Another 0330 wakeup and out the door by o350.  Drive was not too bad, but why are so many people up right now?  Anyhow, I arrived and started up the short dirt road to the trailhead.  Arriving around 0530 there were already 8 cars in parking lot.  Make sure you are paying attention coming up the dirt road as the rocks can bite you.  I did not know how gnarly the one section was until I drove down in the daylight.

So I got my pack on, and started with a light tshirt, merino wool shirt and my long sleeve synthetic button up hiking shirt.  The wool was off in one mile.  I have always believed in starting the hike just slightly chilly and today I opted to not follow this.  So I got to stop early.  I could hear a group up ahead and finally caught up and passed a large      group of 10 or 12 hikers heading up.  The weather was perfect and a slight breeze kept the bugs at bay and also made the temperature perfect.  As the trail flattened out around mile 2.5 you start walking in a path cut through manzanita and whitethorn which was when I started encountering the spiderwebs.  Being the first hiker in the morning up many trails this is always interesting.  After having multiple web facials I just held my trekking pole in front of me.  This helped a lot but man were there a ton of this little webs that morning.  No gnats flies or mosquitos so I will take the webs any time.  I reached the peak in about 0930 so it was around 3 hour 45 minutes total  with a break at Lupine and a break to take off the shirt.  I think my actual moving pace was around 2.5 mph average so I am getting to where I want to be pace wise.

The peak had awesome views of Big Bear Lake San Gorgonio San Jacinto Mill Creek and of course the whole Inland Empire.  I stayed around 30 minutes for a short yoga/shivasana nap.  I then went back going via the ridge to the Washington Monument.   This was another interesting stop and you could clearly see the empty slide lake and Baseline Avenue all the way out to probably the 57.  I then headed to the bench lookout and chilled for a while and headed down.  I started slowly encountering members of the group I had encountered earlier and cheered them on and gave mileage/time left reports to each group I passed.  Interestingly, my downhill time was only 45 minutes less than the up time and I think this is due to trying to keep my rebuilt knee from too much additional wear and tear.

The bugs had come out on my way down and became more persistent the lower I got and were getting to be annoying by the bottom and I ended up with a few mosquito bites.

Overall a great hike and I will probably do it again and camp at Lupine and head to San Gorgonio from this route.