| Icehouse Canyon July 20, 2010 |
| I've been wanting to hike up this canyon for some time - I've hiked on the other side of the mountain, up the Middle Fork Lytle Creek Canyon, many times. But Icehouse is a much more popular trail because of its paved road access and I didn't want to hike it on the weekend with a crowd. So I found my chance this week and my friend Sonya joined me. From the Icehouse Canyon Trailhead it's 3.6 miles and 2,700' elevation gain to Icehouse Saddle. It made for a good challenging dayhike to go up to the saddle and back down, which is what I need because I leave for Isle Royale soon where I'll be backpacking across the island over the course of a week.
So the first part of the trail is in a lovely shaded and lush green canyon. There were tons of scarlet monkeyflowers and red columbines blooming. The creek was rushing and many side springs join it. There are a bunch of quaint Forest Service summer cabins in this canyon that have been there since the 20's. |
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| After about a mile and a half the trail crosses the creek then begins climbing steeply through the rocky upper part of the canyon. There are many cool huge boulders up here that have folded and faulted rock layers. Soon you reach the boundary of the Cucamonga Wilderness and the trail begins to switchback uphill. Great views begin to reveal themselves of Mt. Baldy and the surrounding mountains.
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| Up on the switchbacks we saw so many baby chipmunks and squirrels - and the Western White Pine Trees seemed to have a bumper crop of cones this year. I wondered if the two are related? I managed to get some good photos of a pair of baby chipmunks - so cute!
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| It took us about 3 hours to reach Icehouse Saddle - we took a couple of short breaks in shady locations. As we climbed higher the air thankfully became cooler and a nice breeze was blowing. We ate lunch at the Saddle near an illegal fire ring. I decided to disassemble the fire ring and then proceeded to get stung by a bee - it hurt! I cussed aloud and a few other people at the saddle looked at me funny, lol I haven't gotten stung in years... I had some Benadryl anti-itch stuff that I put on it which helped ease the pain, a little. Unfortunately the sting was on the inside of my upper arm which is very sensitive. I still have a small rash there one day later.
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Well, after that excitement we decided to head back down. It was a warm hike down the switchbacks and we were happy to reach the shady creek where we soaked our feet in the cold water!
We hiked down the last mile or so of trail and got back to my car. Well, actually my mom's car - I'm borrowing it because Todd is borrowing mine - because his is in the shop. I unlocked the car then heard Sonya say, "someone stole my purse!" There was no damage to the car and I'm certain I locked it. So I guess someone slim-jimmed their way in and stole her purse, which she had tucked underneath the front seat. So then we had to run around the rest of the afternoon trying to figure things out... What a pain. I felt so bad for Sonya. Well, at least the hike itself was quite nice and I enjoyed seeing more of the nearby mountains I hope to someday backpack up the trail and stay at Kelly's Camp for a couple of nights. From there you can bag Ontario, Cucamonga, Timber, Thunder, and Telegraph Peaks. Here are the rest of my photos :) http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarol/sets/72157624428786255/ Back to Day Hiking Back to Tarol's Homepage |
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