O.k., so it’s not exactly bikes, burritos or beer, but our recent pilgrimage to Mt. Baden-Powell in the San Gabriel Mountains did involve Fosters oil cans and burritos at Los Toros in Chatsworth so I think it qualifies. And in any event, after a four-month hiatus from riding brought on by a shattered right scapula, I need to post something as this blog is well past its stale-date and has become too beer centric.If you don’t count Mt. Harwood (which is considered by some to be a pimple on Mt. Baldy), Mt. Baden-Powell (9,399 feet) is the fourth highest peak in the San Gabriel range. The mountain is named for Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, and there is a monument to his honor at the peak’s summit. It sits just northwest of Mt. Baldy and just southwest of Wrightwood.
To get to Baden-Powell, we had to take the back way: up the 14 to Palmdale, across the Pearblossom Highway, through several weird little communities populated by desert rats, free thinkers, dropouts, fruit stands, Hungarian sausage houses, Mexican restaurants with hand-painted signs, and assorted shops hawking high desert kitch and items with which to pay homage to the wind, over the Pearblossom whoop-de-doos, through the village of Wrightwood and finally up over Inspiration Point to the Vincent Gap parking area. Ordinarily, we would have followed the Angeles Crest Highway east for 53 winding miles out of La Canada, but it is closed for at least another season from Islip Saddle to Vincent Gap due to slides.
It was a clear and warm June morning, and when we arrived at the trailhead around 11:00 a.m., the parking lot was already a hive of activity. Apparently, there was still a tongue of boardable snow a few miles up Highway 2 past the road closure gate a Vincent Gap, and a bunch of young bucks had gathered to take advantage before the remnants winter disappeared for good. As we prepared for our ascent, several of them strapped their boards on their backs, bi-passed the trailhead, and took off up the pavement. Others, who were either more creative, prepared, or lazy, jumped on their motorized scooters and zipped up the road.
The trail to the summit of Baden-Powell climbs immediately out of Vincent Gap at a fairly sustained rate of about 700 feet per mile. The gain really is not too bad, however, because the path switches back and forth across the north-facing forested slope of the mountain about 40 times. The stunning visuals, cool alpine air, and sharp pine aroma further blunt the impact of the vertical rise.
Not surprisingly, the trail was in heavy use that day. Although we’re all old guys, we passed several groups of hikers on our trek up. We also encountered a few stubborn patches of snow at the higher elevations. At the ridge just below the summit, at the junction where the Pacific Crest Trail continues its westward trajectory along the northern bench of the San Gabriels, we overtook a middle aged hippie in purple pants and a good sized pack on his back. He was so exhausted from the switch-backs that he literally collapsed from exhaustion. Smoking too much dope I suppose will do that to a guy. He told us he was soloing the Pacific Crest Trail and that he had started from the Mexican border several months earlier. Given the difficulty he was experiencing on the Baden-Powell ascent, and the relatively short distance he had covered in the 2-3 month time period he had been on the trail, I have my doubts about his ability to reach British Columbia this season. But props to the guy for trying.
The summit of Baden-Powell is fairly bare, save for a few Limber Pines that grow in the area. It offers fine vistas of the Mojave Desert to the north, the north slope of Mt. Baldy to the east, the Los Angeles basin to the south and the San Gabriel range (including Mt. Wilson) to the west. We found an isolated spot away from the hiking throngs to take in the moment and enjoy some food before retreating to the Vincent Gap parking area where a cooler of iced Fosters oil cans were lonely for our company.
