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Sierra Club Bulletin 



feet; then San Antonio, with an altitude o£ 10,080 feet. The 

 Southern Section of the Sierra Club makes a pilgrimage to at 

 least one of these three peaks every year. The San Antonio 

 outing is either a two- or a three-day trip. Trips to the other two 

 peaks require four days each. All three regions afford ample 

 opportunities for longer and more extended trips, on which the 

 time can be spent with much profit and enjoyment. The club 

 has made o.ne such trip in the back ranges of the San Gabriel 

 Mountains northwest of Mount San Antonio. 



The San Gabriel back-ranges afford ideal conditions for 

 summer tramping, especially for trips during June and July. 

 The June conditions there very much resemble what may be 

 found in the High Sierra in late July or in August. The moun- 

 tains run up to heights above the limit of the chaparral and are 

 clothed with fine stretches of pine and other needle-leaved 

 trees. There the sugar and yellow pines grow to a size ap- 

 proaching that of their Sierra Nevada brothers, and the incense 

 cedars are as fine as can be found anywhere. Great silver firs 

 also abound, while on the higher ridges are lodgepole and lim- 

 ber pines. There are rugged peaks there, too, and deep chasms. 

 From a bold ledge on the east face of North Baldy you may 

 look down into the bed of the San Gabriel River over three 

 thousand feet below, and the abrupt descent of the canon's wall 

 does not suffer in a comparison with the side of Yosemite's 

 gorge when viewed from Glacier Point. And a gold mine 

 opens out on this selfsame ledge, with a quartz-mill at its 

 mouth ! Across the canon from this view-point stands old San 

 Antonio, v/hich in May, and often until July, is white-capped 

 and cloud-encircled. Few trampers ever reach this view- 

 point, for the trail to it comes in from the desert, following the 

 old mine road, over which for some years now there has been 

 no traffic. 



The trip to the summit of San Antonio is considered an easy 

 one. Therefore, in order to throw into it some thrills, it is usu- 

 ally scheduled for some time in the early spring, while a goodly 

 stretch of the trail is still snow-covered. The cHmb begins 

 from Camp Baldy, from where the usual route to take is the 

 Bear Canon Trail, by which the ascent is gradual and easy, al- 

 though to the mountain novitiate it usually seems an up-hill 



