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Climb Mount Baldy.
Mount Baldy, the familiar name for the peak that appears on maps as Mt.
San Antonio, soars 10,064 feet in the San Gabriel Mountains. There’s
the so-called easy way to the top—taking the ski lift and then hoofing
it another three miles on the steep Devil’s Backbone Trail. Then there’s
the hard way—the grinding nine-mile trip up and down the Ski Hut Trail.
 Finally, there’s the extreme path of Jordan Kunz ’07 and Aaron Boeke
’06, who decided in early April, to make a sunrise hike along the Ski
Hut Trail. That sounds pleasant, but by “sunrise hike,” they meant to
hike all night so they’d reach the peak by sunrise. Wearing headlamps
and snow gear, they started at 2:15 a.m. on a blustery morning. Both
came from snow country—Kunz from Washington state and Boeke from
Colorado—but they soon found spots where fresh snow had erased the
trail. At about 9,000 feet, another hardcore hiker passed them, and they
were able to follow his footsteps to the top. Streaks of sunlight were
cutting through the clouds when the pair finally reached the windswept
peak at 7:22 a.m. and were rewarded with a stunning view of the clouds
below. “It felt like we were on top of the world,” says Kunz.
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