Lake Peak, Grinnell Mountain, Ten Thousand Foot Ridge

20 September 1997

By: Maggie Wilson

Leaders: Maggie Wilson, Mike Wilson

Seven blurry-eyed people met my better half/coleader/husband and me at 6:00 a.m. at the Pomona Rideshare Point. From here, in a few less cars, we drove up to the San Gorgonio Wilderness. Another hiker jumped onto our small caravan of cars, as we turned into the Heart Bar Camground entrance off of Hwy 38.

When we began walking at 8:30 a.m. from the Fish Creek trailhead, it was slightly cool, but we quickly warmed up as we headed uphill to Fish Creek Saddle. It was another gorgeous day in paradise! We arrived at Fish Creek Saddle at 10:30 a.m. Two people opted to stay at the saddle with our unwanted heavy gear while the rest of us hiked north to bag Grinnell. After signing our names in the ammobox register at Grinnell, we returned to gather our friends and dropped belongings, and all ten of us headed south up to Lake.

While having lunch at the top of Lake, we met a outdoorsman who was perfecting a line-of-sight peak naming card that he plans to publish. While at the top of a high point you can hold this card up and it will show you the names of all the known peaks in the distance. After a leisurely lunch, we bid our fellow moutaineer "adieu", headed east and grabbed our last peak of the day - 10,000 Ft. Ridge.

Instead of returning the way we came, we scrambled north down the steep canyon just west of 10,000 Ft. Ridge. At the base of the canyon, near the trail junction, a few of us were able to play "doctor" on one of our fallen brethren. He had scraped himself on a rock. The rest of the gang ate sour berries from a nearby bush while observing the wannabe ER team.

We arrived back at the cars at 4:00 p.m., after climbing 3,260 feet of elevation. Thanks to all of the hikers - Gary McNulty, Joe Young, Don Slocum, Fran Miller, Larry Shumway, and of course, the three Davids - Baird, Has and Zalewski.

For anyone thinking of coming down the canyon that the HPS topo shows as a "steep, but possible descent", I highly recommend it. It adds a little spice to the hike.