After hiking the Halemau’u trail last June, I decided I wanted to hike through the whole crater from the peak and come back up on Halemau’u.

Last Sunday was the day. Trisha dropped me off at the peak of Haleakalā and I went on the approximately 12 mile hike, first descending from 10,000 feet down into the crater floor which is in the 6,500 to 7,500 foot range. At the end, of course, I would need to climb back out the 1,300 elevation change of the Halemau’u trail, ending back up at the trailhead at around 8,000 feet.

Here is the map of my hike. the green bubble is the starting point at the peak. The red bubble shows the Halemau’u trailhead.

Here I am at 9:00 am. It was cold (in the 50ies) and raining when I left. I am just outside the ranger station at the top, pointing down into the crater. I am ready to go.

Here is a view of the crater wall looking south. I’ll be going down the red slope in the background.

Right by the parking lot is the trailhead. In the background you can see the antennas and telescopes on the summit ridge. The U. S. Air Force operates the 3.6-meter, 75-ton Advanced Electro-Optical System, or AEOS, telescope on the summit of Haleakalā. It is the largest optical telescope in the Department of Defense.

The trail leads down the sandy slopes of the inner crater rim.

Without any vegetation at this altitude, you can see the trail stretching ahead for miles.

Here is a view north generally in the direction where I’ll be going. See the green slopes in the center of the picture? Those will be visible in other pictures later when I am behind those, looking back up. In the far distance, if it were not cloudy, we’d be able to see the ocean far below. But not on this day.

Here is my first look back up. You can see the building from where I stood in the first photograph above, pointing down.

Massive walls of rock form the inner rim. The trail ranges from course sand to sharp rock.

Beautiful yellow flowers seem to cling to life at this unforgiving altitude. They are called the evening primrose (oenothera biennia), which is a non-native species that seems to thrive in the harsh conditions high on the volcano.

The bright yellow flower can be seen along park roads and trails in the crater. It is native to eastern and central North America, where it is part of an ecosystem that helps to control it. In Haleakalā National Park, resource managers work hard to contain these and other invasives that are free from their natural controls.

The Haleakalā silversword is a strikingly beautiful plant which is only found on the island of Maui at elevations above 6,900 feet on the summit depression, the rim summits, and surrounding slopes of the Haleakalā crater. It has been a threatened species since it was classified on May 15, 1992. Prior to that time, excessive grazing by cattle and goats, and vandalism inflicted by people in the 1920s, had caused its near extinction. Since strict monitoring and governmental protection took effect, the species’ recovery is considered a successful conservation story.

After the silversword blooms, the leaves die and form a cone on the bottom of the plant.

Here is my first look back up to the rim. The red arrow points to the ranger building, which is almost no longer discernible from this distance.

After about four miles I reached the crater floor at about 7,500 feet. I needed some rest. Immediately, these birds came up and walked right up and looked at me. Obviously, they had learned that people liked to feed birds. They were fearless.

I had to look them up: Introduced from Eurasia, the sandy-brown Chukar is a game bird that lives in high desert plains of western North America, as well as in Hawaii and New Zealand.

Here they are picking the crumbs I let them have.

Turning away from the birds and looking north, this was my view. In the distance on the red slopes you can see the thin faint line that is my trail.

Along this trail I came to a garden of silversword. It looked like an alien landscape. I could imagine some arachnoid alien coming toward me down the trail and I would not have been surprised.

Another look back across the crater floor to the rim in the west from where I came. The red arrow again points to the location of the ranger station. If I didn’t point it out it would not even be visible any more from this distance. As in all the photos, you can click on the picture and then zoom in.

The evening primrose seems to grow right out of the sheer volcanic rock, almost like a miracle.

Looking toward the north and down, this is where I am going. The slope in the back is where I will have to climb out of the crater once I get there.

Along the way there are sometimes very strange lava formations. This is a little cave large enough so I could stand in it with a window on the other side.

