For the first seven years I lived in California I always flew back to Michigan to visit my family at Christmas. Each year I would inevitably face midwest snowstorms, holiday travel crowds, cancelled flights, etc. But it was always worth it to visit my family.
Last year was the first year I skipped the holiday travel – the overwhelming aggravation of it, combined with ticket prices that were 3x the previous year’s cost made me switch my family visit to summer, and it was a great decision. I sure do miss the Christmas traditions, but trading it for less annoying travel and time on the beach in the summer is a compromise I’m willing to make. So I made the same decision this year.
Since we don’t have any family out here, we found ourselves with the second year of a non-committed Christmas. And what do we do when we find a free day in our calendar? We hit the road, of course. At the last minute, we decided to spend the holiday in our favorite place in the world – in a tent in the Eastern Sierra.
Scattered Gear, Precipice Lake No matter how much gear we collect, no matter how experienced we are, there always seems to be a reason to accumulate more. Some people call…
Snowcamping, Yosemite, and friends. What better way to start the new year? We drove out to Wawona on New Year's Eve to meet a bunch of friends at the group…
Growing up, I always learned that it was bad to give into peer pressure when it comes to drugs, smoking, etc. They didn’t warn me about hiking. Some friends have gotten it into their heads that they are going to complete the Bay Area Ridge Trail one way or another, and I’ve been mercilessly sucked into their evil plans for world domination again and again. Now I MUST complete the same challenge or risk becoming one of the uncool kids.
This past weekend’s segment was the Fifield-Cahill Ridge (and part of Sweeny Ridge), a thirteen mile stretch of the trail on the peninsula between San Bruno and Belmont. This segment presents a bit of a logistical challenge due to the fact that it passes through SFPUC (San Francisco Public Utilities Commission) land which does not allow public access except in very restricted ways.
On our last full day in the Mojave we visited the Cow Cove petroglyphs in the northern end of the park. This is an amazing collection of petroglyphs and this…
Kessler Peak The day after Thanksgiving we needed a good hike to help burn off some off that delicious dinner. Sure, we'd bagged two peaks on Thanksgiving Day, but I'm…
Early Thanksgiving morning, David and I left the Vegas strip for the Mojave desert. We met up with Sooz, Robin, and Gordon at 9 am to hike Table Top mountain, a striking mesa-like peak in the heart of Mojave National Preserve. Like the majority of desert peaks there is no established trail to the top and hikers are on their own to find a good cross-country route.
In fact, I read somewhere that Mojave National Preserve, in its 1.5 million acres of desert, only has two maintained trails. This isn’t uncommon in the desert parks though – the wide open terrain is more forgiving and conducive to cross-country travel than say, Yosemite Valley. So, we found a nice pullout to leave our cars and set out on foot towards Table Top. We walked along the base of the ridge and once passing the jumbles of boulders started up the side of the mountain. This area burned a few years ago and it is very bleak and barren. I imagine that will change during wildflower season!
Below the volcanic ridge on Table Top
Table Top is ringed with a volcanic ridge that from a distance looks like it would require some technical skills to pass. However, as you get closer to the peak a steep but passable chute becomes obvious and we headed straight up. The last few hundred feet required some hoisting and balancing with the hands, but overall it was pretty easy. Upon topping out, it doesn’t look like a typical summit at all. It is incredibly flat and the actual high point is difficult to determine. Luckily, the high point was very near where we topped out and we found the log book and had a nice break. You can definitely cram a lot of people on this mountain top.
The trip down was fast and uneventful and we found ourselves back at the trucks around noon. After lunch, we agreed that we had enough daylight left to try for Pinto Peak, only a few miles to the north and close to our campsite. It only took a few minutes to drive to the next trail head and soon we found ourselves on the way to Pinto Peak. From where we dropped the cars the peak was not visible, blocked by an impressive and colorful volcanic ridge.
After three nights and four days in the backcountry it was time to pop back into civilization for food and showers so we headed to Vegas. We usually break up our Thanksgiving trip with a night or two in Vegas and this time we spoiled ourselves with a hot tub room. Although Vegas can be fun, we’ve been there so many times that wandering the Strip has lost its appeal and we prefer to spend the days hiking in Red Rock Canyon.
We spent two full days in Red Rock. On day one, we first headed up to Black Velvet canyon to check out some bouldering sites. There were many climbers up on the bigger walls, but we had just brought along bouldering gear (shoes, chalk, crash pad) and wandered up the canyon while stopping to play on the rocks. It was a fun morning stop away from the crowds of the main park loop, but we had an afternoon plan to summit Turtlehead Peak and didn’t want to run out of daylight so we didn’t spend a lot of time in Black Velvet.
