In May we revisited a couple local hikes because we needed to get out on the trail, but didn’t have time for long drives or lots of research.

One weekend we returned to everyone’s favorite peak in the LA area, Mt. Baldy. Last year we did it as an intense training hike, but this year we decided to take it easy and use the Chairlift to skip the more boring parts. We had a pretty uneventful hike and made good time despite a late start. The chairlift was definitely a good choice, but we were a little surprised how expensive it was ($25/person roundtrip).

The following weekend we returned to Switzer Falls, along the Arroyo Seco. We actually skipped the side trail to falls, intending to go to Royal Gorge (per Jerry Schad’s Afoot & Afield), but unfortunately the trail we planned to take was still closed due to the Station Fire of 2009. So instead we just continued along the regular trail towards Bear Canyon and still enjoyed the stream-side trail and beautiful pools.

We also got a chance to test how how we can upload tracks with photos to google maps using the Accuterra/NeoTreks App on our iPhones. We’ve been using the app for a couple years now as our only hiking GPS and highly recommended it. We hope to use this uploading feature with the photos to share some of our hikes from our epic trip this summer/fall.

View Switzer / Arroyo Seco / Bear Canyon in a larger map

Back in early May we re-visited Mt Islip, a hike that we failed to summit on our first attempt last year due to snow and ice on the trail. Mt. Islip is actually in a really nice area of the San Gabriels so we were glad to have a second chance at it. This time we tried a different route, from the south at Crystal Lake (rather than from the north from the Angeles Crest Highway). We always like to take a new route when we repeat a hike if possible, and the southern approach is longer and requires more elevation gain, so it was a good conditioning hike (7 miles, 2200′ gain). It was a very cold and foggy day, similar to the weather on our first attempt, but this time there was no snow so we started up the quiet trail.

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Low fog hung just a few hundred feet above us so even with the elevation gain we were about to attempt, it was obvious the view was not going to spectacular.  

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The trail is like most higher altitude Angeles forest trails where the plants struggle to survive.  The granite gravel soil arid weather, and occasional fires keeps the vegetation to a minimum.  Today the cold winds pummeled us against the mountain causing us to wear all of our layers of clothes along with hats, gloves and ski masks.  

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We were able to witness a phenomenon that we’ve heard of, but never seen before – in the extremely foggy air, the evergreen needles collected enough moisture to cause rather significant showers behind (downwind) of each tree. The process was efficient and pretty amazing to watch, but actually managed to get us quite wet.

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At the higher altitudes, the condensation was actually freezing on the trees and then would get blown off the trees, causing small showers of ice shards.

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We finally made it to the top and like most trails in LA, even though we didn’t see many people on the trail, there was a huge crowd at the peak! 

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Although the weather was miserable and the views were non-existent, we were glad to summit and check this one off our list!

Back in February we took an afternoon to hike the famous Vasquez Rocks seen in Star Trek, Friends, Power Rangers, Outer Limits and many other tv shows and movies.  The unique rock formations were caused by the San Andreas Fault and erosion of the San Gabriel mountains.

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We started the hike late in the day and covered 3 miles in 90 minutes to return to our car before the gate closed.  The rocks are very accessible from the parking lot and don’t require a lot of hiking, but we wanted to hike along some of the higher ridges to get a better view.  We climbed on a few of the rocks, but didn’t have time to scale the large peak.

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The people on the left give a sense of scale of these giant rock formations

Along the path there are also a few clearly marked pictographs.

Although it was a quick hike, it was a good warm up for the many hikes and backpacking trips we have planned for the year.

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Santiago Peak via the Holy Jim Trail in the OC was #6 of 10 in our training for Whitney and it was not exactly our most favorite hike…  To start we had a pretty long drive down to the OC, then there was a fun few miles of off roading in our Subaru but the majority of the time was spent behind a Hyundai that looked lost amongst the Rubicon Jeeps.  Once we finally made it to the trailhead it was already quite hot and we knew the lower elevation wasn’t going to give us any relief.

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The hike was long and slow, winding our way up the chaparral paths and sharing the fire road with pickup trucks leaving us in the dust literally.  The 5,689′ peak didn’t have a spectacular view compared to the 10,000 foot mountains we were used to.  The peak was covered in utility buildings and groups of off roading vehicles.

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Although the view and terrain were by no means spectacular, the hike did what we needed it to do… kick our butts.  It was a long 15.5 miles and 4,450 feet of gain.  We left sore, hot and tired, but were looking forward to taking on Mount San Jacinto, a mountain that denied us a summit a couple years ago.