Before last night’s early bedtime, we had discussed getting an earlier start today in order to beat the worst of the holiday traffic we expected to be heading back to SoCal, and we were both up and about by 6:30am. After a cup of coffee, Carter packed up his bag and headed off to…
Despite being quite tired from yesterday’s hike up to Lake 1, neither Chris nor Carter got good sleep. Both of us got out of our cozy sleeping bags about 7am, surprised to find our campsite already bathed in sun with a comfortable temperature in the high 50s. We made coffee, and Carter shortly announced…
Originally, we’d had a five-day trip to Mount Whitney planned for the July Fourth weekend, but with no real opportunity to train for what was expected to be a strenuous trip, we canceled it in May. Few alternatives were available for the same dates, but Chris managed to snag a two-spot permit for Tyee…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
We had several different options on how to get back to the car at Agnew Meadows today, and we talked them all through the night before. We could walk the 2-1/2 miles north up to Thousand Island Lake, but the shortest trail back from there would be over 8 additional miles down the San…
Today was expected to be our toughest of the four days in the Ritter Range, about 8 miles east and then north up to Thousand Island Lake – this more than any other of our destinations was important to Chris, recalling years before hearing his dad’s stories of backpacking here in the early 60’s…
Day 2 of our Ritter Range adventures didn’t really have a firm plan. Chris for sure wanted to hike up to Iceberg Lake, so named for the perpetual ice that floats on its surface year round, but, other than that, no one had any preconceptions for how to spend our time this day. We…