‘It’s unforgiving’: California park officials grapple with recent deaths on Mount Baldy

Calls are renewed for permitting to hike the Los Angeles-area mountain that looks deceptively accessible

The peak is just there in the distance, hovering above Los Angeles, snow-capped and tantalizing to the city-bound.

About an hour from the sands of the Pacific coast, Mount Baldy and the surrounding Angeles national forest have long been a wilderness playground to millions who call the greater Los Angeles area home.