We started our hike from Manker Flats up to Baldy Notch trail at 6:45am in very ideal weather for hiking, chilly and a bit of sun. This was my first time taking this route up and it was definitely more challenging then via ski hut trail. From the notch up to Devil's backbone was grueling and seemed like never ending. We took a snack break midway up Devil's backbones to re-energize ourselves. Afterwards, we continued our difficult ascend up to Mt. Baldy's peak. It was a super crowded day. We had lunch while taking in the breathtaking views. We posed for some photos and then started our descend at noon. We started down the Ski Hut trail and almost all of us landed on our bottoms at one point or another as the trail was very steep with lots of loose gravel. We took a little break at the sky hut and continued down to the manker flats. We did the loop hike to Mt. Baldy and clocked in at 11.5 miles round trip. We got to our cars at 3pm. It was another great accomplishment!