To complete the San Gorgonio 9 Peaks Challenge, you climb up the following 9 peaks along the San Bernadino Peak-San Gorgonio Mountain ridge in a single trip:
San Gorgonio Mt. 11,502'
Jepson Peak 11,205'
Little Charlton Peak 10,696'
Charlton Peak 10,806'
Alto Diablo 10,563'
Shields Peak 10,701'
Anderson Peak 10,864'
San Bernadino Peak East 10,691'
San Bernadino Peak 10,649'
The trip can be a dayhike or a multiday backpacking trip, and the order can be done as shown or reversed depending on which trailhead you start at. I did a variation of this hike with a small group of hardcore hikers from the Los Angeles Hiking Meetup group, led by hiker extraordinaire Ze.
We started at the Vivian Creek Trailhead, but soon left the trail to take a steep cross-country route to Dobbs Peak (10,469') and East Dobbs Peak (10,510'), so we actually did 11 peaks total. After East Dobbs Peak, we headed to San Gorgonio Mountain and then generally followed the San Bernadino Peak-San Gorgonio Mountain ridge to bag the rest of the peaks, ending with San Bernadino Peak.
The descent was generally down Momyer Trail, but we went off-trail quite often to take cross-country shortcuts down the mountain. The cross-country shortcuts were actually really fun, but were a lot steeper than staying on the regular trail and resulted in a few slips and slides. Also, the upper part of Momyer Trail had quite a bit of buckthorn, so long pants are highly recommended.
With all our shortcuts, the hike was about 21 miles with 8700 feet elevation gain. One unique thing about this SoCal hike is that such a large portion of the hike is above 10,000 feet elevation. Once you bag the first peak, you stay above 10,000 feet until after you bag the final peak and begin your descent. In our case, about 12 miles of the hike was above 10,000 feet. The extended hiking at high altitude can really make the hike tough. read more