Drive the freeways to get to Mentone: the 215 to the 10 (or 30) to Hwy 38. We took Hwy 18 from Victorville to Hwy 38 to Mentone and then back to the trailhead & all of this took 2 hours and 45 minutes - a big waste of time & gas climbing up to the Big Bear area and Onyx Peak. Pick up wilderness permit at ranger station in Mentone. Park at Vivian Creek Trailhead parking lot.
hiking route:
Walk up small road, turn left across wide creek, cross and start climbing, the first section is by far the steepest. Follow trail to San Gorgonio Peak, elev.11,499ft
details:
To this point, I hadn't hiked at all in a year & the hikes that I had taken, well you can see from below that they're nothing to brag about. I had kept up Mt. Biking though, but not much of that either. Also, I've never hiked or mt biked at any elevation above 6000ft, so this hike was bound to be rough for me. It was the first time I hiked with Jerry and it was h*ll trying to keep up with him. Going up the switchbacks near the begining I had to rest every so often. By the time we had gone about 2 miles it seemed like 4. Then I did pretty good up until about 9500ft and the altitute started getting to me. We kept going. At treeline and about 11,000ft I was resting every few steps & totally dizzy, staggering and nearly falling over with each step. I was nearly panting from just 3 or 4 steps. I sat down on a rock where I could see the peak just ahead and said I couldn't go on. But I had to; I had been wanting to do this hike for a few years & I didn't get up at 4:30 for nothing, so I got up, still staggering and about to fall asleep while walking. It was so hard to try to keep my eyes open and stay awake; it was the weirdest feeling. Then we got to a point that was maybe 1/5mi from the peak and I took off running and didn't feel like cr*p much anymore. We climbed the rocks to the top and I felt great up there, until my nose froze, but even with that, it was one of the greatest feelings of my life just being on the top. We didn't spend more than 15 min at the peak because it was already about 2:30pm and it would get dark about 5:00pm. I left a note in the can there on the back of a page from one of those "page a day calanders" (Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy, I think it was a page from a day in April) that I happened to have in my jacket pocket. I could barely get my pen to do more than scratch the paper though because the ink was frozen. But it still was nice when we dropped back down below 9500ft on the way out. It seemed like it took forever to get out of there and the trail just kept going and going, & we were running nearly the whole way out. The paper that came with the wilderness permit says it should take 6.5 hrs each way. We were running out almost the whole time trying to make it out before dark. It was the most awesome hike though; there was snow right at the beginning, perfect weather, the peak was barren and dry and extremely windy and cold; the temp at the peak taken quickly off my watch was 27F and the wind had to be 40-50mph. Moving was slow going up after 10,000ft. Running down the last steep section on the way out was pretty jarring. Best hike in San Bernardino Forest that I've been on. If you weigh 400 lbs and like the sound of this hike, it would be worth it to lose the weight just to do this one hike. RECOVERY: I could barely walk the next day & was really in pain for 2 days after but for some reason, it felt great!!
trail condition:
there was a thin layer of snow/ice at the start of the trail at 6080ft. There was no snow on the switchbacks near the beginning, but at higher elevations, snow was on the trail, but it was never deeper than 4in. Snow continued on the trail almost to the peak. The trail is very nice everywhere except the switchbacks near the beginning where the trail is very rocky and very jarring coming down, but the trail is still a nice trail even here.
forest:
the forest out here is great, it was totally beautiful everywhere along this hike.
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THE HIKE: San Gorgonio Peak by Vivian Creek Trail on Jan. 07, 2000
This pic was taken from the trail up to the peak, it's probably about halfway into the hike up. None of the pics on this page do justice to how beautiful this hike is.
This pic shows the treeline.
That's me on the peak after 5.5 hours of hiking up 5400ft. That's the San Jacinto Mountains across the valley floor.
This pic actually shows the Salton Sea but it was a lot more visible when we were actually at the top. We could also see the sun reflecting off the Pacific Ocean. We couldn't see the Sierras because it was too foggy that direction.
Okay, this pic doesn't actually look that good, but it was so beautiful when we were actually there and this pic makes it look horrible next to what it really was.
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