Cucamonga Peak Trail

Author's Comments

Twelve miles is the price of admission, and the mountain does not negotiate. I have started this trail in the dark more times than I can remember, headlamp picking out the granite of Icehouse Canyon, the air still holding the night's cold even in July. By the time you reach the saddle the oaks have given way to pine, and by the time you push the last switchbacks toward the summit the trees are subalpine and sparse and the light is doing something that does not happen at lower elevations. The view from the top is the kind of thing the Inland Empire forgets it has. On a clear morning, before the haze climbs up out of the valleys, you can see the Pacific to the southwest and the Mojave falling away to the north and Catalina sitting like a rumor on the horizon. The trick is the hour. By eleven the smog usually arrives, and what was a panorama becomes a suggestion. This is why you start before dawn. This is why the headlamp. Spring holds snow longer than people expect on the upper trail, and fall gives you the cleanest air of the year. Summer is the safest passage but the haziest light. I find September and October the most honest months - cold mornings, long views, the desert side already shifting toward winter color while the south slopes are still summer-green. Bring more water than you think. Bring a wide lens and a longer one. The wide is for the summit. The longer one is for what you see on the way up, when the canyons below are filling with light and the trail ahead disappears into stone.

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