Thunder Mountain, Telegraph Peak, Timber Mountain, Bighorn Peak, Ontario Peak, Sugarloaf Peak

31 August 1991

By: Charlie Knapke

Leaders: Charlie Knapke, David Eisenberg

This was originally planned as a tiger hike for serious peak baggers. When I found out that Roy Stewart was to get his second list completion on this trip, I had to reconsider. I decided not to limit the size of the group. Instead, I sent for three wilderness permits and arranged to have enough leaders present to manage all three groups. Not long after this, Roy called to inform me that Evan Samuels would also finish the list the second time on the same peak. This would be only the second time that this has happened.

We met at the Icehouse Resort in the parking lot in front of the ruins of the Icehouse Lodge. Here we dropped off several cars and headed up to the Baldy Ski lift parking lot. The gate was closed so we hiked up the road to the base of the lift. I had warned everyone that the lift operator never had change this early in the morning. Everyone had brought their lift fare in one dollar bills. I think we made his day!

We rode the lift to the top of the notch where we met a private group that had hiked up the fire road to meet us. They remained a private group and did not hike with us while we were within the Cucamonga Wilderness. We split up into three groups and set off toward Thunder Mountain several minutes apart. We saw each other occasionally as we did the first three peaks without mishap. We joined up at Icehouse Saddle for a conference. Some people had enough and signed out and descended the Icehouse Canyon trail to the cars.

The rest of us reformed into two groups. I led one group up across Bighorn while the other group took the trail to Ontario. After Bighorn my group headed over to Ontario to rejoin the second group. We then reformed into one main group as we headed down a western ridge of Ontario out of the wilderness and on down to Sugarloaf.

Here the party began. Pictures were taken, toasts were given, and we performed the ritual HPS milling around. Then Roy sprang his surprise. Three of the leaders present had helped him get many of his peaks on his two times around the list. He actually gave out presents to these leaders. Soon everyone cleaned up their trash and David led us down the notorious Falling Rock Canyon and back to the cars where we continued our party activities.

I would like to thank David Eisenberg, Minor White, & Jennifer Lambelet for their assistance in making this trip work. I would also like to again congratulate Roy & Evan for their accomplishments.