trip reports of other routes. For instance, the southwest, northwest, and north ridges of Iron Mt have been done and are more difficult than the better known “popular” routes.

Then, one falls upon a peculiar trip report about Twin Peaks. The definitive local death march is Triplet Rocks.. Eh, what’s that? If you stay just on the summit of the East Twin, then you wouldn’t notice them. But if you walk down 100 ft east, you get a view of these 3 huge boulders perched up 3 miles away via an undulating, treacherous-looking ridge. I had noticed this ridge while driving on the ACH near Islip saddle and also on a hike on Pleasant View ridge 2 years ago, but had not known what it is – the most brutal ridge and peak to reach in the San Gabriels. And based on my attempts, I would have to strongly agree.

Click on balloons for geo-tagged photos
Click for more stats & gps files

My first attempt happened on a whim in June 2009, and it ended up unsuccessful. I was somewhat upset, but figured another opportunity would come in the fall when it cooled down again. Then the Station Fire changed that. Gradually the desire to get to those rocks grew until I lost all patience and had to try again.

We had 5 people total attempt this time and started at 4:30 am. We figured we could do the 2 hr trek to the East Twin on trail in the dark and start down the ridge just as it was getting light out. Sadly, while descending toward Twin Peaks saddle, we missed the trail intersection and started heading toward Three Points! Then we ended up headed down cross-country, something I really didn’t want more of and especially in the dark. Ugh. Turns out the sign at the trail junction has been set aside next to a tree so we totally missed it.

Aside from that little extra fun, we made it to East Twin with little issue. A little behind time-wise, but still okay. Then, we began our trek down the ridge.

The first part of the ridge is not “terrible”, but just gets increasingly worse as you go. Soon you are bouldering, and it gets steeper, looser, and more brushy.

Just a bit before the “halfway point” of 6834′, is a short downclimb on solid rock:

There are no breaks on this ridge. You are either 1) scrambling / climbing rocks 2) negotiating steep & loose dirt on the side of the ridge or 3) fighting through brush. It’s like that the entire way.

As we moved along, I noticed our collective pace wasn’t as good as it was last time. Frankly, it wasn’t going to cut it. We didn’t know how long it would take to go from 6834′ to Triplet Rocks – definitely a few hours to put the total time at ~ 6.5 hours. And since it would take longer on the way back, we’d start making the day really long if it took even longer to get there. Selfishly, I began waiting less and continuing on more. I figured I could “direct” if I saw a good path and such, but really up to the bump at 6300′ there are multiple ways to go. Sometimes you stay on the ridge, sometimes you have to drop down on one side, sometimes you have a choice.

I downclimbed a tough part right at 6300′ and looked again and realized I’d reach the class 5 stuff and should find the gully to the south. I found a small slot with a tree in it that connected with the main gully. I used the tree as leverage to drop down.

View right before dropping down:

The gully:

There was definite brush in the gully, but I guess I was prepared with long sleeves and gloves, and have had considerable “brush skills” developed from previous hikes. This gully, as in other places on the ridge, requires you to not only get around / through the brush, but use the brush as leverage when climbing down or up. Or climbing over the brush. I like to call it all “brush climbing”.

Once I got down the gully, I could see I was getting closer

As you can see, there are multiple ridge spurs that you have to cross before getting to the base of the final climb up to Triplet. A little prior Google Earth recon helped a lot here – instead of trying to climb back up to the ridge, I traversed across to hit points on the spurs that were more easily passable (either by rock or brush).

It was starting to look good

Looking back at the gully, I saw David stating just to the right of the start of the gully, in the same place where I was before dropping down. I shouted and pointed for him to go down the gully (it’s really the only possible way), but I think he was waiting for the others to catch up before heading down. I waited for a bit, then decided to continue on.

Finally, I reached a saddle which offered cool views and began the final, nice climb up to Triplet.

From this saddle I climbed up and followed the ridgeline until I reach those illusive rocks.

