This was our last hiking day before leaving for Hawaii on the 27th, and we had our sights set on Slate Mountain, a 9,300′ peak on the Great Western Divide – however, more car trouble and a desire to have a shorter day led us to choose instead Antimony Peak near Pine Mountain Club, nearly an hour closer than Slate Mountain but 2,500′ shorter as well. We had seen Antimony Peak from the various vantage points in the Mt. Pinos area we had visited in recent weeks – from prior research, we had discovered that other visitors had noted that the summit views were limited by trees and that the 2-1/2-mile-long trail – an old jeep road – was in poor condition. Not having much to recommend it as an intriguing destination, it did have the advantage of being close and the promise of being a good final workout before Hawaii. We found the dirt road up from Cuddy Valley without trouble, and it turned out to be in great condition, unlike the Sunday Peak road from last weekend. It took maybe 20 minutes to drive the 5 miles or so to the trailhead, so we were walking by shortly after 9am. The trail drops some 700′ of elevation before reaching its low point at a saddle immediately south of the peak, then climbs about 900′ from there to the peak itself – we immediately began to lose elevation upon leaving the parking area, although the grade leveled out comfortably after a quarter mile. After another half mile, we began to again drop steeply to the saddle, reaching it after just 1.1 miles of total descent. Above us rose the precipitous granite cliffs of Antimony Peak’s southeast face as well as our trail, looking about as steep as an escalator running north and west up the face of the slope – 900′ of this? After a few minutes of rest, we headed out up the rocky ramp. Poor condition is a grand understatement – what was once a roadbed that serviced mining claims on the north side of the mountain has been largely covered by rockfalls and yucca plants, having the appearance of gravel – more like fist-sized rocks – dumped down the mountainside and catching on the trail’s ledge. We soon discovered that yucca leaves have very sharp tips, and it was tedious at times as we picked our way up the mountain on shaky footing between yucca pricks to our shins and knees. The old roadbed switchbacks six times up the peak’s south face, eventually reaching a crest between the lower west summit and the higher one to the east – while the road continues downhill to the north, our instructions were to follow ducks east from the crest a few hundred yards to the summit. Sure enough, there was a large duck in a clearing at the crest, and Jane took some time to repair it – she continued to keep house as such the further up we went, adding a rock here and another there. Within a few minutes, we reached the summit, marked by a large tree branch, a brass survey monument, and a cinder block (pity the fool who carted that up here) housing the register can. Yes, the trees to the west blocked all views in that direction, but the other views were much more open than we had expected. Remarkably, we could easily see the high peaks of the Great Western Divide north across the valley – Black Kaweah, Mt. Kaweah, and Florence Peak were all identifiable with the naked eye. We stayed on the summit for quite a while, enjoying both the view and the cool breeze, but we eventually knew we had to tackle the knee-busting, ankle-rolling descent back down. It was actually much lower-impact than we thought – Jane slipped at one point and wound up on her butt, Chris nearly following suit by stepping on the same loose rock after she got up, but we got to the saddle within 30 minutes of leaving the summit. The climb out was fairly uneventful, the middle, gentle part being pleasant and the last, steep part not so much. The total hike was not nearly as long as we thought, less than four miles round-trip, and we were back at the car before noon. Still, the air was beautifully clear and the trail empty of other people – outside of a motorcyclist we passed on the dirt road coming in, we didn’t see another soul the whole time. Not a hike we’d choose to repeat right away but a nice tune-up before we’re here today, gone to Maui.