Chris’ mom, who lives in the Seattle area, was having a medical procedure in late January, so we decided to make the drive up north to help her get settled through her recovery. We made the trip in semi-leisurely fashion, spending a couple of nights at hotels along the I-5 corridor on the way. Our first night was spent in the Sacramento Valley town of Willows, and this fine Saturday morning saw us rise reasonably early and drive roughly two…
Saturday of our weekend camping trip near Bishop found us shaking off the chilly morning in camp with coffee and a light breakfast, followed by a drive into Bishop where we stopped at Schaat’s to get some lunch for the trail. Today’s destination was Little Lakes Valley, where Chris, Jane, and Pedro had done a warm-up hike in 2018 before visiting a couple of the High Sierra camps in Yosemite. The trailhead at Mosquito Flats lies at 10,250′, and the…
Over the winter into spring, Chris had obtained four different permits to backpack in various eastern Sierra locations, and, for a semi-comedic series of obstructive events, ended up having to cancel each one of them in turn. The last of the scheduled trips was to be a loop out of Mammoth Lakes over Duck Pass in early September – after canceling that reservation, Chris found the same trip available for this mid-October weekend and booked it. However, as the dates…
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…
Cassie and Chris tied the knot on October 11th with as much fanfare as our semi-locked-down state would allow, and the festivities lasted well into Sunday evening. We had talked about possibly hiking on Monday before the fam all departed for home on Tuesday, and so it happened that we drove with Carter and Dani south and west from San Jose to Castle Rock State Park, accessed via Skyline Drive that runs along the crest of the Santa Cruz mountains….
Although the skies above were clear this morning, we decided to get an earlier start in case it got smoky later on. We were all up by 6:30am, so we had a few hours to relax before breaking camp, and we were packed and ready to roll by 9:00. We had a couple of options by which to return to our car at the trailhead: a) we could retrace our steps from the hike in, or b) we could hike…
We had originally scheduled our Cottonwood Lakes trip for three nights, since Chris expected at least one full day would be watching Carter fish the different lakes throughout the basin. However, Carter and Dani both had things to do on Monday, and we decided to spend just two nights in the backcountry – this left only Saturday for a day trip, and Carter wanted to hike rather than fish. We talked about a few options on Friday night and settled…
Early in the year, Chris had applied for Labor Day weekend permits both in Mineral King and Cottonwood Lakes – successful in getting both, he eventually selected the Cottonwood Lakes option for the easier drive and the easier trail, plus the fact that Carter could fish more at the latter destination. Although we had six spots on the permit, in the end it was just Chris, Carter, and Dani making the trip, and Friday morning found us meeting up in…
We had talked about various options for our third day, including staying another night since Chris had added it to our permit just in case – in the end, we decided to head out today. Jane still had her heart set on a fish lunch, so we came up with a plan to try and address that – we’d leave Lake #4, head back east cross-country from Lake #3, drop our heavy packs near the main trail, then walk northward…