A short friction move brought me to the top. Finally!

Great views from the top. Definitely a unique place. Lots of big boulders and pine trees too. Odd juxtaposition given the brush not too far away.

At this point, the others were at the top of the gully. David had started down, but turned around while the others were not up for trying. Frankly, it would have taken too much time, adding on at least 2 more hours to the day. I feel somewhat selfish for moving ahead, but I’m not sure any of us would have made it had I stayed back. They turned around then I started heading back – realizing that even more work was needed for the return.

Oh, and this hike makes you work. I was breathing a lot more than I normally would be when doing “downhill”. As soon as I started climbing back up the gully, I was feeling really zapped. Even my arms were getting tired! Not only is this ridge a lot more elevation gain / loss than predicted (because you are going up and down a lot more than a topo shows), so much is little bursts of movement – climbing moves, brush moves, scree slopes. I might have been more fatigued then than anytime before, maybe even more than Snow Creek.

I eventually met back up with the group and we headed back up slowly. We all took more time, especially on the rock scrambling sections. The climbing around 6834′ was pretty annoying – there may be a way to avoid it so I’d try to look for that route if you ever go.

We finally got back to East Twin and then were basically home free. Took 15 hours total. And for a lot of people its going to take more than that. What a day.

Right now, I can’t imagine a harder route. There’s no ridge traverse of 3 miles of pure brutality that you have to do twice! You have to have climbing, brush, and steep slope skills to pull it off. Not to mention conditioning. But the result is making it to a very cool place that few have gone. In fact, I was the first entry since LD placed a register on top over two years ago.

To me, this hike defines the San Gabriels. It starts you in one of the coolest areas – Buckhorn / Waterman / Twin Peaks, and takes you on a ride through the climbing, brush, and steepness that defines this mountain range. I think its the crown jewel. But I’m also a little masochistic.

For those who explored the San Gabriels, most would agree that this area might be the most splendid in the range. I am hugely dismayed.

Final Stats:

15 miles, 7200 ft

Those darn rocks!

Meetup link here

GPS track here

KML Google Earth file

Halfway to Triplet at EveryTrail

Ok I’m feeling pretty lazy, so this might be short. I planned on taking it easy this weekend, but the unusually cool weather offered to great of an opportunity to do something big, and so on a whim at the end of last week Mike, Lee, and I decided to take on Triplet Rocks.

I didn’t do much planning other than read the previous TR’s and mark a few waypoints. A little Google Earth analysis would have been nice!

Anywho, we started from Buckhorn at 5:30 am. Made good time up to the East Twin, arriving at 7:30. Then we headed down the famed SE ridge. We basically stayed on the NE side of the ridge for most of this part, which provide to work pretty well. The terrain is of course pretty rocky and loose; there were many occasions of walking across steep loose slopes, but I actually don’t mind this stuff and tend to do well on it.

On this part (until 6800) there’s some interesting little moves, just as a short 5′ downclimb with a drop to the left and a yucca to the right, leaving little room for error. Then there’s the 20′ rock mention in Erik Siering’s report, which can cause some trouble but is doable from a few angles.

We were making great time, arriving just before the 6800 bump around 8:30. Up to this point, we had clear views of our destination. Suddenly the clouds rose and lowered the visibility to perhaps 100 – 200 ft. Right at the bump, I went down the NE side just a bit, perhaps 100 ft, before realizing that I was off on a spur and not the proper route. This would have simply required a climb back up or across, but we stopped and talked about our “options”.

I quote that word, because, in hindsight it’s quite amusing that we started discussing different route possibilities on an already off-trail adventure on perhaps the hardest to get to point in these mountains! With only 2 TR we knew of talking about one way, and for some reason we started thinking, ‘hell let’s just take this gully down and see what happens’ !!!

And we did. I know don’t why, perhaps some combination of over-confidence, laziness, lack of vision of the target…but we knew where we were. I think it was just, we really DO have a sense of adventure!