And always, in all directions, I saw course sandy slopes that looked smooth from a distance but are often just millions of sharp volcanic rocks. The green spots on the rim are those that I pointed out at the beginning of this post, when I looked down on them from the distant rim behind.

Here is another shot of the ranger station at the red arrow and the green slopes.

The stark, alien beauty of the Haleakalā crater is embodied in this photograph, with the lone flower in the foreground and the harsh environment it lives in.

Finally I am getting close to the other side. If you zoom in on the picture above, around where the red arrow is, you see the faint lines that are the switchbacks of the trail where I’ll be climbing out.

Before the climb, however, I took a rest stop at the Holua cabin and the little campground around it. There was nobody there.

Did I mention that on the entire trip so far I had encountered no more than perhaps five people in two groups? There was nobody on that side of the mountain. I saw some groups of casual hikers coming down and going up the Halemau’u slope, but that was the extent of other people.

The terrain on the way up along the switchbacks is very different. There is dense vegetation. It was raining lightly, and quick cold with stiff winds.

More views of the trails on the switchbacks up.

The park service installed fences to keep out goats and pigs, and keep people from falling down steep cliffs.

I am on the northside of the mountain, and I can get glimpses of the valley below.

Finally, after 12 miles of hiking, and a steep ascent for the last mile and a half, I saw the parking lot in the distance, where Trisha waited for me with the car.

Here I am at the car, looking east for a parting shot, with the Pacific ocean 8,000 feet below. It’s about 3:00 pm. The full hike took me about six hours.

I think next year I’ll do the same trek, but the other way around. That will mean rather than dropping 2,000 feet, I’ll be climbing 2,000 feet. It’ll be a little slower.

I am already excited about it.

 

 

I have hiked San Jacinto Mountain many times over the years. But it’s been a while that I have been on the peak, and I thought it would be nice to do it in winter. I took the Palm Springs Aerial Tram up to the mountain station at 8,600 feet and started hiking. It didn’t take long for the trail to be covered with snow.

At the ranger station they asked me where I was headed, and I told them “the Peak” unless I change my mind along the way. They gave me an overview of the condition and made sure I was equipped. Warm clothes, proper shoes, etc.

Here is a quick selfie just as the snow started not far after leaving the ranger station.

It is was a true winter wonderland. Only if you look carefully can you make out the trail, just by the footsteps that other hikers had left. Without them, I’d be lost in minutes.

I knew I would need micro spikes. Here are my boots with them on. Note that I am not wearing high boots or gaiters. What you can’t see is that my boots are also not the waterproof kind. What would I need those for, right?

Along the way to Little Round Valley, there are a few toilets. You’d have to be pretty skinny to get into one of those. They give you a sense, however, how deep the snow is.

One of the landmarks along the trail is Wellman Divide. This is where the Pacific Crest Trail meets up with the other trails and there are dramatic views down into the valleys to the south, here behind me.

I took a shot down into the valley from Wellman Divide. It’s neat when the clouds are below you and you’re not in an airplane.

As I made my way up, I came upon a few other hardy hikers. Most had snowshoes with them. I of course did not.

Eventually, at about 10,000 foot altitude the now got to be very deep and my equipment started to fail. It was also time to turn around. I usually set a turn-around time for myself, particularly when hiking alone, to be safe. This was the view from that point:

Several things, beyond running out of time, became apparent:

1. I didn’t have snowshoes with me, so I started to sink deep into the snow, and the snow would get into my boots making my socks wet and feet cold quickly.
2. Not wearing gaiters also contributed, of course.
3. Not wearing high-top waterproof boots. My boots are great for fast trail hiking in fair weather and summer, but they are not suitable for snow.
4. My poles didn’t have the little round stoppers that can be attached so they would not sink into the snow. I had left those in my garage at home. My poles literally sank all the way to the handles into the snow and I was effectively without the support of poles.
5. I realized that going back down (for miles) under those conditions, I would sink deeply into the snow and it would not only be treacherous, but very slow.

