With an 8hr+ drive to start an 11-day desert trip, I stopped off near Cajon Pass
to give the van a rest and my legs some exercise. The summit of interest was
Ralston Peak
with more than 850ft of prominence, the others were just bonuses to
round out the day until sunset. Neither outing was particularly difficult nor
tricky.
Ralston Peak
There are various TRs one can peruse on PB, describing brush and steep slopes
via approaches from the south. I found the latter but little of the former as
the slopes have been burned off in the past few years, though the vegetation
is nicely making .
I simply went up a slope
off Lone Pine Canyon Rd that makes for a short but ,
about 900ft in less than 3/4mi. The peak is located at the eastern end of the
the , overlooking the San Andreas Fault to the
south, Cajon Pass to ,
Cajon Canyon and Interstate 15 to the east. The initial
slope was moderately steep with good footing, growing steeper and sandier in
the middle section before for the final easy hike along
. I found the summit register ,
the notebook lying on the
ground, pencils and nested cans scattered about. I collected these back
together before leaving them in a more tidy arrangement. An older set of cans
held the charred remains of a few loose pages, brittle and unreadable - this
one I carried down with me intending to dispose of it, but it flew out of my
hand into parts unknown when I slipped onto my rear during the descent. Oops.
Shandin Hills
This is a small collection of low hills detached from the main San Gabriel Mtns,
just east of Interstate 215. I had looked at these once before when I was in the
area with Tom Becht and Patrick O'Neill to climb Chalk Hill, and decided I had
enough time before sunset to wander about them. is
crowned with an array of microwave and cell towers. off
Little Mountain Drive says
No Trespassing, but the gate is open and
unlocked and there appears to have been quite a bit of dumped
off the
dirt road above. It seems one could drive to both the highpoint and Chaparral
BM (a PB-only summit of little note just to the southeast - one can thank Laura
Newman for it). I parked at the golf course on the southwest side of Shandin
Hills, just off Little Mountain Dr and hiked ,
covering the three
summits in an hour and a half. I found no benchmark atop the highpoint (it may
have been bulldozed for the towers) while the was
covered in
graffiti. There is with some plastic flowers and a
bird feeder just below Chaparral BM, and planted near the
benchmark at the
top overlooking San Bernardino to the south. On my way to Peak 1,900ft it was
necessary to cross Little Mountain Dr near , a tricky crossing
with limited visibility in one direction. Nearby, a Nissan sportscar had
into a guardrail
since I had driven past an hour earlier. A couple of cars had already
stopped and a few police cars showed up shortly to help get things sorted out
and the wreck carted off. There are some old, overgrown roads and a few use
trails that reach Peak 1,900ft from various sides and I found my way to the top
with little trouble. I tried to descend the west
side towards the freeway and golf course, intending to make a loop of it. It
worked, but not without some heavy brush to and
in my boots and socks to dig out afterwards.
At the bottom I connected with that runs along the
before exiting into an adjacent neighborhood
through a tall . Luckily the gate was simply
latched and not locked, making for an easy escape. A short walk through the
suburban neighborhood got me back to the van in the golf course parking lot. Now
to find a place to shower and get on with the remaining 2.5hrs of driving...
Continued...