Poor Excelsior Mountain, always in the shadow (literally) of its bigger and more popular neighbor, Mt Conness. The next highest point to the north, Excelsior doesn't have any dramatic cliffs…
Everyone talks about Half Dome. You can't have a conversation about Yosemite without someone asking, "Have you done Half Dome?" But people should really ask, "Have you done Clouds Rest?"…
One of the most spectacular views in Yosemite, on the way to Ragged Peak
My second backpacking trip ever in Yosemite was to Young Lakes, a hike that I still remember as very difficult and strenuous. Of course, I was in no kind of hiking shape at the time and my pack weighed about 50 lbs, so when I realized I would be on the same trail again with a stronger body and a daypack I was interested to see if the trail was as difficult as I remembered it to be.
The answer is no, of course not. In fact, it is actually one of the easier hikes in Yosemite! It’s amazing how much experience skews your view of what constitutes ‘easy’. That’s why I never trust guide books that give ratings on a Easy-Difficult scale. But I digress. Why did I return to this trail? To hike a peak, naturally!
Back in…2000? 2001? …when I hiked in to Young Lakes I was impressed by the toothy peak that the trail carefully circled at a distance. It looked intimidating and completely unclimbable to my inexperienced eyes. Recently it popped up on my radar again and I was surprised to read that this peak, Ragged Peak, was a quite doable class 3 summit. So what else to do but pack up and go?
Within every community you'll find people who like to nitpick things. A nitpicky thing among peak bagging enthusiasts is the true identity of the highest peak in Nevada. Some call…
About twenty miles east of Lee Vining and Yosemite National Park there is a small high desert mountain range known as the Granite Mountain Wilderness. There are hundreds – thousands – of these small desert ranges across the western states, and frequently they are driven by at highways speeds, from a distance appearing brown and grey and desolate and boring. But during my years of exploring the backcountry of California I’ve learned that these ranges are full of life, history, and exciting adventures.
April is a somewhat unpredictable time of year in terms of weather in Yosemite, so when I made campground reservations a few months ago I had no idea if I'd…
We usually spend Easter weekend in one of two places: Carrizo Plain (in good wildflower years) or Lava Beds National Monument. This year we decided that a visit to the…
Mt St Helena towers above the northern end of the approximately 30 mile long Napa Valley. Its east peak is the high point of Napa County, though the high point…
Our fourth and final summit of the trip was a DPS peak, Old Dad Mountain. In the past I have stumbled across random photos and trip reports from Old Dad, and it always looked interesting to me. Equally parts challenging and scenic – my favorite combination!
The drive into Old Dad was a bit more challenging than the descriptions I found led us to believe. Although much of the dirt track was fine and passable, there were several sandy stretches and we were glad to be in capable 4WD vehicles. We had to run the sandy sections pretty fast to get through, especially on the way out (which was uphill). Additionally, the waypoints I had dropped on the road junctions on the topo map did not correspond well to reality in a few spots (once we started into Jackass Canyon). We pretty much made a best guess and ended up parking in the correct wash to start the hike. To see the route on a topo map check out my GPS track of our drive over here on hillmap. This is the track I recorded when off pavement, from where we turned off of the paved Kelbaker Road.