My first summit of Mt Baldy via Bear Canyon

Ok so it’s not a huge mountain but people in Southern California love to hike up Mt Baldy so I figured I would do it. I finally found a good meetup group with a great leader who focused on safety, proper gear etc. Bear Canyon route is known to be difficult as a 6.5 mile trail with 6000 ft elevation gain up and then you have to hike back. For those reasons it isn’t heavily traveled. Weather was good and I did get some snow patch but not enough to try out my black diamond spikes.

Oddly enough, out of 20, I was third to the summit. I prefer to hike at a consistent pace rather than stopping so much and it seemed people had trouble with the steepness either ascending or descending. Anyway I did feel some sense of accomplishment finally getting to this famous summit.