A sampling of days

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Cactus to Clouds 11/13/21

In November 2021 we ended up in Palm Desert with friends for a few days. While we were there we thought we'd attempt Cactus to Clouds again after our failed attempt to summit in snow 6 years earlier. Weather turned out perfect...

Route:

From the car parked outside the arts museum to the summit it was 22km... with ~3300m of climbing. We took the tram back down which was a ~6km backtrack from the summit. We started not mega early, but not long after sunrise.

I have no idea how this cactus was able to grow in the tiny crack

Looking down on Palm Springs

And up at the journey still to go

Getting higher and reaching some real trees. Lots of granite!

Granite tower on the final climb to the Tram summit

infinite up!

We encountered a few groups on the lower portions of C2C, but the upper bit we were all to ourselves. It was a weekday up top the tram so we encountered a few more people doing the summit from the Tram, but it wasn't exactly busy :)

Summit of San Jacinto looking south

That is the pacific ocean reflecting way out there

Beautiful shadow of San Jacinto back at the tram station

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

hiking weekend around Sonora Pass 10/09/21 - 10/10/21

In October the skies had finally cleared up, the fires were calm, and the air was cold. We headed out for a weekend of day hikes on SR108... or we were hoping it would open so we could do one hike on either side of Sonora pass. It had closed earlier in the week for snow.

While waiting for the pass to open we did an out and back from Kennedy meadows...

We hiked 15km out, and then turned around at what seemed like a logical point... nice overlook over the next part of the valley.

A very nice bridge

Dusting in the distance

Granite Dome

cool rocks

big trees and snow!!

more big trees!

Granite and dusted granite near our turn around point

Relief Reservoir

By the time we had finished our hike, Sonora Pass had opened. We headed over to hike out in Burt Canyon. Caitlin had been out here to climb!

Route:

We hiked out to Anna Lake and back, ~25km round trip.

early morning light

looking down the canyon at Flatiron Butte

Creek trying to freeze

Me and Flatiron Butte

Once we got to the point where we were supposed to turn off to go up to Anna Lake, the snow coating the ground had made in next to impossible to follow the faint traces of a trail that there was at that point. So we just went straight up...

Up we go!

Found the trail again on this brief sunny melted out section

Anna Lake

Heading back down

Back out at the mouth of the canyon

Great weekend. Burt Canyon to Anna lake was a great day hike! October hiking is great... Both hikes we saw almost no one else out!

Florence-Lamarck Loop 08/21/21 - 08/22/21

2021 was another pretty bad fire season, with both Caldor and Dixie fires being the first fires to burn across the Sierra, and both in the same year. The smoke in the previous posts Wyoming and Nevada pictures was blow in from California. This made getting out in the mountains at home hard... the smoke was omnipresent within the Sierra.

There was a slight improvement in smoke one weekend when I didn't have any plans, so I dashed at the opportunity to get out and enjoy some Sierra. I did the route below...

100km, and I split it into 2x 50km days. I did not run any of it because I was recovering from a foot injury... the very descriptively named drop foot.

Eaerly morning light on the bridge at the end of Florence Lake

Blayney Meadows

Bridge over Piute creek, a junction I'll be back at 60km later...

A dome in Piute Canyon

Cruiser

Beautiful sections of trail in Piute Canyon

Mt Humphries

Humphries Basin

Piute Lakes

Upper Lamarck Lake, where I finished my day

First light over a smoky Owens valley

starting up to Lamarck Col

hey, this is supposed to be all uphill!!

Alien landscapes

Darwin and Mendel

Lamarck Col

Darwin Canyon

The Hermit over Darwin Bench

some peaks of Kings Canyon

McClure Meadow

Le Conte Divide

Lower Goddard Canyon

South fork of the San Joaquin

Great route. But I think it would be a bit better from the east side... though much shorter. The parts around Florence are great, but not a fan of the section between the Florence lake ferry and John Muir Ranch. It keeps crossing a dirt road which is apparently grandfathered into the wilderness and big old diesel trucks are driven down it. The rest is spectacular.

Wyoming and the Rubies... July 2020

In July 2021 we did a trip out to Jackson Wyoming with friends. As an added bonus, we did a stopover to Elko Nevada on the way home.

While in Wyoming we did 2 days of biking around Teton Pass, 2 days of hiking in Grand Teton National Park and some river rafting on the Snake River.

First day of biking was up Ridge Trail, down Arrow Trail, up the paved bike climb to Teton pass, and then climbing (a bit) then descending Black Canyon.

Traversing up high on black canyon trail after climbing from the valley floor

fireweed!

The big hike we did was up paintbrush canyon from the Jenny Lake lot, up paintbrush canyon and over the top and descending down cascade canyon. It was a great loop!