So we started heading down this rocky gully, sort of like Falling Rock canyon, although it seemed worse. We would go down and perhaps try to cross over a bit, but there were a lot of cliffed out sections. Our basic idea was that we would go down far enough to avoid the cliffed out sections, traverse SE, and climb up to the saddle just before the final climb to Triplet Rocks.

Well, down about 1400 ft, and it was still cliffed out. At this point, we just were resigned to turn around. I think we were all a bit off that day. It was weird because 1.5 hrs before, we were making great time, and now, it was over! So we turned around and went back up the gully, which was a very strenuous climb. A mix of big rocks, medium size rocks, and scree. Back up to where we diverged from the original plan, and we headed back to the East Twin.

Having ascended over 6000′, we got back to the Twin at ~ 1:30. We crossed over to the West Twin, then headed back to Buckhorn.

So, we still have some to do for next time Up to point 6800′, I enjoyed the ridge, and have no problems heading back there for more. Certainly, the worst is to come in the famed brush-filled gully past 6300′, but I think after Bighorn Ridge we are prepared for it.

Mike was repeatedly stating he thought we could get to Triplet from Buckhorn in 5 hours, which I thought was quite off. However, for the part we did, we were faster than I thought. I think a good 12 hrs will get this done.

On another cool, long day.

Final Stats:

Gain: 5000 ft (4200 ft if out-and-back to Twin Peaks)
Distance: 14 miles

One of my favorite hiking areas, but from a different trail.

GPS track here

KML Google Earth file

Three Points to Twin Peaks, Waterman Mt at EveryTrail

With the Saturday hike cancelled, had to come up with something nice on Sunday. Well, it doesn’t get much nicer than the Waterman / Twin Peaks area of the San Gabriels.

I had previously hiked the two mountains from Buckhorn, but never got around to using the trail from Three Points, so we decided to do that. I was surprised that the HPS description said that this out and back would be over 5100′ of elevation gain. I wasn’t sure it would be that much, but knew it would be a good hike.

We set out from Three Points, briefly following the PCT before staying right at a fork where the PCT goes left. We followed the trail as it wrapped around the curves of the southern face of Waterman Mt. The views are very nice on this trail, but I especially enjoyed the large boulder sprawled out at random locations along the way. The trail has a reasonble grade, gaining perhaps 1600 ft over 5 miles.

We intersected the trail heading down from Buckhorn, and descended down to Twin Peaks saddle. Soon I was reminded of the calf-burning steepness of this ascent. Perhaps 1/2 of the way up, we came across a patch of snow. We crossed a few more snowfields on the ascent, but all of them were soft and could easily be avoidable if needed.

We got up to the East Twin for lunch. It is worth descending from the summit maybe 100 ft east to a nice pyramidal rock which gives expansive views to the south and east.

Afterward, we headed back down. One hiker (Lee) had not summited Waterman before, so I went with him and the other two headed back the same way we came.

We followed the trail up to Buckhorn for maybe 1/2 mile past the Three Points trail junction and then just ascended cross country, generally aimed at the peak. The terrain of this area is very forgiving and makes such ascents very enjoyable and easy. We made the peak and checked out the views from various boulders.

A guy came hiking up that I realized was a ranger. Then I realized he was the same ranger I had an altercation with before! Well he didn’t recognize me and we said our hellos, luckily nothing more than that.

Lee and I then descended the west ridge of Waterman. It is steep in a few spots, but pretty reasonable overall. Lots more nice landscape and cool boulders. After 3 miles we hit the Three Points trail and soon after were back at the car. A very nice hike.

For the way I went, it was about 14 miles and 5000′ gain. For the normal out and back route, it was about the same mileage but 4200′ gain.

Videos

Raven hanging out, me making weird noises

some rocks

birds whistling, if you can hear it

KML Google Earth file

Waterman Mountain & Twin Peaks at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging