Three hikers, including two experience mountaineers from Central America, lost their lives on Mt. Baldy late last month, reportedly while they were attempting to cross the treacherous Devil’s Backbone.
An unsuccessful effort by would-be rescuers on December 29 to reach a 19-year-old man who fell hundreds of feet down the icy mountain as he and a companion braved the winter conditions in an effort to reach the 42nd highest peak in California led to the discovery of two others who, alas, had already met the same fate.
Arctic and worsening conditions on the windswept mountain have prompted the U.S. Forest Service to close the wilderness area and all approaches to the peak to the public indefinitely.
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, “On December 29, 2025, at about 11:30 a.m., personnel from the Sheriff’s search and rescue team and the Fontana Sheriff’s Station responded to a request to locate an injured 19-year-old male hiker near Devils [sic] Backbone. The hiker reportedly fell approximately 500 feet. His friend and hiking companion hiked to an area with cellular service and provided GPS [global positioning satellite] coordinates to assist rescuers.”
The sheriff’s department narrative continued, “Search and rescue ground crews began their ascent while sheriff’s air rescue initiated an aerial search. During the aerial search, deputies located the injured hiker and located two additional individuals nearby who have not been identified. Due to severe winds, the helicopter was unable to safely complete the rescue. At approximately 7:30 p.m., an airship [helicopter] from Los Angeles County assisted in the effort. High winds again prevented a hoist operation; however, an air medic was hoisted down and confirmed all three individuals were deceased. Due to severe winds, the helicopter was unable to safely complete the rescue.”
The first of the three deceased to be identified, the hiker known to have fallen the nearly 500 feet down the slope from the Devil’s Backbone on December 29, was Marcus Alexander Muench Casanova, 19, a resident of Seal Beach and freshman at Santa Clara University, who was visiting home for the holidays, according to a statement from his family.
After recovery operations for the remaining two subjects were completed and their next-of-kin notified, they were identified as Juan Sarat Lopez, 37 of Guatemala, and Bayron Pedro Ramos Garvia, 36 of Guatemala
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Lopez and Garvia were Guatemalan nationals who were recently living in Los Angeles.
Scaling to the top of 10,064 Mt. Baldy is a rite of passage for dedicated hikers in Southern California. And for two-thirds of the year, doing so presents no special problems to those in shape to make the trek. But during the winter and the first month of spring, conditions on the mountain become extremely trying. When snow falls it will lay on the ground and harden or crunchify at night when the temperatures typically drop to 14 degrees Fahrenheit or lower. As is common with most Southern California mountains, during sunny winter days, the temperature will zoom to somewhere around 55 degrees, causing the surface snow and ice to melt, only to freeze again at night. This makes for extremely slippery footing in many areas of the mountain.
Mt. Baldy’s terrain, or portions thereof, presents further complications. During warmer months the lay of the land makes for an inherently engaging trek, as there are four relatively common approaches to the peak, as well as lesser traveled routes. In winter months, the icy conditions, the unsure footing, the dramatic drop-offs along the trail and atmospheric conditions can prove a deadly combination.
The crown of Mt. San Antonio – its peak – is pyramid shaped, with a steep south face known as the Baldy Bowl and a shallower north face. The summit is accessible via a number of connecting ridges along hiking trails from the north, east, south and southwest.
Some more spirited sorts don’t utilize man-made trails but rather storm up the south-facing side of the mountain by blazing a path of their own or climbing along the trails of the indigenous big horn sheep that inhabit the area. Others with less sheer climbing and staying power opt to take a more circuitous or longer route up either the Ice House Trail or along the fire service road that will eventually lead to the Notch, where a ski lodge is located. Others less energetic still will take the ski lift from the parking lot right up to the lodge and begin their hike from that point.
The route from the notch to the peak includes taking a trail that at first parallels some of the ski runs and which, after the farthest extremes of the ski runs are exceeded, includes crossing what is referred to as the Devil’s Backbone or the Devil’s Backbone Ridge, which begins some 1.3 miles from the 7,800-foot level Baldy Notch.
The Devil’s Backbone, which boasts some of the most spectacular views in the Mt. Baldy area, consists of a rocky ridge between four and five feet wide, though at spots it narrows to little more than 18 inches across, running seven-tenths of a mile in a westerly direction from the Notch. A portion of that ridge lies atop a gradually descending slope on one or both sides.
Along one stretch of Devil’s Backbone, the drop-off on one or both sides is very precipitous. Under dry conditions in the late spring, summer and fall, a hiker who fell from that portion of the trial would most likely be able arrest his or her descent after a few yards and, with some effort, climb back up. In the winter, however, with both the top of the ridge and its sides coated with ice, even the strongest or the most skilled of climbers would be hard pressed stop his downward slide and, having done so, climb the steep icy grade back to the top of the ridge.
It appears that it is along one or more of these stretches that Casanova, Lopez and Garvia lost their lives.
Making matters more perilous, the winds are very strong in that area, gusting at times to 100 miles per hour. Indeed, the life expectancy of a hiker traversing the Devil’s Backbone in the winter, with the ground below his feet iced over and the howling wind buffeting him from unpredictable angles, is a fraction – and a minute fraction at that – of the life expectancy of the general population.
