Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Mt Baldy Village Trail

We are looking to do one more so.cal. hike before
White Mtn next weekend and then our day hike on
Whitney on the 30th. I know some of you have posted about the Village Trail. Its 12 miles
with 6000 vertical to the summitt. What is the condition of the trail, how much is shaded vs.
exposed, and is there any water to filter or do
you need to carry all you will need? It does not
seem to be that popular a route so its difficult
obtaining good information!
Thanks,
Charlie

For an extensive, recent discussion about this trail, go to this site:

http://www.mt-whitney.info/viewtopic.php?t=1387

The only water on the trail is at Bear Flat, about 1/4 of the way up to the summit. Then next couple of miles past Bear Flat are exposed (little shade). After that, there are trees that provide some shade.
It's usually best to leave early to beat the heat.

If you have 2 cars for a shuttle, consider going down from the summit via Devil's Backbone trail to Baldy Notch (water there) if you want to save wear and tear on the knee's. You can even take the chairlift down from there for $8.00 (it runs on Saturday & Sunday). You will need to have your 2nd car there unless you want to walk 4+ miles down the paved road to where you started.

If you decide to go back down via the village trail, you'll need to carry water for about 8-9 miles after Bear Flat.
Remember that you will probably need a forest adventure pass for parking.
It's a great hike. Enjoy!

I climbed Mt. Baldy via the Baldy Bowl/Ski Hut Trail (from Manker Flat) yesterday.

Temps were very warm. The Village trail, which starts some 2000' lower, would be significantly hotter.

If you really want to do this hike, start early, take lots of water, and don't forget salty foods to snack on.

Andy

SierraDescents.com

I just returned from the Village Trail an hour ago. I have hiked this trail numerous times, this was the 3rd time this year alone. It has a decent slop which makes for a good workout; much steeper than most of Vivian Trail to San Gorgonio.

The trail is in very good condition and easy to follow.

Except for the first part to Bear Flat there is not really that much shade. I usually start around 5am on this trail to avoid the heat. On my way down I occasionally meet hikers that started around 7 or 8. They invariably complain about the heat.

The last water at Bear Flat is so close to the trailhead that I suggest to carry some extra water rather than a filter. I always carry a full 3L (100oz) Camelbak and I never ran out of water.

This trail is not very much frequented on weekdays, so watch out, you may run into rattlesnakes. It happened to me on two 2 of 3 trips this year, both of which were midweek.

I like this trail because it is relatively easy to get there. It is a much shorter drive than to any of the trailheads on San Gorgonio or even San Jacinto, for most Southern Californians anyways.

I hiked this trail last weekend. I hike to Mt. Baldy frequently, I've hiked this trail 3 times in the last 6 weeks.

It is hot you should start early.

You should bring all your water.

The trail is easy to follow.

Don't park in the visitor center, park outside the center. The parking lot gates are locked around 4:00ish.

Mt Baldy is an excellent training hike for Whitney although it is a little short.

Have fun!

For those who have done this hike recently, have they got back the manzanita from the trail? This occurs about 1.5 miles into the hike when you start the short switchbacks? In late May I did the hike and the trail was very overgrown. Thanks.

I usually do this hike each year as one of my conditioning hikes for Whitney, but this year I tried a new variation that I think is even better. I hiked from Manker Flats to the summit, and then on to Pine Mountain and Dawson Peak. You have more high altitude travel and get to climb Baldy twice, which could either be attractive or miserable depending on the state of your conditioning progress. You will meet few if any hikers on the north side of Baldy, and that section of the “Other Backbone Trail” is no worse than the last portion of the trail up Baldy from the ski lift. There are snow banks in June, but easy to bypass on adjacent cross country terrain. Next year I will try to do this again with an earlier start so I can throw West Baldy and Harwood into the list and have a “Five Summits” day hike (the five highest peaks in the San Gabriels).

I finally did Bear Flats again last Sunday. I am primarily an afternoon and evening hiker rather than a morning hiker, and I started at noon, the weather was about 6 degrees cooler than normal, and it was quite a nice workout with enough time to make the summit and down by sunset. I think the heat factor is overrated for this hike, I have done it many times over the last 2 decades in mid-summer starting at 11:00, and the only problem I ever had was a ferocious thunderstorm on one of those. I normally treat the first 3 hours of this hike as a fitness test, ascending as steady as I reasonably can. I slow down a bit for the warm stretch but still keep a good steady pace. Once you get to 7000 feet the route is about 50-60% shaded to the summit and there are some breezes. Iron Mountain is much harder as it is a desert regime for almost the entire route, and I took a gallon with me during a May ascent and still had to conserve. I wouldn’t try that one in summer.

