California

This was a fairly easy DPS peak near Lucerne Valley and Victorville.

I did this with someone from the Meetup group that I ran at the time. Getting to the trailhead was a bit rough even with my Forester. I forget exactly how I deviated from the suggested route, but I started a relatively mild Class 2 scramble up a deadfall wash. I was actually enjoying that but the attendee wasn't, so I got out of the wash and began hiking up the slope next to it. From the map it didn't look like that had any cliffs or anything and that turned out to be right.

Still glowing from my visit to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, I hiked the fourth (or sixth) highest peak in the Santa Susana Mountains.

Hey, Boeing, don't have a meltdown, I'm going to give it a glowing review.

Did you know there was a partial nuclear meltdown just 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles? Back in 1959, we almost had our own Chernobyl in the Chatsworth/Simi Valley area at a location named the Santa Susana Field Lab ("SSFL").

Not only was there a meltdown, they were testing rocket propulsion systems and dumping highly dangerous rocket fuel into the ground.

Clingman's Dome is just a walk along a concrete walkway, but you get several highpoints.

It's the highest point in the state of Tennessee, the highest point in Swain County, the highest point in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the highest point along the Appalachian Trail. So, you can score big bragging rights from just a 1.3 miles RT walk with just 337' of gain.

IIRC, there was an elderly lady in a wheelchair who was having difficulties getting up to the peak or something; I and others helped her but I forget the details.

I did this 11,611' peak in the southern Sierras with a micro influencer I'd met online.

The influencer - let's call her "Soraya Montenegro" - arranged to meet me at the Cottonwood Pass campground. I actually got there on time but didn't see her so started driving around. I ran into her as she was pulling into the lot, and the first thing she said to me was, "you're going the wrong way". So, it didn't start well.

I visited the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit and tried to take pictures.

Many didn't turn out well due to using a cell phone in bad lighting, and also because it was packed. I spent probably a few hours total in various lines, and there was only one item in Koine (Biblical Greek, something I can kinda somewhat sorta read). I know a few words in Hebrew but I can't read it; I should at least try to learn the script if I go there again. I was told the exhibit will change to some different documents around late June, so I might go back.

Electing and hiring people based on identity rather than job qualifications turns out to have been a bad decision.

DEI is nothing more than the new name for affirmative action, something California voters have rejected via Proposition 209 (from 1996) and Proposition 16 (from the year 2000).

No peak, however small, is spared my peakbagging efforts.

So, when I was driving by the Whittier area, I decided to hike to its eponymous hill. It's just 1,260' and it's capped with a water tower. And, it's not only decorated with antennae but every inch is covered with graffiti. Nonetheless, it was a nice hike in an interesting area and I'll probably be back. While I followed a different, longer trail, the specific route I took is here.

"I wouldn't say I'm specifically a hero for what I did. The real heroes do what I did and drive a Prius."

In March I drove out to Joshua Tree to do a DPS peak, Eagle Mountain. I turned around shy of the summit due to timing.

So, I decided to try it again and this time I got an earlier start. Things were going well until they took quite a turn for the worse.

Most of the "peaks" are just bumps on a large ridge, but there were a dozen of them so...

Due to one reason or the other, my last real peakbag was Mt Bliss. I'd wanted to do a DPS peak on the Mecca Hills trip, but that didn't work out. Then I had the failures and the weekend after that my car was in the shop.