Iron Mountain via the North Ridge
Ascending the North Ridge on Saturday March 27, 2021
The typical route to the summit of Iron Mountain (aka. Big Iron) in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles is a challenging trail with over 7,000 feet of elevation gain on a round-trip hike of around 14 miles. However, there’s another route to the summit of Iron Mountain that is much less popular… and for good reason! The alternate route I’m referring to is the North Ridge to Iron Mountain.
My buddy and I have both hiked to the summit of Iron Mountain at least once using the normal route. After reading various trip reports about this alternate route & having some honest conversations with each other about whether we felt comfortable, we decided that we were capable of tackling this beast of a trail. Game on.
My name is Andrew Snyder, a southern California-based landscape photographer. This trip report & my other Trip Reports focus on images, scenery, and wildlife, and provide a few travel tips if you’re interested in taking a trip of your own.
This trail is not your typical hiking trail. There are cliffs, steep drops, and little to no signs of a trail for miles. Once you begin the 4,000 vertical foot ascent at mile 9, you are in a highly inaccessible area and are basically committed to reaching the top. Start early, don’t go when there’s snow on the trail, and make sure you have the endurance to handle both the long mileage and challenging sustained climbing. Do not attempt this unless you are comfortable with these risks.
Looking back on this hike, I’m happy I did it but I honestly wouldn’t recommend it. The bushwhacking was just too much. The climbing sections were interesting and fun, but I would have enjoyed them more if the rock was solid & dependable rather than loose and crumbly. If you decide to go, start early, review my suggestions of what to pack in the What to bring section, and keep reminding yourself to have fun as you tackle this huge hike.
For reference, I hiked/ran the standard route to Iron Mountain in 4h 42min (link to Strava activity), while the North Ridge route me 15 hours (link to Strava activity).
Table of contents
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Getting there
The trailhead is located on Camp Bonita Road in La Verne, CA, and includes a parking lot, a restroom, and some street parking. This trailhead gets crowded due to the popular Bridge to Nowhere hike. My advice is to arrive before 7:30am on weekends to avoid having to park far away. Once the lot fills up & the street parking is full, the next closest parking is about 1 mile from the trailhead.
The trailhead for the North Ridge of Iron Mountain is shared for a few hiking trails including:
The very popular Bridge to Nowhere hike, which is especially popular with bungee jumpers who hike 9.5 miles round-trip to use the famous bridge as a jumping spot.
The standard hike up Iron Mountain via Heaton Flats, which is a grueling day trip that is 14 miles round-trip with just over 7,000 feet of elevation gain.
The North Ridge of Iron Mountain hike, which starts off following the Bridge to Nowhere hike, passes the bridge, then continues north along the river.
My buddy and I both typed in “Heaton Flats” into Google Maps and arrived at the incorrect trailhead on Shoemaker Canyon Road just to the southwest of the correct trailhead on Camp Bonita Road. We hiked 1.5 miles along the fire road on Shoemaker Canyon Road before realizing that we were gaining elevation & getting further from our intended trail, so we turned around, went back to the start, and drove our cars over to the correct trailhead on Camp Bonita Road. This added 3 miles to our already very long day! Google Maps seems to have fixed this mistake by the following day. Typing in “Heaton Flats” into Google Maps now brings you to the correct trailhead.
Lesson learned: Don’t just blindly follow Google like we did! Check out the picture below showing the correct trailhead, which I took from high up along the incorrect trail.
Looking down at the Bridge to Nowhere trailhead. Notice the large parking lot and the cars parked along the sides of the road as you go off to the right. The trail goes off to the bottom left.
This is the wrong trailhead on Shoemaker Canyon Road. Don’t go here.
Overview
19 miles. 7,000 feet of elevation gain. A few miles hiking along (and in!) a river. 4,000 feet of class 2 / class 3 climbing. And way more bushwhacking then I care to do again.
The hike starts off relatively easy by following the popular Bridge to Nowhere trail. Once you reach the bridge, there is no more trail and you will then spend the next few miles with roughly equal time in and out of the water as you make your way upstream in the San Gabriel River to reach Fish Fork Camp. Your feet will be wet - don’t fight it.
Then at around 9 miles the trail departs from the river bed & turns uphill. That’s when the hard part begins. The next 4,000 vertical feet from the riverbed to the summit are a sufferfest; dense bushwhacking, challenging class 3 climbing, and enough loose rock to make the climbing frightening. After you’ve made some progress up this section, downclimbing can be more difficult than continuing uphill, so you eventually become committed to reaching the top. Once you finally reach the summit, you just have the “easy” part left - hiking 7 miles and 7,000 vertical feet down the standard route back to the trailhead.
What to bring
A climbing helmet to protect from the inevitable rockfall you will experience on the steep ascent
More water than you think you need - I recommend departing from the river to begin the big climb with 5 liters
A water filter so that you can top off your supply before leaving the river at the 9 mile mark. There’s no water on the trail from mile 9 to the finish.
Long pants and long sleeves to protect from poison oak and sharp greenery that will cut you
Gloves that can grab sharp spikey vines and bushes
Extra food - this hike will likely take you longer than you plan for
A headlamp in case you need to hike down in the dark
Hiking poles for the descent. I personally don’t prefer them, but many people strongly recommend them to protect your knees on the long descent. Just make sure you can fit them in your pack so that the bushwhacking section doesn’t rip them off.
