Calipidder

I just got back from a four day trip out of Mineral King. It took us over Timber Gap, then Black Rock Pass, past Little and Big Five Lakes, up Lost Canyon, by Columbine Lake, and then out over Sawtooth Pass. I’ll write up a proper trip report later since I am heading out the [...]

Lone Pine is a long drive for us. LONG DRIVE. Like, 7+ hours. But as John Muir once said, “The mountains are calling and I must go,” and this past weekend it was Cottonwood Basin that was calling. The trail to Cottonwood starts from the Horseshoe Meadows area out of Lone Pine.
We took off  Thursday [...]

On paper, Sword Lake does not fit my definition of a great destination. It is a popular lake, not a place to go for solitude. It’s not above treeline or filled with pristine glacier-fed waters. It is surrounded by forest so the views are minimal. There are mosquitoes and noisy boyscouts. There are no fish. [...]

I was holding out hope that the epic overnight trip covering a lot of miles and some cross-country travel I had planned for this weekend would work out, but this year’s late snow cover would make it more epic than I wanted. So, at the last minute I trolled my Yosemite friends for conditions and [...]

Last weekend I headed into Yosemite for an overnight backpack along Chilnualna Creek. There were eight of us and it was great fun. I’m not going to write out a full trail report since I did it approximately one year ago. However, I wanted to drop in a quick post here with a link to [...]