Hike #4 of the “Original” Six Pack of Peaks Challenge today (6/13). Mount Baldy via Bear Canyon.

My original plan was to complete this hike yesterday (6/12) as a sunrise hike. However, my friends from the hiking group, “Friends that Hike” invited me to join them for the same hike meeting up at 4am this morning (6/13), instead. So, we all met up at Manker flat. Left a few vehicles there and drove the rest down to Baldy Village to begin our long, steep hike. We had a great group today, which included Julio Torres, Mira Reverente, Sonia, Jennifer Wyatt, Thomas, Jen Tea, Lone Hiker and last but not least the infamous Hiker Norm.

Once we were all prepped and ready to go we began the long, steep ascent from the trailhead just down from the Baldy Visitor Center. It was still dark, but the weather was perfect. In fact, a little warm for almost 5am. All but three of us had completed this route before so there were no surprises. Except the amount of people that were hiking this trail on a Sunday.

The route up is pretty straight forward and well maintained. Because of its simplistic nature, I only broke the route going up into three sections. First is a 1.8 mile trek from the trailhead to Bear Flat. This is a great place to take a break and have a quick snack. This first section had an elevation gain of right around 1,300 feet. Next we travelled from Bear Flat along the same trail until it met up with a small trace trail that actually leads back down a long spur above Cattle Canyon, and then up to Lookout Mountain. This section was by far the steepest section of the hike. It was about 2 miles with a whopping elevation gain of just over 2,800 feet. Section 3 took us from the Trace trail to the summit. About 2.7 miles and 1,800 feet in elevation gain.

As we approached the summit, 5 members of our group opted to take the trail up and tag West Baldy first. The other 4 (me included) continued on to the summit. The summit was pretty crowded when we arrived at about 11:30am. We found a spot and hung out waiting for the others to join back up from West Baldy. Eventually, we stood in line waiting to take a few photos of the group before heading back down via the Devil’s Backbone.

While waiting and watching others I noticed a familiar face and just had to introduce myself. Carol Holiday was at the summit with her group. We have followed each other’s hiking posts and summits for several months. Somehow, one day the topics of Ho’s came up in a conversation. Sorry, not what you’re thing. I’m YoHO, Carol is HOliday (yeah it’s pronounced HA, but we went with HO). There was a third HO in the conversation, I think, but I don’t recall who. We talked about the chances of two, let alone three, HO’s. Carol said, it would be a Ho, Ho, Ho Summit. Well, we didn’t get a Ho, Ho, Ho today, but we did get a Ho, Ho Summit. Thanks Ho for playing along. It was a pleasure to finally meet you.

We headed down from the summit just before 1pm. The same 5 hikers in our group went for the trifecta by heading up to Mount Harwood while the rest of us just followed the Backbone Trail down. We all met back up again near the Register Ridge Trail and continued down to the Notch. This was about a 2.75 mile descent. At the Notch, we had a quick bite to eat. They actually had a small menu to choose from with outdoor seating. I heard that earlier, during the pandemic, they only served box lunches, which weren’t very popular, even for hungry hikers. Today’s meal wasn’t too bad.

After eating we all continued down the dirt road back to Manker Flat. Except, Hiker Norm. He had a hot date, so he took the ski lift down. By this time it was getting pretty warm, probably somewhere in the upper 80’s, but it still wasn’t too bad heading down.

All in all, it was a great day. I got to hike with some awesome hikers and friends. First time hiking with Hiker Norm after finally meeting him at the summit of San G a few weeks ago. And, a bonus surprise, I got to meet the other Ho at the summit. By my recording for today, we hiked just under 13 miles (except those who did the Trifecta that most likely had a little more) and we gained close to 6,000 feet in elevation in about 6.5 miles on our ascent.