This route follows the Ski Hut Trail as far as the ski hut. But instead of crossing San Antonio Creek and continuing on the trail, the route heads straight up the creek. After a few hundred vertical feet of rock hopping up the creek, steep terrain forces you onto the ridge on climber's left. This is where things get interesting and a little dicey. For roughly two hundred vertical feet, you must grovel straight up sand and loose scree until it becomes hard, steep dirt. The final fifty feet is delicate, third class dirt climbing with the possibility of a nasty slide or tumble. After making the final stressful moves off the dirt and into the brush above, you're home free. Then it's just a few hundred more vertical feet of intermittent brush and loose sand/scree to the Devil's Backbone Trail.
Unexpected company on the way up the Ski Hut Trail
The start of the route up San Antonio Creek from the ski hut
Kurt
Wedberg and his fellow Everest summiteers from 2012. I told them that
climbing Everest was great training for Mt. Baldy. They agreed.
Unexpected company on the way down the Ski Hut Trail
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