Just like altitude, heat and cold require acclimatization, and it’s also a matter of wearing the right clothes. On weekdays I walk about 3 miles on my breaks and lunches and going to and from the bus stop, even on the hottest days, and then I take the non-air conditioned stairs to my 8th floor office. During two decades of living in the East San Fernando Valley and Glendale I have never had air conditioning at home. If you spend life where’s it always 72 degrees you will have more problems when you suddenly switch to a warm environment.

If you like Whitney’s “windows”, there's a couple of good ones on this hike that overlook a mile deep canyon with a tungsten mine. Bighorns regularly travel way down there to drink. Keep an eye out for them above 9,000 feet.

Candace, when I did the Six Peaks Hike a couple of weeks ago, the brush was "not that bad." It didn't look like anyone had trimmed it back, but it didn't seem to be as bad as it was on a hike a few weeks earlier when I stated that I'd never go back until I heard it had been trimmed. (Side Note: I met a guy a few years ago who loves the trail so much he's cached a pair of hedge trimmers up there. He said that he tries to trim at least a little bit of the trail every time he heads up. Maybe he's been doing some work recently.)

Tom S, are you the same Tom from the SC2006? If so, hello. It was good hiking/climbing with you.

Thanks, Richard. The problem I have with the heavy manzanita blocking this trail is that I've seen rattlenakes on this trail several times. There's an ultra marathon runner who lives at Baldy named Dick Tufts and he runs this way a lot. He told me the Village Church way crawls with rattlenakes and he should know.

I always have a little trepidation walking through that manzanita when you can't see what's lurking down on the trail.

Richard, to answer your question, I'm apparently a different Tom.

2 WEEKENDS ago I hiked Mnt. Baldy via the Village, on to Mnt. Harwood, Thunder Mnt, Telegraph and Timber and out via icehouse canyon. This is a very good training hike, milage about the same as Whitney with even more elevation. It was HOT, I drank alomst 10 liters of water, filled up at the Baldy Notch restaurant.

I did a modified version of the Big Baldy Loop the other day.

When I was approaching the summit, I noticed that someone had improperly strung some prayer flags from the Devil's Backbone sign to the ground.

We could start a whole new thread on the subject of placing things on summits. I think we all know the the responsible authority will take these things down in short order, so why bother placing them in the first place?

A picture and additional comments are at: http://www.mt-whitney.info/viewtopic.php?p=6407#6407

Another Baldy TR...

http://www.mt-whitney.info/viewtopic.php?t=1531

I was there on October 21 and saw the prayer flags. I assumed it was a memorial to the Mountaineer who fell on the ice there two winters ago.

I lost my camera up at the Manker Flats area today. If anybody hears anything about a found camera up in the area, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Oh no..not your good camera I hope??

Chris

Yes, the Rebel with the 10-22mm on it. With the accessories that I had in the case, it's probably close to $1500 down the drain. You can imagine that I'm in a state of shock over my stupidity, although I'm holding out for the slight possibility that some good samaritan picked it up.

That's pretty crummy. And I enjoyed looking at the pictures from that camera. A belated thanks. Any details about where and how you lost it? Or is it a case of losing it in a place where it would be easily noticed like next to your car, and either someone turned it in or kept it. Or they might advertise in the lost and found section of a paper if there wasn't any identification on it.

Bob, this was one of those cases where I'm so set in my ways that varying the process led me to forget that I had set the camera down.

When I got back to my car, I pulled the case off, set it down and pulled my pack off. Because of all the spindrift up on the mountain, I knew that there would be wet things in the pack. I pulled out my wind parka and fleece to let them dry inside the car during lunch. I then proceeded to drive off without picking up the camera... Smart?

I was really looking forward to seeing the couple of shots that I took on the summit. One was of the summit monument with all the spindrift blowing, so that it was barely visible, even though I was only a couple of feet up from it. The other was a picture of my trekking poles and pack straps blowing horizontally due to the high winds. I was leaning back at 20-30 degrees to avoid being blown off the summit.

Before I realized that I had left the camera behind, I had been thinking that I'd leave it in the car for the Lookout Mountain ascent. I really missed it while I was doing the climb. Great views of the south side of Baldy. Excellent profile of the Bear Canyon Trail route up the mountain. (See, I'm not too far off topic.)

I'm sure I enjoyed taking photos with that camera as much as people enjoyed looking at them. Thanks.