For all those reasons, it was time to turn around. The one-way trip to the peak from the tram station is six miles and about 2,200 feet of elevation change. The peak is at approximately 10,800 feet. I turned around at 4.3 miles (about 1.7 miles short).

I took one shot down from where I stood:

When you look carefully (click to zoom in) at the green arrow, you can see the faint outline of the mountain station from where I started my hike. The red arrow points to Palm Springs in the valley literally 10,000 feet below. The blue arrow points to the Salton Sea in the far distance.

The trail going back down was as challenging as I had anticipated. Going down requires harder steps and often my entire legs would crash through the snow and sink deep. It made for exhausting hiking.

Sometimes there were harder ice spots with better traction, like here:

After hiking for 7 hours and a total of 8.3 miles, I arrived back at the mountain station. Here I am taking a shot back to where I was. The red arrow points to the approximate turn-around point from where I took the other photo above, pointing out the mountain station.

From the tram station, there is a good view into the valley. The green arrow points to the parking lot where I left my car, literally 6,000 feet lower than were I stand. The red arrow points to Palm Springs, 8,000 feet lower. The tram ride just takes about 10 minutes.

Here is a shot of the tram car coming up just before the passengers get out.

Looking back up from inside the tram I have a dramatic view of the mountain station.

On the way down, the scenery is dramatic, superimposing massive granite walls in front of  the endless desert below.

Finally, 15 minutes later, I am back at my car, stiff, exhausted, with a lingering altitude headache, looking back up from where I’d just come from. The red arrow points to the mountain station, which is not even discernible from this distance.

All in all, a great hike, and I have to go back soon. But I think I’ll wait for most of the snow to be gone.

This past week we went to Borrego Springs for a couple of days of camping. Here is our little camp, not fully set up yet. We just got there.I was working during the day, but there was plenty of  time to enjoy nature and feel the desert at night. On the second evening, I decided to go for a little hike up the ridge on the mountain you see in the picture above. It was actually further away than it looked. I clocked 0.6 miles when I got to this spot where the desert ended in a wash, and the ridge started. This is where I started climbing. 

 

Very quickly the terrain got rough. I had to watch my steps, as there were plenty of prickly cactus and thorny shrubs. The rocks themselves are also sharp. Not a place where you want to lose your footing and fall. The terrain is also steeper than it looks in the photo below, since I pointed to camera upwards. My hiking poles were essential accessories.

Finally I got to a spot where I decided it was time to turn around. I didn’t want to be caught on this mountain in the dark, and the sun was getting ready to set. I took a picture of our campground from the highpoint of my hike. You can see it in the center of the picture just in front of the yellow stripe of desert in the distance. That’s the terrain I hiked across to get to this spot.

I also took a parting shot straight down to the wash from where I started the climb. This picture is also strange in perspective, because I am pointing the camera straight down. It’s actually very steep down from here over this outcropping in front of me and you can see the wash in the distance on the very bottom.

As I took the picture above and looked for a good path to make my  way down, I heard something shuffle behind me. Startled, I turned around and saw this:

A big ram was standing right behind me, not 30 feet away on the ridge, checking me out. I took a deep breath, zoomed in and took another quick picture. I was worried that he’d scramble away and be gone.

After taking about 8 or 10 more pictures of him just to make sure one would come out great, I started heading back down. After a few steps trying to find a good way down, I noticed that I was actually surrounded by an entire herd of bighorn sheep, not just the ram. It’s almost like they had snuck up on me. I never noticed them on the way up.

I looked in all directions, and there were more and more. I counted at least 20 animals. I kept quiet and didn’t make any fast moves. They were eyeing me carefully, but never got startled and never bolted.

Here are some more, just chilling and checking me out.

I realized that they weren’t afraid, so I took a video so you can get a better sense of what it felt like to be there with them.

It was magical.

Then it was really time to head down. After a few minutes down the slope, I turned around and now that I knew what I was looking for, I was able to see them. Here is a photo with blue arrows that might help you spot them. As always, you can click on these pictures to zoom in.

