Snow

As you can see by this grab from the Mt Wilson Cam, Southern California's mountains received a recent dumping of snow. Today the sun is out, so it's quite a sight. The mountains are getting lots of snow again this year.

Hiking Club in L.A.

Hiking Club members appreciate interesting destinations, and once again this February we took advantage of the inclement mountain season to take one of the LA Conservancy's downtown LA guided tours. This year we walked Broadway Ave to see some of the opulent 100-year old movie palaces. This is the interior of the 2300-seat Million Dollar Theater. Sadly, not all of Broadway's movie palaces still survive, and some have been converted for other uses, but the Million Dollar and a few others still host movies.

National Trail Trek - South Mountain Park

I hiked Phoenix's South Mountain end to end with hiking buddy Mark on Saturday. The city of Phoenix sponsors the hike and runs the shuttle buses, and you get lunch at the midway point, and even a tee shirt. Over 300 people participated in the 15-mile hike, and the weather was perfect. Mark took this photo of some of the hikers atop the summit ridgeline, with the Estrella Mountains in the distance.

Henninger Flats

On a hike with friends to Henninger Flats in the San Gabriel foothills today, the sun came out and I took this photo. This is looking southwest, toward the cities of Glendale and Altadena, and also the Verdugo Mtns in the distance on the right.

Snow Falling in the SCV

In today's winter storm, Valencia was positioned exactly on the lower threshold of snowfall. Here's a shot of my back yard and the neighbors' roofs. This is actually after about two hours of off-an-on snowfall, but the ground remains warm enough to melt it. This area may receive more tonight, though. Snow is not unheard of at this elevation, but I guess this is the first measurable snowfall here since 1989. There's a funny post about this on the LATimes blog here.

Hiking Club at Death Valley NP

Our club met up again with the Honda Hiking Club, this year at Death Valley. We based at Furnace Creek and hiked for four days, including one day driving up to Racetrack Playa, where the rocks move around on the lake bed. I took this group photo along the way at Teakettle Junction (not to be confused with the website Teabagger Junction, or Dishwasher Junction, which is an entirely different kind of place just beyond the city limits of east Palmdale.)
The other days we hiked in Fall Canyon, Natural Bridge Canyon, Mosaic Canyon, and Golden Canyon.
Watch my video, or see Honda Hiking Club's photos here. I also visited the remote Racetrack Playa once before, in 2002.

Night Hike to Mission Peak

Hiking Club was out for a full moon hike to Mission Peak, in the Santa Susana range between the Santa Clarita and San Fernando Valleys. Click on the picture for a full resolution version, and you can compare it to the daytime view last Thanksgiving Day, here.

BOIINNGGG

On a hike to the Bridge to Nowhere, we watched kids bungee-jumping. Watch a video.

San Gabriels Bighorn Sheep

I've hiked in the San Gabriel range for 20 years now, but over the weekend I got my first sighting of some of the range's bighorn sheep. Hiking in the remote East Fork of the San Gabriel River last weekend, I scared up 5 of them in the bottom of the canyon. They fled to safety on the canyon wall above, and I got this photo of a curious ewe looking back at me.

Labor Day Backpacking Trip

Three of us packed up McGee Creek in John Muir Wilderness. We hiked over McGee Pass, climbed Red Slate Mountain (13,100') and camped three nights. One night got down to the 20's, which started the aspens to turn. Watch the movie.
McGee Creek is the valley above Crowley Lake, on the edge of the Long Valley Caldera (a supervolcano that erupted 760,000 years ago, displacing 150 cubic miles of earth and wrecking all the bowling alleys.)

Hiking Club at Yosemite

The club spent four days at Yosemite this week, with hikes each day. On day 2 we climbed Half Dome, a nearly 20-mile dayhike with 4800' of gain. What a great day we had!
Here you can see the cable route up the granite dome, the final part of the climb. I also snapped this photo of a bear along the way.

August 14 Climbing Mt San Antonio

16 members of Hiking Club climbed Mt San Antonio aka Mt Baldy this weekend, as a conditioning hike for our Aug 23 hike up Half Dome. I took this shot of some of our hikers on the Devil's Backbone portion of the trail. Here is a video I took on the 10,000' summit, the highest in the San Gabriels.

Canyon Scramble / Sunken Treasure

This hike is our June favorite. We had a group of nine for a scramble down this local unnamed creek, which features a series of pouroffs and pools. Along the way, one of our hikers lost her sunglasses when plunging into this 10' deep pool from above (the slide behind). Always prepared, I dove down and Bob took my photo triumphantly returning to the surface with found beers instead. A good time was had by all.

Hiking Club at Devil's Punchbowl

18 of our club members showed up for a hike to the Devil's Chair yesterday. Weather was cool, we had lunch on the bank of Holcomb Creek, and we even saw a rattlesnake on the trail. A good time was had by all.

Backpacking in Sespe Wilderness

We had a foursome of Hiking Club members for this 30-mile Memorial Day weekend hike in Sespe Wilderness (in the coastal range of Ventura County). We camped at Willett Hot Springs for two nights, and hiked to Sespe Hot Springs on the middle day. On the hike back, we made good midday use of an awesome swimming hole in Sespe Creek. Here are a few photos.

Backpack Trip at Grand Canyon

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the recent Grand Canyon trip. This was a 5-day rim-to-rim-to-rim trip with hiking friend Nina on the SK-NK-BA route. And although the weather was unsettled, it was never hot, and it made the trip and the pictures all the more interesting. We even got snowed on twice. You can also view my 5Mb Quicktime video here.

Hiking Club in Santa Anita Canyon

Hiking Club's April outing was again to Santa Anita Canyon. We hiked the ten mile Mt Zion loop. This canyon was incidentally saved from the 2009 Station Fire by the enormous (and successful) firefighter efforts to save the Mt Wilson observatory. And the dozens of waterfalls there are now running strong from the ample precipitation this winter. Here's a photo of one of them.

Allison Mine / Iron Mountain Part 2

Readers here may remember the epic trudge up Iron Mountain last year. This year I joined my friend Nina again on another brutal 12-hour hike, this time to the Allison Mine on the slopes of Iron Mountain.
The hike to the Allison Mine is 15 miles round trip. 6 of the miles are on what at times can best be described as a treacherous game trail featuring steep slopes, yuccas and scratchy brush that really slow down the progress. In fact we saw a pair of hikers on their way up to the summit of Iron Mountain, and then we saw them again on the way down.
The Allison Mine operated for several decades by a father and his three sons, until the 1940's. What remains are several shafts and a stamp mill and other machinery in scenic Allison gulch at about the 4500' elevation. Click on the photo to watch the 2.7mb Quicktime video.

Night Hike

Hiking Club was out for a night hike to Echo Mountain this weekend. Here's a fun group shot that Tohru took with us sporting our glow-in-the-dark accessories, and one of Mark's photos here.

Hiking Club's 100th Hike

Starting out with 35 hikers from Fern Dell, we hiked a big 13-mile loop in Griffith Park (map, showing route marked in orange), visiting the Griffith Observatory, Mt Hollywood, Mt Lee and the Hollywood sign, Cahuenga Peak, and Bronson Cave before closing the loop. A great day it was, our 100th event since the club started hiking in spring 1997.