I think I discovered Mt. Iron only few year ago, and ridge connecting Iron and Baldy is quite appealing when standing on Iron. According to route description it's 22,5 miles with 11,765 ft. elevation gain and some class 3 scrambling in the middle. To attempt it you need a preferably cold day, but not too short and Baldy should be snow free or with minimum amount of snow to avoid extra weight of snow gear. Another issue you need a car shuttle, 1 car must be at Baldy and second one you need to get to trail head at Bridge To Nowhere.
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| Night skies |
Haytham decided to join me, we dropped my car in the evening at Baldy and got a few hours of sleep at Bridge To Nowhere trail head. I decided to start at midnight, but looking back 2:00 AM would be better.
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| Sunrise |
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| Top of Iron Mt. |
I reached top of Iron Mt. at 6:00 AM, after 6 hours of hiking, not the best time for me, but not too bad either. Haytham decided to turn around at this point.
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| San Antonio Ridge |
There was nothing extraordinary in terms or scrambling, but progress was slow, as expected.
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| Looking back |
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| Gunsight Notch |
According to description Gunsight Notch was the tricky part, but with careful route finding no big deal, basically you have to stay always on the ridge. I tried to get around one time and it was miserable bush walking.
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| Baldy in the distance |
After probably half of the ridge terrain changes and rock scrambling yields to bush walking, but there is ok trail most of the time. I think I lost it only twice for 5-10 minutes, so not bad at all. It took me around 4 hours to finish the ridge.
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| Looking back at San Antonio Ridge |
The hardest part for me was final 2000 ft ascent to the Baldy. Trail was good, but legs was tired, luck of sleep also was a contributing factor.
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| Baldy summit |
Finally, at noon after 12 hours of hiking I reached Baldy summit.
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| Devil's backbone tail |
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| Taking lift down |
I rare take ski lift down here, but that time it was well spent money and my legs really appreciated that decision. 14 hours total hiking time. Definitely one the hardest trails in SoCal, probably harder than C2C and comparable to Mt. Whitney.
