Just west of Inspiration Point near Wrightwood lies the high point of the part of Blue Ridge west of Highway 2, known locally as Lightning Ridge. We took Jude and Hattie on a short exploratory hike of the hilltop, walking up the PCT a few hundred yards to a use trail departing northward toward the summit. We turned up this path, soon encountering a new firebreak (likely built when the Bobcat Fire was burning not far to the west in…
With Jane away by herself at the cabin, Chris accompanied the Arredondo clan for a quick trip to Wind Wolves Preserve. We headed across San Emigdio Creek and made our way up the Old Road for a few hundred yards, realizing then that we’d taken the wrong route right off the bat – we’d intended to walk up the westernmost trail that would ascend the steep bluff to the Valley View overlook. No matter – we could see a faint…
We headed up to Grassy Hollow for an evening hike down the PCT. Although we’ve walked this trail more times than we can remember, we’ve never done it this late in the day. The sun was getting pretty low in the sky even as we parked the car (on Hwy 2 at the Grassy Hollow entrance, since the visitor center is closed due to COVID-19), and we made our way briskly through the picnic area and up to the trail….
Our hiking binge continued with a repeat trip up Waterman Mountain, the westernmost peak in the San Gabriels over 8,000′ in elevation. Our last visit here was over six years ago, which is a little hard to believe since Jane has talked about how much she enjoyed exploring the summit rocks ever since. We expected the area to be busy on a Sunday morning, and, yes, the parking areas and turnouts around the Buckhorn Campground entrance were quite full as…
Trying to keep up the momentum, we got out again the next night after work, this time headed for the Blue Ridge trail. And again we picked up some sandwiches at Jensen’s for dinner, this time Chris choosing to duplicate Jane’s all-veggie selection as his own (see, the diet nagging/coaching is working already). The ascent was uneventful, spending nearly all the 2-mile hike in the deep shade of Blue Ridge as we climbed 1,100′ splitting the gap between the Mountain…
Given Chris’ questionable performance at Tyee Lakes the previous weekend, it wasn’t at all surprising that his personal trainer and life coach (one might hazard a guess as to who that is) immediately put him on a strenuous program of diet and exercise. Since it was Jane’s birthday, Chris humored her with a repeat of our last visit to Throop Peak in 2017 – our first idea here was to just walk up the ridge to where we could watch…
Carter and Dani drove up from Pasadena, meeting us at Cloudburst Summit for a hike down the PCT to Cooper Canyon Falls. We had set this up as a shuttle hike, knowing that we’d lose over 1,900′ on our way to the falls and didn’t want to regain all that coming back – we figured we could leave a car at the trailhead below Buckhorn Campground, which meant a hike out of just 1-1/2 miles compared to the 4-1/2 mile…
We both woke up a bit sore from our outing yesterday, but we wanted to get a hike in anyway, if for no other reason than to get stiff muscles loosened up. We settled on going up the Blue Ridge trail near Mountain High, but by the time we got to the trailhead, it was full of cars and there was a large group get organized to start up the trail. We drove up Hwy 2, hoping that the road…
After sheltering in place since early March, we decided it was finally time to venture up to Wrightwood for our first visit there since February. Not that we couldn’t have made the trip sooner, but projects at home and other family priorities – as well as a desire to not adversely affect the very low COVID-19 counts in Wrightwood – conspired to make such travels inopportune until this point. After a half-day’s work from home, we hit the road, intending…
In Wrightwood for the weekend, we got a short hike in up Mt. Akawie, which sits above Cooper Canyon and north of Hwy 2 near Waterman Mountain. Named for a long-time Sierra Club leader in the Angeles chapter, the rounded peak is reached via an old jeep road coupled with a well-defined use trail, amounting to just 3/4-miles from highway to summit. We took our time getting to the trailhead, an unmarked turnout a few hundred yards east of Cloudburst…