I thought you might be interested where on that mountain that spot was. So I took the picture of our camp with the mountain in the background and you can see the ridge. The blue arrow marks the high point of my hike (I know it does not look very high from this viewpoint) and the very spot where I ran into the herd.

All in all, it was a great couple of days in the desert and a magical hike right into a herd of bighorn sheep.

As I have done every year for about 15 years or so on New Years Day or a few days after, today I went again and hiked the Palm Canyon out of Borrego Springs in the Anza Borrego desert.

This year I didn’t go by myself, but Trisha and our two good adventure friends, Linda and Dick, came along.

Here is a map of our hike. We took an alternative route back, which was very scenic. The total hike was 3.34 miles long and we were out for 2 hours and 22 minutes. It was very leisurely, and we took lots of stops to look for bighorn sheep (no luck, otherwise I’d be boasting off the pictures here) and to take in the scenery.

Here is a group shot of us at the palm grove after the hike up:

Hmm, what were we thinking? Two couples in black glasses? Maybe we should have taken our hats and glasses off and you could have actually seen us!

Here are the only two mountain goats you would have seen out there today:

The grove has grown in substantially since last year. Here is last year’s shot from Jan 1, 2023:

And today from the same spot, myself not included.

The undergrowth is much thicker now a few years after the fire.

Finally a parting shot done by Trisha in her artistic ways:

 

The last time Devin and I hiked the Grand Canyon was down the South Kaibab Trail and up the Bright Angel trail in early March 2011.

Here is the post I made then.

This is what I said at the end of that post:

Next, we will hike from the North Rim to the South Rim, about three or four days in the Canyon, spanning more than 20 miles. The best time to do that is October. Time to put in for reservations now.

It has taken 12 years for us to finally make it. I tried for a number of years to get reservations. You can day-hike the canyon any time without advance reservations. A lot of people do this, but it’s a very stressful and challenging endeavor, not something many in their sixties attempt. I am more interested in hiking for pleasure and spend time. For that, you need reservations that are very difficult to get. There is a lottery involved, and I was never successful.

This year I tried, and got permission to hike from the North Rim down to Cottonwood camp ground for the on day 1, then to the Phantom Ranch at the Colorado river on day 2, then up to Havasupai Gardens (formerly named Indian Gardens) on day 3, and finally back out to the South Rim on day 4.

Here is a picture of us just at sunset arriving on October 10 at the South Rim.

We stayed the night at a lodge on the rim and took an early morning shuttle around the canyon to the North Rim, which is what you see on the horizon behind us in the picture above. The shuttle ride from the South Rim to the North Rim takes five hours, since it has to go way east and all around the canyon before heading back west to the trailhead and lodge at the North Rim.

We arrived at the trailhead at the North Rim at about 1:00pm on October 11 and knew we had just enough time to comfortably hike down to the Cottonwood Campground. Here is the map of our hike of approximately 7 miles. We arrived just before sunset with enough time to make camp.

We hiked for 7.07 miles and it took us 4 hours and 31 minutes. We went from 8,290 feet down to 4,049 feet.

Here we are, fresh from our five hour shuttle ride in a cramped van, at the trailhead.

This is the start of the trail. The North Rim is at about 8,300 feet of elevation, about 1,500 feet higher than the South Rim which is at approximately 6,800 feet elevation. The ecosystem is very different with dense old forest, sprinkled with many aspen groves. It also gets colder there. The rangers told us that it was below freezing the night we left and they had already had their first snow. They were closing the park at the North Rim after this week. 

Here are some views of the trail from high up. You can see aspens in bright red, and of course the South Rim way in the distance on the horizon.

A little farther down you can see stretches of the trail where we will be going, with the canyon walls lit up by the afternoon sun.

More trail pictures. Make sure you click on the images to enlarge them to see the details.

We enjoyed very dramatic vistas in all directions. The Grand Canyon is a spectacular place.

