11-13 July, 2008

Sugarloaf ’08 

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Friday 11 July 2008 –  Meet at the Scout room at 4:30pm - 9 of us going.  We went in two vans.  Tim and Edward, Mike and Dan, Virgil and Erik , Nick and Francis, and also Nick Moore.  We stopped at an A&W on Hwy 38 just before heading up into the mountain for dinner after making good time.  We drove up 38 on the backroute into Big Bear and stayed at Tim’s brother Ed’s cabin at Big Bear.  The boys slept in tents in the backyard on the deck and the adults slept on the carpet.  Great hospitality from Ed and his son-in-law Bill.  We turned in early after making plans for tomorrow.

 

 Saturday 12 July 2008 – We were up at 5am and on the road around 6am.  Neighbor James took all our packs in his red pickup and we all crammed into Tim’s Sienna Van, with Ed and Bill riding with James.  We drove out 38 just a short way and then up 2N93 to the Sugarloaf Trailhead N34 13 08 W116 48 23.  Here we said goodbye to James and locked up the van and started up the trail around 6:40am.  We started at 7428’ and 5 miles later we were up at Sugarloaf summit at around 12 noon at 9952’. Or 2524’ of vertical climb.  We spent an hour or so at the summit with storm clouds all around, but no rain on us yet.  The clouds made the temperatures moderate and very little sun.  Nevertheless the views from the summit were expansive in all directions with wispy storm clouds around some of the peaks.

 

Around 1:30pm we started down the mountain working our way back east to the “T” (N34 12 13 W116 46 41) and then south down a very steep gulley to Wildhorse Meadows.  Upon hitting the creek we turned right (southwest) to our campsite at N34 11 47.8  W116 46 53.3.  It was about 5 miles to the summit and 2.75 miles to the campsite.  We found water here in the Meadows and set up camp and made dinner.  And soon the rain started, followed by a bit of hail.  Fortunately we had the tents up and all spent a dry night, if not getting soaked during dinner.  Had a meal of Jambalaya while the boys had Mountain House trail freeze dried trail food.  We were all in bed by 9:00pm.

 

 Sunday 13 July 2008 – We were up around 5:30am and everyone did a great job of getting ready to break camp.  We sent the scouts downhill to highway 38 with Virgil and Francis while Ed, Tim, Bill and Dan hiked 5.25 miles up Wildhorse along the meadows to join a road that transited around north and then west of the mountain and was fairly level taking us right back to our van.  From there we went to the cabin and got Virgil’s car and dropped off Bill and Ed.  As we headed down to the lower trailhead on the 38 it began to rain buckets.  Turns out they had hiked the 2.8 miles down to the hwy 38 but arrived there at no particular trailhead.  Tim and Dan arrived at the Wildhorse Trailhead and expected them there.  Turns out the trailhead for the “official” trail is about a mile and a half east of where the creek that the scouts were following actually crosses the 38.  Took us a bit to get together but were on our way home.   From there we were able to saddle up and head home beginning at around 1:30pm.  We stopped again at A&W at got back to the scout room around 4:30pm.