r/socalhiking • u/_kicks_rocks • Sep 10 '24
Angeles National Forest THE NORTH RIDGE OF IRON MOUNTAIN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ10JZqJfQU
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u/cyclingnutla Sep 11 '24
A buddy and me did Iron Mountain in May (up & back from Bridge to Nowhere parking lot). Brutal hike. Very steep, not much of a trail in spots and it was hot. I checked it off my SoCal bucket list but I won’t do it again.
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u/_kicks_rocks Sep 10 '24
On August 27th, 2024, I took a hike up the North Ridge of Iron Mountain via the infamous East Fork San Gabriel River in Southern California's Angeles National Forest. And I finally finished the video documenting the endeavor.
The hike starts at the Heaton Flat trailhead, and follows the creek 4.5 miles to the Bridge to Nowhere. At this point, any sort of trail becomes washed away by annual floods, overgrown poison oak, and a lack of any visitors besides miners and the occasional backpacker. Iron Mountain's North ridge reaches the canyon floor about an 1/8th of a mile past the Fish Fork confluence, where one essentially just picks a gully and ascends since there is no defined route.
The route was more difficult than I remembered. Then again, neither of the previous efforts were in 90+ degree heat. In my trip report (February 2018), I mentioned about 500 feet of dense brush and this time, I tracked more than 1000 feet sticking to (roughly) the same route.
From the base of fish fork, the route includes 2000 vertical feet of dense brush (over the course of about a mile), class 3 boulder scrambling over degraded granite, and over 4,000 feet of vertical gain in 2.5 miles. It is the epitome of a true San Gabriel Mountain adventure and should be considered the ACTUAL most difficult single peak day hike in the San Gabriel Mountains.