A satellite communicator (like the Garmin inReach Mini) so that you can stay in contact with your loved ones and hit the SOS button if things go wrong. We saw 0 other people on the trail once we passed the bridge 4.5 miles in. You’ll need to be self-sufficient.
Plus all of your standard day hiking supplies.
A bungee jumper at the Bridge to Nowhere
Part 1: Trailhead to the Bridge to Nowhere
This section is 4.75 miles with 1,246 feet of elevation gain
Be prepared for wet feet and lots of company. The trail starts off on an easy fire road, and eventually drops down to the river bed before meandering back and forth across the river a few times.
I assume that this concrete structure is part of the roadway that was washed away in the March 1938 flood that caused roadway project to be abandoned.
Colorful flowers along the way to the bridge.
A group of bungee jumpers with yellow wrist bands on their way to the bridge together.
A crowd gathers as the next jumper preps before their jump
A jumper in action
Part 2: Bridge to Nowhere to just beyond Fish Fork Camp
This section is 3.5 miles with 605 feet of elevation gain
You will have soggy feet during this part of the hike. There is no avoiding it. Just embrace it. You will cross the river often.
Did I mention that there are river crossings?
Using an unsteady log to cross the river
Some of the rocks along the way have interesting swirls baked in
The Hobo Hut - an impressive rock shelter with tarps on top for water protection. In the center of the photo there is a stone slab bench hanging by two cables from the tree branch above.
The first 3 miles of this 3.5 mile section will bring you past two gulches on your right - Clark Gulch and Falls Gulch.
The waterfall in Falls Gulch, which is off to the right of the river around 7.7 miles from the trailhead
Did you know that the sharp “dagger plants” can draw blood? Ask me how I know!
Around 8 miles from the trailhead you’ll reach a split in the river known as Fish Fork. Go right at the fork for roughly a half mile and start looking for the ascent route on your right. I linked to a few other trip reports below, which describe difficulty finding the turning point out of the river bed to begin the ascent. My buddy and I both downloaded GPX tracks from the trip reports below to allow us to find the exact turning point recommended by others. It didn’t help. To be honest, I still don’t know where the ascent route is. I’m almost certain that the route we took up was NOT the intended route. There were dense, thorny bushes & trees immediately, and it stayed that way for a while. We would’ve turned back right away, but we were warned by the other trip reports that the start of this climb was rough, so we kept pushing.
Here are a few other trip reports that we read:
Here’s the spot at 3,316 feet elevation where we left the river bed and began our ascent. I can almost guarantee that this is not the intended ascent route due to the thick brush that required intense bushwhacking. Or maybe it is the best option? Either way, be prepared to get beat up by the foliage! The Fish Fork split in the river can be seen on the left. (Don’t mind the squiggly lines - my GPS doesn’t work well in canyons)
Part 3: The ascent
This section is 3.7 miles with 4,620 feet of elevation gain (estimated - GPS doesn’t work well in this part of the mountain)
This is the hard part. Make sure you have plenty of time left in the day before starting this section. You will move slowly, and downclimbing this section if you decide to turn around would be very difficult.
The bushes and trees are extremely tight, so be sure to remove all dangly things from your pack & stick them inside. This includes hiking poles, and in my case my camera. Because of that I took very few pictures on this section. Also, be sure to bring long sleeves, pants, and sturdy gloves (like gardening gloves). I wore short sleeves and my forearms got shredded with many cuts.
You will be grabbing on to lots of thorny bushes, so remember to bring gloves!
My buddy attempting to get through the dense brush
One of the few steep clearings where you can just walk up without being assaulted by greenery
This section will test your limits. You will encounter crumbly rock, including large boulders that could come loose. We heard reports of a massive 400 pound boulder coming loose in another trip report, and my buddy experienced a large boulder roughly the size of 1/3 of a car come loose right next to him & tumble down Falls Gulch to our west, causing a roar of destruction as it went. Test everything that you grab onto before climbing on it. Then test it again with a bit more weight.
The sun begins to set as we make our way up the final section before the summit. The north side holds more snow than the south side, and I strongly recommend avoiding this hike when there is snow. Luckily this snow was soft from the afternoon sun so we were able to easily kick in steps.
My favorite moment of the entire day - reaching the summit!! I celebrated by grabbing onto the summit post and waving it in the air .
Part 4: The summit and the hike down
This section is 7.2 miles with around 7,000 feet of elevation loss
It’s hard to describe just how good it felt to finally reach the summit. The final 150 vertical feet before the summit flatten out a bit allowing you to see that the end is in sight. Once you arrive, grab a well-earned seat and soak in the beautiful surroundings.
Prints available - Warm Glow on Mount Baldy
Don’t forget to enjoy a summit beverage to celebrate your accomplishment
The hike gets much easier from here on out. The hike down to the trailhead is very difficult for most hikers, but is significantly easier than what you just did. So relax, watch your footing to avoid slipping and landing on your butt, break out those hiking poles if you carried them up, and finish your hike with a nice downhill stroll back to your car.
Prints available - Alpine Sunset
The last rays of sunshine disappear beyond the horizon
Prints available - Twilight Over Mount Baldy
Evening in Los Angeles
If you remove the bushwhacking and replace the crumbly rock with solid rock, this would be an excellent trail (a guy can dream, right?). Given the conditions we experienced, I would only recommend this hike for a very experienced hiker that is comfortable in sketchy terrain. If you decide to try this hike on your own, I hope the info above was useful. And if you decide not to try this, I hope you enjoyed the scenery!