Silver Star and Little Baldy Peak from Grouse Vista

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Natmospheric
Posts: 34
Joined: September 26th, 2021, 10:52 am

Silver Star and Little Baldy Peak from Grouse Vista

Post by Natmospheric » July 2nd, 2022, 8:08 pm

We hiked up to Silver Star and then on to Little Baldy Mountain on Saturday, July 2, 2022.

We started from Grouse Vista and, with the hopes that a little extra time would allow the marine layer clouds to burn off, took the Tarbell Trail to the road that traverses below Sturgeon Rock (L-1200A) before joining back into the main Silver Star route. The Tarbell trail was in good condition, but L-1200A was steep and rutted with loose rocks and blow downs.

After enjoying a break at the top of Silver Star, we then took the Bluff Mountain trail, using the shortcut near the campsite. There still were a few snowy spots on this connector trail (but small and easily passable). The earlier parts of the Bluff Mountain trail were a bit overgrown in spots, and with the enshrouding clouds and drizzle came the amazing ability for damp brush to soak passing hikers. But even with this, the trail is interesting and enjoyable and later sections had clearly been brushed recently. We didn’t have views today (those clouds never did burn off), but we’ve enjoyed the expansive and open views on this trail on past visits. It was definitely before peak wildflower conditions, but they were still pretty impressive.

We continued on the Bluff Mountain trail to the junction with the Little Baldy Peak trail, which was marked by a tree with a couple of ribbons tied around it, in a grove of silver fir trees that you enter and descend through after traversing the south slopes of Little Baldy. The use trail was relatively easy to follow through the woods and a cairn was helpful as the trail exited the trees. There were a few braiding trails in the rockier spots, but we made our way to the old trail which is very well defined in the talus. The old trail continues on to skirt the peak, but we turned off to the right at a cairn to work our way up to the top on the loose talus, roughly following the ridge line. We actually found having our GPS track very helpful on the way down to keep us on this route, as the slope gets steeper toward the south side of the peak.

After returning from the peak, we made a right to rejoin the old trail instead of retracing our steps to where we had initially turned onto the Little Baldy use path. We continued along the old trail in the talus until it gets somewhat lost in the brush on the ridge. From there, we were able to make our way back down to the Bluff Mountain trail on loose talus. After re-joining the Bluff Mountain trail, we retraced our steps and then returned to Grouse Vista via the primary Silver Star Route.

Total distance: 13.8 miles, Total Vertical: 3812 ft

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