Mount Baden-Powell is 2,865 meters, 9,399 Feet High. Blue Sky & Rarified Air.
Mount Baden-Powell has been activated 18 times before, and there are many good reports available. Access from San Fernando Valley, which is where I was staying, is excellent. Access to Throop Peak and many other Angeles National Forest SOTA peaks is via "Highway" 2, the Angeles Crest Highway. This is a very windy, but paved road that very rapidly gains elevation and traverses this area from SW to NE. In fact if you are susceptible to car sickness, this is not the road for you.
The Trail Head to Mount Baden-Powell we chose to use was Dawson Saddle at 7,901 feet elevation. We had two (2) vehicles available, our rental car and my son’s car as he lives in Southern California. That allowed us to do a car shuttle between trail heads and a one way high level traverse up and over Throop Peak, down to the low point between Throop and Mount Baden Powell, over or around two subsidiary points to the summit of Mount Baden Powell, the subject of a separate report. The total hike is about 10½ miles and a little over 2,500 feet elevation gain, including ups and downs along the Pacific Crest Trail. Originally known as North Baldy, Mt. Baden-Powell was named in 1931 after Lord Robert Stevenson Smyth Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout movement. It is one of the most popular peaks in the San Gabriel mountains, with stunning views of the Mojave desert, Mount Baldy, and the Los Angeles Basin Mount Baden Powell is named after Lord Baden-Powell, founder of international Boy Scouting. My son and I enjoyed the hike to Baden-Powell, as he is an Eagle Scout, and I am an 11 year veteran as Assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 626 of Bellevue, Washington. Mt. Baden-Powell is the highest summit in the group which stretches from Vincent Gap to Islip Saddle. We ended the hike at Vincent Gulch Divide at 6,565 feet elevation.
All of my contacts were 2M fm, using my trusty 7 watt Icom IC-V85 hand held + AEA telescoping Hot Rod antenna. I had planned on using my Yaesu Ft-857D and Inverted V antenna, laboriously carried all the way up and over the Throop Peak / Mount Baden Powell Traverse, but my wife was suffering from high altitude sickness due to lack of acclimatization. For some people, it is difficult to go from sea level to 9,400 feet in 3 hours without suffering occasionally. I have climbed over 14,000 feet many times, and don’t seem to be as affected. Due to my wife’s condition, we only stayed on the summits of Throop Peak and Mount Baden Powell about 40 minutes each.
Thank you very much to all my contacts.
