Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Cucamonga Peak

 
This Saturday, I decided it was time to start knocking off running to the summit of each of what is known as the six-pack of peaks in Southern California. They are: Mt. Wilson at 5,712,  Cucamonga Peak at 8,859, Mt. Baldy at 10,068, San Bernardino Peak at 10,649, San Jacinto Peak at 10,834, and San Gorgonio at 11,503.
I met up with a group of fouor other runners at 6:30 am on Saturday to run Cucamonga Peak. The morning started crisp and clear and we had plans to actually try to do two peaks by including Ontario Peak, the smaller sister to Cucamonga Peak. With the warm weather in Southern California recently, we didn't see snow/ice until near Icehouse Saddle at close to 7,000 feet. Once past Icehouse Saddle, the snow cover was very icy. It took us longer than expected to reach the summit due to the slippery conditions. Even with Yaktrax and spikes, each foot step had to be carefully placed. Once at the summit, there was no snow at all due to the exposure of all day sun. The winds here can get very strong too, but for us, it was nice and calm. The views were awesome and we spent a little time taking it all in. We determined that trying to hit Ontario Peak would be too much for the day since the ice was making it very slow going, so we just decided to head back down. The decent was fairly safe, I only ended up on my rump once and slid a few feet like I was on a sled. Total run was 16 miles with 6,100 total vertical feet round trip. This was a great trip with great people and I'm looking forward to hitting the other peaks in the coming weeks.