There was a mule train that passed us. Guides take tourists down on mules to the Supai Tunnel, which takes about an hour, and then back up. Hikers must step to the side and wait when the mules pass.

It’s a very steep descent for the first hour via many switchbacks. Here is a picture of the Supai Tunnel with me under it. This where the mule trains from the North Rim usually turn around. 

Here is Devin at a rest spot on the way down.

And here you can see me from the same place.

Here is Devin hiking along a steep wall:

Finally, after about four and a half hours of hiking mostly downhill (watch those knees and ankles) we arrived at Cottonwood Campground. There are only eleven camps and you pick the first available one. Ours was quite secluded. The campgrounds along the main corridor as they call it, have picnic tables, bars to hang backpacks and rodent-proof food boxes. Sure enough, while we were eating dinner at the table in dusk Devin spotted some mice attacking my food stash I had left on the rock at the right of this picture. I had to chase them away and quickly store my food in the boxes provided. The tent on the right is mine, and Devin’s bivvy bedroll is on the very left.

It gets dark at about 6:30pm and it’s pitch black by 7:00. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, we crawled into our tents, read for a while and were asleep soon after.

Here is a map of the hike for day 2. It’s basically a straight line down from Cottonwood to the Phantom Ranch at the Colorado River. The second half of the hike goes through what they call “the Box” which is a section of steep canyon walls.

We hiked for 7.88 miles and it took us 3 hours and 37 minutes. We went from 4,060 feet down to 2,501 feet.

But here is how the day started. I got up first and I started boiling water for the coffee and our cereal breakfasts. Devin was still in his bivvy reading. Behind him you see our food box, which were available at each camp in every campground to keep aggressive rodents away from our food.

After the morning chores and packing our packs, we were on our way. At the beginning the trail is fairly flat. In the center of the picture, in the very back, you can see first glimpses of the South Rim. That is where we are eventually headed.

A little farther down the trail, you see me, the happy hiker.

Eventually we get close to “the Box” with steep canyon walls on all sides. The Bright Angel Creek is to my right and the trail basically follows the creek all the way down to the river.

A  little farther down in the box, here is Devin taking a look. Check out the rocks here. We are down at the very bottom of the Grand Canyon. These rocks exposed here are over 1.7 billion years old. These layers were formed over one billion years before there were any living organisms on earth. Most the walls of the Grand Canyon are older than life itself. Only the very top layers contain fossilized shark teeth. Sharks were some of the very first complex animals to appear in the oceans.

Thinking of these geological time scales almost takes my breath away when I compare it to our short lives. We truly are dust in the wind, and that feeling is overwhelming here in the Grand Canyon.

We’re getting close to the ranch. There is a camp for trail mules just before we get there.

The vistas are dramatic. Tall cottonwood trees cover the ranch area. You can see the first buildings toward the right of the picture. and again, across the center of the photo you see the layer of rock that is almost two billion years old.

There is a canteen at the Phantom Ranch!

It’s just a little store, but you can get cold beer and many other luxuries. We hungry and thirsty hikers bought ourselves a Fat Tire brew and chatted with other hikers on the picnic benches outside. Of course, everything we consume down here was carried in by mule trains. You can guess what things cost here.

There is lodging in cabins available. They are rustic. Two twin beds, a toilet and a sink. And a bench outside. They also have group cabins. A cabin for two people costs about $220 per night. It’s now October 2023. The first available cabins are now being booked for December 2024, and you have to enter a lottery to get them. So there are no guarantees. Here you can see a few small cabins.

This is a view of the ranger station.

There is also an amphitheater. Rangers make presentations there about a variety of topics. We attended a stargazing session.  Due to the complete darkness in the canyon the stars were amazing.

Here was the sign guiding us to the campground when we first arrived.

We set up camp in spot #12. It turns out that 12 years ago we stayed right next to this spot, right behind the bushes behind Devin. In the foreground you can see my tent and Devin’s behind it.

