The Bear Canyon Trail (Old Mt. Baldly Trail) is one way to the top of Mt. Baldy (Mount San Antonio) in the San Gabriel Mountains. My childhood friend John Ingvar Odegaard (the heftier of the two guys depicted below) and I got nowhere near the peak, but we did saunter up to Bear Flat in a manner most leisurely. We had the trail to ourselves except for a young mother with baby in papoose and an angry rattlesnake who was not glad to see us. The trail to Bear Flat is a mere 1. 75 miles one way, but fairly steep, gaining 1260' from the trailhead at 4260'. The trail was delightfully soft, unlike the rocky, ankle-busting tracks I am used to in the Superstitions, and proceeded mostly under an arboreal canopy of oak and other trees. But the trail opened out here and there onto some nice vistas. From one, we could see all the way down to the ancestral Odegaard cabin in Baldy Village.