As on Mother’s Day a few weeks ago, Father’s Day found us driving up the Kern River Canyon in the early morning, this time bound for Sherman Pass, a little more than an hour’s drive northeast of Kernville. Sherman Peak, elev. 9,909′, lies 2-1/2 trail miles northwest of the pass and was the destination…
Ok, so this hike didn’t turn out to be quite as epic as we had planned, but it was still pretty epic. With a long holiday weekend in Wrightwood on tap, we had been looking at walking the PCT between Vincent Gap and Islip Saddle, roughly twelve trail miles total between the two points….
We had in mind for today a 9+-mile loop in the central San Gabriels, scrambling up and over Winston Peak and out to Winston Ridge before dropping east down to Cooper Canyon Falls via the PCT – however, breezy conditions and highs in the 40s prompted us to avoid the two chilly summits and…
Being busy with other commitments on Saturday left us with Mother’s Day as the only day to hike this week, and we decided to pay Mill Creek a third visit, not having been up this way for almost three years. There was a 20% chance of rain in the forecast, which we took to…
After several months of closure, Caltrans had finally reopened Hwy 2 west of Vincent Gap, and we made plans to hike again to Cooper Canyon Falls in the central San Gabriels. However, the threat of rain, thunderstorms, and possible snow called those plans into question – hail in Wrightwood Saturday morning cemented our decision to…
Having visited Wind Wolves Preserve several times before, we’re very familiar with the various trails in San Emigdio Canyon, and we’ve often talked about how they should open up other areas of the expansive property to the public. The foothill areas of the preserve are crisscrossed by ranch roads, and a glance at the…
We’ve finally decided to do some backpacking together this summer, and we intend to get plenty of training hikes in with full packs over the coming weeks. Our first such endeavor was to walk the PCT east from Vincent Gap up to Inspiration Point, expecting about 9.6 miles round trip with something around 1,500′…
After lunch at the Furnace Creek Golf Course, we wandered around the area a bit before heading back out to Ridgecrest – we had decided that we didn’t have enough daylight left for any more significant hiking, and we wanted to not drive the rough Panamint Valley road in the dark again, especially with…
After returning to Ridgecrest on Friday night, we decided to head somewhere in the eastern Sierras since we were two hours closer to those destinations than if we’d started from home, yet, after waking up early, we decided to make the return trip to Death Valley instead – there were simply too many things…
After our not-so-inexpensive lunch in Furnace Creek, we had to choose whether or not to continue northward to hike Mosaic Canyon near Stovepipe Wells as originally planned, or to visit Dante’s View, which meant another 17-mile drive southeast of Furnace Creek and additional distance we’d have to make up for the drive back west…