Right next to my tent, about 6 feet behind it, looking the other way, I saw a couple of deer enjoying themselves. These deer are obviously used to humans, as they didn’t mind our being there at all.

Here is another one in our camp on the next morning, munching on a tree, just as we were leaving.

From here on, the trail went only uphill. The hard part was now in front of us.

Day 3 is the hike from the Phantom Ranch, across the Colorado river, and up to Havasupai Gardens. It’s all uphill so we tried to get an early start.

We hiked for 5.62 miles and it took us 3 hours and 34 minutes. We went from 2,453 feet up to 3,861 feet.

After leaving the camp, we soon got to the river. Here is a view of the bridge over the Colorado where the South Kaibab Trail comes down. We did not cross that bridge.

Here is a view of the river looking the other direction, from the main bridge.

Here you can see Devin on the bridge and of course, again a great view of those two billion year old rocks behind him.

We switched phones and you have shot of me. We were very careful so we didn’t drop the phones. They would have slipped right between the steel slots and down into the raging river with no chance of recovery.

The trail meanders along the river heading west for a while.

And then it finally turns south for the steep ascent.

Here I am turning around and looking back where Devin is coming up. In the left lower corner you can see parts of the trail from where we just came.

Watch out, there are rattlesnakes in the Grand Canyon. This one was a bit fat in the middle and slow. It must have just had a meal of a mouse.

There is a section of the trail they call “the devil’s corkscrew” which is a series of steep switchbacks. Here we are above those, looking back down on a section of the corkscrew.

Finally we arrived at Havasupai Gardens. These camps even had canopy covers.

We arrived shortly after noon, and we had plenty of time to relax and enjoy camp life, including a dip in the ice-cold creek to wash off.

The final day is the most challenging one. We need to climb 3,000 feet in just 5 miles of trail.

We hiked for 4.99 miles and it took us 3 hours and 30 minutes. We went from 3,837 feet up to 6,843 feet, which makes it by far the most strenuous day of our trip.

Here is the trail just after leaving the Havasupai Gardens campground. You can see at the red arrow where we’re headed. That’s the spot on the South Rim where we will eventually exit after hiking five miles straight up.

Looking back into Havasupai Gardens where we just camped.

Along the trail there is a popular rest area with water and bathrooms and a place to hitch mules.

Here is a mule train passing us on the way down, bringing those Fat Tire beers and all the other provisions tourists consume down in the canteen. The arrow at the top points to our exit spot.

We had not planned for  this at all:

However, the annular eclipse that occurred in Southern Utah the morning of October 14 just happened to be right during the time of our climb up. I had made the reservations for that day many, many months in advance and I had no idea that would be the day of the eclipse. But when we found out on the North Rim, we purchased a set of eclipse glasses. Looking up the wall, you can see the light of the sun hitting the right side of the canyon, but most of the trail is in the shade. It was just before 9:00am, the maximum coverage of the sun at this latitude. It would not be completely annular. We were hoping we’d find a good spot in the sun to see it.

It was very eerie. The sun hitting the walls of the Grand Canyon is usually very bright, but here we were in strange twilight.

Finally we got close to a light spot, but it was not on the trail. Devin scouted out a way to get across a side arm of the canyon and just reached that spot. Here he is wearing the eclipse glasses.

And here I am, looking at the sun. It was just a sliver. We had no way to take a picture of it with our phones. We were not far from Southern Utah from here, so this was as covered as the sun would get. The pictures don’t do it justice. It was at least 10 degrees cooler than it would normally have been in that spot, and the light was very strange in the Grand Canyon.

What an experience of a lifetime: Seeing an eclipse surrounded by this splendor of nature!

Once we were there, other hikers saw us and followed us over to that spot. If you zoom in you can see some of them just to the right of the tree. That’s where we had to scramble to in order to get out of the shade of the opposite wall that was blocking the sliver of the sun.

Here is a section of the map. The red arrow points to the spot we scrambled to in order to see the sun. The green arrow points to another spot later where the sun hit the trail. Everyone on the trail seemed to stop at that spot for a good view.

