Ice House Canyon

This past week, I went hiking with a friend up Ice House Canyon, which is a popular trailhead out of the Mt. Baldy area.  We were heading up to the Ice House Saddle, a portion of the trail that literally splits into five different trails at that point, leading to other peaks, or down into other valleys on the far side.

We got a fairly early start leaving my house around 8 in the morning and with a quick stop for a sandwich, we were at the trailhead and hiking by 8:30 in the morning.  One of the nice things about this hike is it's mostly in the shade and the temperatures are about 10 degrees cooler than what we'd experience down off the mountain, so we were hiking in the morning in about 50 degree weather.

At one point we ran into a spot where an entire boulder next to the trail was covered in ladybugs.  I've seen other areas further up and on the other side in the Lytle Creek area where I've seen the same kind of thing and it never ceases to amaze me.  Just thousands upon thousands of ladybugs.

The hike itself was very enjoyable, albeit steep.  2700 feet of elevation gain in about 3.6 miles.  I'd never hiked up to the saddle before, but I have been up on that trail several times, the last time was about a year and a half ago.

I knew my friend liked this particular hike and he kept commenting about different things on the trail to the point like he really knew all the twists and turns of the trail.  I asked him when he'd been on the trail last and his response made me laugh.  Yesterday.  Ok, that's why you're so familiar with it.

Getting up to the saddle took us a little over 2 hours and by that time, even though it was before 11 in the morning, it was time for our sandwiches.  So we found a log with the view posted here and enjoyed our lunch before we headed back down.

I will have to admit that the trail was about as slow going down too, mainly because the upper part of the trail was the only part that really resembled a simple dirt trail. Most of the trail was rocky, stair step type of trail where you have to go slowly so you don't lose your step or your balance.  It still was enjoyable, but we didn't make as good of time as would be expected since we were headed downhill.

I didn't find any geocaches along the hike, but that was not the purpose of the day.  We passed three on a side trail that I hadn't found and there were three more further up the trail from the saddle that I will have to wait for another day in which to find those.  I showed my friend one of the geocaches that I helped hide the last time I was up there.  In fact, that particular cache was named because of all the ladybugs that were in the area at that time.

I'm definitely going back, perhaps next week.  I hear some geocaches calling my name and there's also spots along the upper portion of the trail where new caches could be hidden.  I think the most surprising thing about the trail was the total lack of poison oak.  We didn't notice even one plant on our entire hike and we were in spots where you'd definitely expect to see it.  Curiouser and curiouser.