Modern day, serious, experienced and seasoned hikers who brave the climb to the peak of Mt. Baldy in the winter come outfitted properly with warm – i.e., woolen – clothes; broken-in hiking boots onto the bottoms of which are affixed crampons – traction devices with metal teeth that dig into the iced surface to prevent slippage – and an ice pick; not to mention communication devices such as a cell phone that can be used to summon help in an emergency. Nevertheless, unless the Forest Service has closed the area, there are no laws prohibiting inexperienced individuals from foolishly braving the mountain in an unequipped state.
The mountain can be unforgiving to even the most experienced of adventurers.
In April 2017, 78-year-old Suek “Sam” Kim of Culver City, an avid hiker who had reached the 10,064-foot summit of Mount Baldy more than 700 times and was the unofficial record holder for the number of times scaling the peak, perished on the mountain.
British actor Julian Sands, then 65, who was an active mountain climber for decades, went missing on the mountain in January 2023. His remains were recovered five months later near the summit.
Crystal Paula Gonzalez-Landas, an experienced hiker, died in January 2023 when she fell and slid between 500 to 700 feet down the ice-covered Baldy Bowl below the mountain summit.
Kim, Sands and Gonzalez-Landas were among the legion of those attempting to climb Mt. Baldy, which is officially known as Mount San Antonio, but were instead claimed by it.
In December 2019, after 52-year-old Screenivas Mokkapati of Irvine was climbing to Mt. Baldy’s summit with three other hikers but became separated from the group and went missing, an intensive search for him was begun by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s search and rescue division. A week into the search, a volunteer crew member, Tim Staples, 32, became separated from his search partner, thereafter fell into an ice chute and was killed. Mokkapati’s remains were found on June 19, 2020, at an elevation of about 7,800 feet on Mt. Baldy’s northwest side.
On March 10, 2018, a hiker in the Mt. Baldy wilderness, Xiangfeng Ma, 41 of Anaheim, was reported as missing when he did not return home. Ma’s vehicle was eventually located at Mt. Baldy and San Antonio Falls roads. Based upon that information, a search party numbering 40 sheriff’s search and rescue team members initiated a search. Bad weather hampered the search and because of cloud conditions and falling rain and snow, a helicopter could not be deployed. On March 12, 2018, after a change in the weather, a helicopter crew was dispatched to the area. Just after 8:30 a.m., the flight crew spotted foot tracks in the area of Devil’s Backbone Road and Forest Service Road 3N06D. Crew members traced the tracks down a slope of the mountain and found Ma’s lifeless corpse near a stream.
Between January 2016 and March 2017, four people hiking along the Devil’s Backbone during the winter pitched off the trail to their deaths.
Lloyd Charton, 69, died when he fell approximately 300 feet from the Devil’s Backbone on March 11, 2017, while attempting to cross the trail. Another man hiking with him likewise plunged from the same precipice at the same time, but survived after being hoisted by a sheriff’s department helicopter.
Yucheng Jia, 26, of Torrance was found dead near the Devil’s Backbone on February 8, 2017, four days after he went on a hike, intending to reach Mt. Baldy on February 4. His body was recovered by a sheriff’s helicopter on February 9 because dangerous atmospheric conditions prevented the helicopter that originally located his corpse from effectively reaching the spot where he had fallen.
On January 16, 2017 a woman eluded death after she slipped from the Devil’s Backbone portion of the trail and slid an unspecified distance down the steep and ice-encrusted ridge. A San Bernardino County Fire Department helicopter, Air Rescue 9, was dispatched to the scene, roughly two miles from the 10,064 elevation summit. After she was plucked from below the ridge, she was transported because of her injuries to Cow Canyon Saddle, where a ground ambulance unit retrieved her.
A 45-year-old San Diego man whose identity was never released by authorities fell to his death while hiking across the Devil’s Backbone on Saturday February 20, 2016.
On February 2, 2016 Daniel Nguyen, 23, was walking along the Devil’s Backbone Trail around 7 a.m. with a friend when his companion slipped. Nguyen tried pulling the other hiker to safety but as he did so, he himself slipped off the trail and down the mountainside, with fatal consequences.
This week, because of the inclement weather, including rain and low temperatures along with ice and wind, the Mt. Baldy wilderness has been closed.
Violators of the closure face fines and prison time.
“This proactive measure follows the recent, tragic discovery of three deceased individuals in the area,” according to a sheriff’s department statement.
The U.S. Forest Service is working with local authorities to close seven trails on the mountain and in the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument from January 1 at least through January 7 in response to “extreme environmental hazards.”
The closed trails are:
• Forest System Trail No. 7W12 – Mt. Baldy Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W02 – Mt. Baldy Bowl Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W05 – Devil’s Backbone Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W06 – Three T’s Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W07 – Icehouse Canyon Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W07A – Chapman Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W08 – Ontario Peak Trail
Affected recreation areas are:
• San Gabriel Mountains National Monument
• Mt. Baldy Trail
• Mt. Baldy Day Use Area
• Lower San Antonio Day-Use Area
• Icehouse Canyon Saddle via Icehouse Canyon
• Manker Flat Campground
“Our primary responsibility is the preservation of life,” San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said in a statement Wednesday. “Closing these trails is a necessary step to mitigate ongoing risks. We urge the community to respect these boundaries.”