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.
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.
In Utah, just over the border from Page, Arizona, lies one of the most coveted hikes around: The Wave. This is not it.
I'd spent the night at the Motel 6 in Page and it was fairly resort-like for that brand. It also wasn't that expensive (IIRC ~ $100). And, Page is a nice, small resort town.
Then, things didn't work out as I would have hoped, but I made a form of electric lemonade...
I failed the first time, but this time I got the sheep.
This was on a trip with a group of tigers from the Sierra Club so I didn't have to worry about navigation. Unlike the first try which went up the AllTrails route, this went up a canyon to the south and it was a little bit easier. But, it was still a rough scramble up one rock, down that rock, up another rock, over and over for over two miles.
Near the top there was a brief Class 3 move.
What is that, a railway? And, what's with the asterisks?
All will be explained!
After going to Big Dome last week, this time I continued my rambles in the Santa Monica Mountains by taking the "Mishe Mokwa to Tri-Peaks and Sandstone Peak" route (link).
The Mishe Mokwa trail branches off from the trail that goes to Sandstone Peak, and it shortly goes through a canyon with some climbing activity.
I came back for more of the Upper Cabin trail but this time I took a rougher route up. The route I took is here, but I did the loop portion in the reverse order.
My first Colorado 14er was, aside from the altitude, fairly moderate. I did this on a Thursday and, while there were a lot of people around, it wasn't as crowded as Quandary was a couple of days later. The parking lot is fairly small but there's some overflow parking along the road. I parked on the road just outside the lot.
There's some light scrambling involved but if I'd taken it slow & was willing to risk a slip or three I could have done all or most of it hands-free.
There's also a loop that involves Bierstadt and Evans/Blue Sky that I hope to do.
Mt Oberlin is an 8,184' peak in Glacier National Park that's near the Logan Pass visitor center. While AllTrails says to "proceed cautiously", SummitPost calls it "friendly".
While I definitely proceeded cautiously since I was hiking solo in grizzly country, the hike itself was a lot closer to the "friendly" variety once I figured out the correct route. There's some scrambling, but not Class 3/4 unless you want it.
These are pictures and a video from the "Satwiwa Loop and Upper Cabin Trail" (link) on the western edge of the Santa Monica Mountains. The first part of the trail - the Old Cabin Trail - is a joggable Class 1 trail. That trail ends at the remains of the old cabin and the Danielson monument, which commemorates the man whose land became part of Point Mugu State Park and the neighboring NPS property.