Potato Mountain

From the summit with Baldy in the background

An old saying describes the Catskills, "Where are the Catskills?"  "It's the place where there are two stones for every dirt."  The trails out west are primarily dirt.  Few stones and mostly dirt.  This makes hiking quite easy in comparison.

Potato Mountain rises out of the Inland Empire just north of Claremont.  At 3400 feet elevation it provides a nice view of the suburban sprawl and the higher neighbors of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Today I would hike with my brother T-Bone who recently moved to the area.  From Claremont one gets a great view of the San Gabriels' impressive rise out of the plateau below.  Claremont rests at just over 1,000 feet.  Many of the San Gabriels hover around 10,000 feet.  These may be the most prominent peaks I have seen.

Potato Mt in foreground

Palm trees and snow covered Cucamonga

Spring flowers and snow covered Mt Baldy

The conditions on the higher peaks of Baldy, Ontario and Cucamonga were covered in ice which caused a few deaths this past year.  Since I was recovering from a back injury, I had no desire to tackle those mountains.  The past few days it rained quite heavily resulting in road closures in the mountains due to snow.  My brother and I wanted to hike up Sunset, but instead we chose Potato.

It's hard to compare Potato with anything out east.  I'd say Overlook, but considerably easier.  Not as steep and not as rocky.  I'm not even sure if it's the same distance.  After finding an alternative trailhead (there's one on the outskirts of Claremont that happened to be closed), we were on our way to do some desert hiking.

At the trailhead we were welcomed with a Mountain Lion warning.  Normally I'd hesitate at a sign such as this, but this trail attracts quite a few walkers and runners (western trails seem ideal for trail running).  This came as no surprise to me since 60 minutes recently had a segment about Mountain Lions in the Southern California region.

With its close proximity to the suburbs, this is quite a popular trail.  I don't know of any trails out east that would have the amount of traffic I saw today on a Tuesday morning.  The lower section of the trail was quite green.  I was surprised to see Oak trees.  There was a small brook down a ravine.  It trickled with water despite the heavy rains.  It probably was quite dry.

We walked at a good pace.  There were almost no breaks in elevation gain.  The higher we went, the more dry it became.  No trees near the summit, just a lot of scrub bushes.  I imagine come summer this trail is scorching hot.  There is no shade.

Today, though, it was early March and the weather was beautiful.  From the wide open summit we could see the skyscrapers of LA.  We could see mountains in all directions, the San Gabriels, San Bernardinos, San Jacintos and Santiago Peak to the south.  The San Gabriels looked quite majestic with all the fresh snow.  A great day to be out.

Ontario and Cucamonga Peaks

The LA skyline

Santiago Peak and the Inland Empire

Mt Baldy

San Jacintos to the east

Claremont down below

Most of the trail was shadeless

T-Bone!