California

About a year before the devastating Eaton Fire, I hiked this front range peak.

You won't be able to hike to it for probably several years, but for future reference there are at least three different routes to the peak. The one I took was the Old Mt Wilson Trail up Little Santa Anita Canyon. Between First Water and Orchard Camp there's a trail that starts through a narrow canyon but it soon goes through clearer areas. While it's steep, when I did it it was not loose: the way back was a fast descent.

I biked the highest point in San Luis Obispo County, Caliente Mountain.

The peak is in one of California's hidden gems: the Carrizo Plain National Monument. It's in the Taft/Maricopa area west of Bakersfield, CA. It's basically a large, flat-bottomed bowl that, in spring, reminded me of the prairie states. Right down to omnipresent crickets.

This was a hike with a large Meetup group near the Salton Sea. There were a few spots of fairly easy scrambling.

Easy, that is, aside from the two parts where I needed to crawl due to low rocks. While long pants weren't really necessary, kneepads would have been a nice accessory.

The group came back on the AllTrails route (link) but went up a parallel trail.

Near Yermo, CA in the Mojave desert in California, there's a sculpture park against communism, censorship, and the current mainland China regime.

My visit was timely because they were protesting a fire that destroyed an RV and an outbuilding; they allege it was started by a CCP agent. One of their sculptures allegedly suffered the same fate a couple of years ago.

While some might wonder why such a park is in the middle of the desert, it's actually a good location. The park is right off the freeway so thousands of people bound for Las Vegas or L.A. see it every day.

I'm sacrificing my healthy eating for you, the least you can do is reimburse me for the $7.60.

First, I watch what I eat as I desperately try to drag myself below 200lbs (down from 286lbs several years ago).

Second, I try to avoid post-hike hunger pangs by having something lower in calories, like an orange or a "Fat Free Tuna Salad" kit (tuna + crackers) from Aldi that, while it has a lot of ingredients, is just 150 calories total.

"Mt Bliss" has the sound of some Alaskan 17er, or maybe a neighbor of Mt Vinson. Set your expectations a lot lower...

In fact, it's a meh peak in the front range of the San Gabriels and it's just 3,720' or so. The hike to it is along a fireroad with zero shade. OTOH, it has mostly good sight lines so you'd probably see animals heading your way. And, it is or was on the LPC ("Lower Peaks Committee") list. There's a lot on its fire history etc here.

It was eagles and lemonade and sharp spiky plants all the way down.

I posted a meetup event to hike Eagle Mountain, a DPS peak in the southern part of Joshua Tree. Three people RSVPed, and all three silently flaked. So I decided to do it solo. Generally it's a very unwise idea to do an unfamiliar, rarely-visited, off-trail desert scramble alone, but needs must.

Just because your ego demands you create a National Park doesn't mean you should.

Pinnacles National Park used to be a National Monument and it should have stayed that way. It would also be OK as a state park. However, it's no Yosemite or Glacier. Hot Springs is the only National Park I've been to that's less worthy of the promotion. But, because Obama wanted to create a National Park, here we are.

None dare call it cheating, but I drove part of the way to the highest point in Orange County.

I started out in the small rural town of Silverado (east of Tustin, if that means anything to you) and drove up Maple Springs Road. I could and should have biked it, but I drove it. After the town ends it turns into rough pavement, and then after that it turns into a much rougher dirt road with plenty of big dips and twists. I was in first gear through much of that. It gets better after a while, and then intersects with the Main Divide Road.

Twas a blustery, wintry day when I set off on my expedition to the distant peak...

OK, I just biked Verdugo Peak like I have a few times before, but this time I did it via Chandler Motorway. The route starts in a residential neighborhood up a hill in Sun Valley.