Devin is doing conditioning and practice hikes for the John Muir Trail hike in July, and this was one I got to go along with. We had planned for a long time to do a several-nighter together. Not that Devin needs conditioning. He’s 21 years old. When I was that age, I was a hiking and mountaineering machine. And he is today. He could leave me in the dust if he wanted.

Vivian Creek Trail is the steepest and shortest way up San Gorgonio Mountain, the highest peak in Southern California. Here is our route:

  (click to enlarge and view map)

We started out at the trailhead at about 5800 feet (blue arrow), spent the night at High Creek Camp at 9300 feed (green arrow) and made it to the peak at 11500 feet (orange arrow) the next day. We then backtracked to High Creek again, spent another night, and trecked out the next morning.

Here is a picture of Devin, the mountain goat, on the way up:

Later on Devin cooked pasta, with fresh sauteed vegetables in the sauce and noodles boiled, nothing instant here. The two meals on the mountain, cooked by Devin, were the best cooked meals I have ever had in my lifetime of backpacking. Here we have the camera sitting on a water bottle in timer release, and I barely made it there for the shot. You can see that in both our eyes. But you can also see our “kitchen” for two days:

Finally, we got another hiker to take our picture together at the peak experience: