Late March is definitely not the best time to hike to a place called Green Meadow but I had never seen the top of Mount Sugarloaf in the snow. I had heard legendary tales of how beautiful the top of this mountain was when you snowshoe to the top in three feet of snow. Luckily for us there was not three feet of snow today but unfortunately there was enough snow to lose the trail and this would not be the day to summit the mountain.
It was however one of the warmer days in the last week of March and we had a lovely nine mile hike up to Sugarloaf Mountain, most of the way up anyways. We had heard there was actually quite a bit of snow on the trail and as we hiked up a still pretty much frozen and not very green Green Meadow we were surprised to find only a few inches of snow underfoot, which is so much better than post holing up a mountain.
I’ve been there. It makes a hike take forever. Plus you have the added fun of possibly pulling a muscle while post holing and going deep in the snow. The chance for injury on the trail is never fun.
Even though we didn’t manage to summit Sugarloaf Mountain today Carly had a great time as you can tell by this picture of me choking her. (Don’t feel bad for Carly; she probably deserved it)
I am sure you are wondering, what did she do to deserve this? How much time do you have? This little dog is always up to something.
Aside from Carly getting into her usual antics, the best thing about this hike, is the amazing views you get when you get to over 10,000 feet. You can see San Gorgonio behind me in this picture and I know it looks like we’re about the same height as the mountain behind me, but were actually a few thousand feet below the summit here. One of the things I love the most about the Sugarloaf Mountain hike is just how incredible the views are once you get up past the first couple miles, which are just hideously steep and feel like their never ending. Once you get past these few miles though you have amazing views of Baldwin Lake down below on one side and San Gorgonio across the 909 on the other.
Even though we didn’t summit today, it was one hell of an amazing hike. As you can clearly see, this little doggy was exhausted.