Baldy Trail Conditions

[Gregory]

I know this is a San Jacinto message board, but I thought some of you might be interested in knowing the conditions on Baldy. It's one of the hikes I'm doing to get ready for C2C and I couldn't find any trail condition information elsewhere on the web.

Last Saturday I hiked from Baldy Village to somewhere between 9,000 and 9,500 and around a mile from the peak before turning around. That was a bit over 5 miles at an average gain of 1,000/mile. I turned around when the snow became failrly continuous. Baldy is very steep and I didn't have any crampons, minispikes, show shoes or trekking poles, so it was feeling unsafe.

Today I took a different route, starting at Manker Flat and hiking up to the San Antonio Ski Hut before taking the ridge up to the top of Baldy Bowl. Baldy Bowl was almost completely snow free, but the trail on the ridge up to the top of Baldy Bowl is oriented toward the north so there was some snow there, but I never needed to put on crampons. Trekking poles did come in handy. Once on the main ridge to Baldy (actually Mt. San Antonio), the snow became fairly continuous at 9,400 feet. Although I had all the snow equipment this time, I was running out of time so I turned around. It looked to be an easy hike to the peak and I talked to two hikers who summited with no crampons or show shoes.

The bottom line: trekking poles are a must and crampons or minispikes should be taken as a precaution. For those of you who haven't done Baldy, it is a beautiful and strenuous hike. My sense is that the pitch of many of the trails are similar to Skyline.