Calipidder

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. [...]

Lamont Peak is a small peak in the Southern Sierra, with a trailhead accessible from highway 178 via a short 6 mile drive on graded dirt road. It is probably the easiest peak on the Sierra Club SPS list. There is a trail all the way to the top, and although it is steep, not well [...]

Just north of China Lake Naval Weapons Center is a tiny little wilderness area called the Coso Range Wilderness. It’s small, around 50,0o0 acres, with limited access (4WD desert road/old mining road).  There are no facilities, no signs, no visitor center. It’s not a place to stop and gawk at nature from paved RV-sized pullouts [...]

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 [...]

In what is becoming an annual tradition, a couple of weekends ago we headed to BLM’s Cache Creek Wilderness area for a spring backpack. Cache Creek offers beautiful wildflowers and great wildlife, so it’s a nice place to visit in the spring. In the summer I imagine it would be miserably hot.
I have described this [...]