Moments in Dirt and Ink

Barstow BLM San Bernardino National Forest Click for map. When I realized I'd have extra morning chores before the hike up Granite Peaks, I probably should have turned my attention to the shorter Silver Peak hike, but it does seem a little less romantic a thing. This is another Hundred Peaks Section listed peak and it seems more straightforward. There's a couple of ridges that present themselves as likely start points to connect to a road over the top. Yep, that's right, it can be done as a drive up. I ain't counting no drive ups. Most people have hiked up it from the south side when they engage a similar ethos. The road is open to there, but I'm here, so I'll try it from the east, give or take some degrees north. I did stop a bit short of my previous parking spot because I felt I was almost there anyway only to find I still had a mile to go. Whatever. It's a much shorter hike. I can do another mile on the road up. Silver Peak and just this plai...

Barstow BLM San Bernardino National Forest Click for map. I managed to drive up with less beating on my car than the day before when I was only seeing if I could. The road has plenty of wide spots and I took one just before an intersection. I'm going down the road at the intersection and expect it to be worse. With a higher car, I could probably get a mile closer. With 4WD, I could get two miles closer. To further slow down my start, I had to make some pancake mix before I could turn it into breakfast. It's no use fretting about such things. I get moving along. The side road is narrower, but generally not so rough except for a couple nasty dips. The road is not so bad here and has plenty of parking on the weed covered side. Round Mountain on the right has a few little mines that weren't noticeable in comparison to the huge mass of tailings on the left. Somewhere out there is another road that I also considered for my approach, but could not determine if it...

San Bernardino National Forest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Click for map. I seem to be on some sort of kick to climb a bunch more Hundred Peaks Section listed peaks . I signed up for an official outing to climb three peaks clustered north of Mount San Antonio, better known as Baldy. The section will let anyone come along, free of charge, although they do like to know something about you for the harder hikes so it is best to sign up for something easy first. This one mentions some "loose and exposed Class 2 terrain" as a reason it is "not for beginners", so probably counts as a harder hike. But they know me by now. At some point years ago, I had taken note of Pine Mountain, the North Backbone Trail that crosses it, and the Blue Ridge Road and put them in the list of things I wanted to experience, so an outing doing Pine Mountain and a few others seems like a perfect way to do it. Meeting at the turn to Blue Ridge at 6:30AM to beat the heat a lit...

San Bernardino National Forest Click for map. The day starts early with the blue moon in total eclipse, which is pretty cool even if it is only an accident of the calendar. The blue moon, still partly in eclipse, setting as the sun rises. Today, the plan is to join a scheduled Hundred Peaks Section hike and climb a couple peaks on their list. Everyone is welcome to come on a hike if they are capable of completing it, you just have to email the hike leader. The trail we are starting at seems to be a little more exclusive. I expect someone asked permission at some point and this group is a rather good guest, not known for carving on or cutting fences and more likely to pick up trash than to drop it. They gather and we all sign the standard waiver and then we are off. The trail start is marked at the start of a track between fence and road. The trail follows paved road for a short way, then turns away from the Pathfinder Ranch entrance and onto a dirt road behind a...

San Bernardino National Forest 30th of January, 2018 Click for map. I headed for Riverside with a list of plans, stopping by the Trabuco Ranger Station for a map and a couple backpacking permits to help pull them off, then off to the junction of SR-74 and the Pacific Crest Trail in time for the nice afternoon hike which was number one on my list. Just south of here is a peak identified as "Lookout Mountain #1" on the Hundred Peaks Section list and a few miles south of that is a bump just slightly off the PCT marked as "Table Mountain high point" on peakbagger , which are my excuse to hike a few miles along the PCT. Parking is well signed and north of the highway. I have a track in the GPS to show a couple routes to the top of Lookout but cannot seem to find them once it loads up. (This is due to it coming up as a route instead of a track and that both saved routes and tracks only show up when the device is told to navigate along them.) I will just have t...

San Bernardino National Forest Mount San Jacinto State Park August 1992 Camp Mountain Meadows, up near Isabella Lake, had a wonderful backpacking program, but I had already gone there for two of their backpacking units. Probably as a change of pace, I decided to try out a new camp. Camp Tautona should have a good program as it was one of the many organizational camps on the north side of San Gorgonio with access to the wilderness in a drive of approximately 5 minutes. There were only four of is at first and we were collected in with the CIT unit for general stuff since they were our age. There were an even dozen of them. They were given an option to join up with us and we got two or three more from that. The camp was different from the others I had been to. We had concrete platforms with roofs that we could put the metal cots on in bad weather, but would usually had them out under the stars. At Mountain Meadows we only had our backpacking equipment and at Tecuya we were told ...

Angeles National Forest San Bernardino National Forest Click for map. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Although 2000 feet higher, Kelly Camp was not much cooler than Commanche Camp the night before. I pack up and tuck my gear away. This place does not have anything like the traffic at Icehouse Saddle, so I am not as worried about getting it totally hidden. Heading up the old camp steps along the trail gets me out of came and climbing to the ridge. In between is an area where burn and regrowth has left a trail that circles about in ridiculous ways. Looking north to Timber Mountain and Mount San Antonio. At the top of the ridge, it shows an advantage of saving these peaks with a similar view for a new day. It is a whole new world down there today compared to yesterday. The city grid stretching far west and east is now gone in favor of a sea of clouds with a few islands. There were vast connected cities here before and now there is just Santiago Peak in...

San Bernardino National Forest Angeles National Forest Click for map. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 The night was about as cool as my sleep system could go without a little help, but I did not have to sacrifice my pillow for the warmth of the jacket within it. Bright stars shone through the breaks in the trees when I looked. Today, there are mountains to climb and then a stop at Kelly Camp before climbing some more. I expect the established camp probably has a spring associated with it, but there is certainly no water source to be seen on my map. The rangers at the station googling were able to find the suggestion this may be true and that it was dry in May. For a stream, that would be damning, but springs run on their own offset schedule. Not knowing where to find it, I really need to get water where it is known. That means either here and carry it up 2000 feet or from a spring on the other side that is out of my way, but only 1000 feet below the saddle. The...

San Bernardino National Forest Click for map. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 It is beginning to look a little cooler out there and I decided I would brave the weather down south, at least up high in the San Gabriel Mountains. There are plenty of peaks up around Icehouse Saddle that I have not bagged yet and it is an extra nice hike, so I decided I would do that. I also have a memory of one early May many years ago when I came out to backpack up Icehouse Saddle and out to one of the two campsites within two miles of it, however when we got to the ranger station, we were told that the trail was mostly clear up to the saddle, but everything else was under two feet of snow. It is funny how a lurking memory of unrealized planning can motivate one. Still, in the name of going for something new, I decided to come up to Icehouse Saddle from the east instead of the west. In researching that route, I found that someone has put two night caches along the trail between Thir...

San Bernardino National Forest Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument (map link) Three days in a row of outings planned in the same general area inspired me to come out and join a group of Hundred Peaks Section hikers, AKA "those crazy peakbaggers", for a few distant hikes. (Their outings are open to the general public, not just to members of the Sierra Club.) It is cold, somewhere around freezing, and the very last flakes from last night's snow are still fluttering down as we collect in the dirt lot next to the Pacific Crest Trail. A blanket of a few inches covers the ground but the roads and trails are just wet. Ignacia is worried there might be more behind it since it was supposed to be finished by now. The clouds to the north do look imposing, but to the south there is a patch of blue. As we fret, the blue increases and we all decide to trust the weather. Packed for the day hike, we head off. Peter is still worried about the higher eleva...

Angeles National Forest Bernard went up Baldy (formally known as Mount San Antonio) last year on his birthday and has been wanting to go again. I was up it once, but that was more than 10 years ago before I had a digital camera to easily document when. Maybe 2003. The weather looks uncertain, but so it goes. Everything is thick with clouds, but we break through them just before parking. There are more clouds above, but they are far above the tallest mountain in the San Gabriels. Once packed and ready, we squeeze past a sturdy gate with maps and start up the road toward San Antonio Falls. There is a good view of them along the approach, but the clouds move with us as we take the little trail to the base so that we cannot see them up close. The clouds open up again as we leave. Start hiking up the gated road to get to the top. San Antonio Falls tumbles down a steep canyon from Baldy Bowl above.

San Bernardino National Forest San Gorgonio Wilderness Map link. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 It was a cold night. Sometime early on, wind had found its buddy fog and together they froze an amazing among of ice onto the south facing side of everything, thicker as it gets higher. Chunks of ice lie around my little roof, having been shaken from the trees by that same wind. The ice doesn't look in the mood to melt, but my water hasn't frozen inside my shelter. The view from under my shelter out into the stiff wind and fog shows trees heavy with ice on the south side.

San Bernardino National Forest San Gorgonio Wilderness Map link. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 The night was cold, the morning is cold. The camp is devoid of the sounds of people getting up, but I'm pretty far from the other two groups. The water in the Platypus isn't frozen and I eventually get up to turn it into breakfast. The new pump refuses to add any pressure to what is already in there, but the stove goes just fine after four matches fizzle and a fifth lights. After breakfast, the last layer of washing water left in the pot freezes to it. I'm wondering if it could actually be getting colder as the sun gets up when the sun finally starts hitting the camp. Once it gets to me, the neighbors who got it first finally emerge. The sun instantly heats the place to the point I don't need my jacket anymore. Some of the area of Limber Pine Bench with one of the rock walls that grace the south face of the numerous flat spots. The big group is a bustl...

San Bernardino National Forest San Gorgonio Wilderness Map link. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Wanting to hit the initial points near one end of the San Bernardino Peak Divide Trail and San Gorgonio Mountain at the other, I decided on a loop starting at Forsee Creek and finishing at South Fork. With the last bit of walking to connect the ends, it looks like about 35 miles of travel. I didn't like the way the second day was working out when insisting on camping by water, so settled on an easier four day plan giving much more time for wandering up all the peaks and searching for all of the initial points. Most of the hiking is in the San Gorgonio Wilderness, so I stop by the Mill Creek Ranger Station on the way up to get a permit. They have quotas to limit the number of people in the wilderness, implemented mostly by campsite for backpackers to keep the sites from overflowing. My desired sites are all available, so getting the permit is painless. Stoves a...