Still in the twilight, I am looking down from where we came. The campground we left a few hours before is at the red arrow.

Here is a picture of me with the Havasupai Gardens campground down below.

Finally we reached the last major layer of rock, the youngest rock, just some 200 to 300 million years old. We’re at the top of the white layer, and the red arrow points to that line on the North Rim in the far distance. We’re almost at the top.

Here we are within 5 minutes of arriving. At the red arrow you can see the Kolb Studio. It is located in the Historic District of Grand Canyon Village, just west of Bright Angel Lodge, and near Bright Angel Trailhead. This is a historic, sprawling, 5-story and 23-room building perched right on the rim of Grand Canyon. The photographers Emery and Ellsworth Kolb helped turn the Grand Canyon into a national icon. They built Kolb Studio, one of the earliest tourist destinations on the South Rim.

They began to take photographs of the mule riders from a small toll shack on the Bright Angel Trail. The toll shack would later become today’s five story home, theater and photo studio built right on the edge of the canyon. The studio was used to document the trips of visitors and create imagery of Grand Canyon for 75 years.

And here we are at the top. After four days of hiking, covering over 24 miles, and going down and up more than a mile in altitude. Mission accomplished.

I took one more photo looking down into the splendor of the Grand Canyon.

 

Piestewa Peak is the prominent peak in the middle of Phoenix, second only to Camelback Mountain.  I know I hiked that mountain a long, long time ago, but that’s all I remember. I had no recollection of the hike itself or when I did it. It must have been in the late 1970s, more than 40 years ago. Back then the mountain was called Squaw Peak.

It was renamed in 2003 in honor of Lori Piestewa, a Hopi woman and a member of the U.S. Army who was killed in action during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The renaming was part of an effort to eliminate derogatory and offensive names from geographic features and recognize the contributions of Native Americans and other individuals. Lori Piestewa was the first Native American woman to die in combat while serving in the U.S. military.

Renaming the peak in her honor was a way to pay tribute to her sacrifice and Native American heritage.

I set my alarm to 4:30am, so I would be at the trailhead by about 5:00am. I wanted to see the sunrise from the peak – and I wanted to beat the heat of the day.

It was dark in the parking lot, and I had not brought any headlight or flashlight. But there was a 3/4 moon high above and it lit up the trail just nicely. I had no trouble finding my way and watching my steps.

The hike is actually listed as strenuous. It’s about 1.2 miles up and then the same way back, with an elevation gain of 1,151 feet. That’s quite steep, and I felt it.

Here is a picture of nearby Camelback Mountain to the east, before the sunrise. The lights of the vast expanse of Phoenix in all directions at night were spectacular.

Here is a section of the trail with the peak close within reach.

I took this picture on the way down, so the sky is light, but I wanted to show you the steepness of the trail and how rough it was as I approached the summit.

And finally, here I am at the peak. The sun is not quite up yet.

Looking over to the main peak, there are about a dozen of us up there waiting for the sunrise.

At the top was a Japanese folk artist by the name of Ken Koshio. He has carried up several musical instruments, including bells, a flute, and as you can see a large drum, every day since March 28, 2020. He says he has celebrated the sunrise on the mountain every single day since then, more than 1280 times (he gave the exact number but I didn’t write it down). Here is his website.

Ken drummed up the sun for our small group huddling on she sharp rocks.

Once the sun was up it was time to make my way down. There are several prominent “windows” facing west looking down on Phoenix. This is one view with the bright sun behind me lighting up the rock to my right.

I was back down around 8:00am to start my day and my first meeting at 9:00.

What a wonderful way to start a day on the road!

 

 

 

While we were camping in the Cuyamaca area, on a lazy Saturday afternoon, I decided to do a quick hike of Stonewall Peak. We had done that hike before in 2021 – a pandemic outing – and you can see a full description here.

This time I just parked my car and jumped on the trail at 4:00pm in the afternoon. Here is a shot from the trailhead, just off Highway 79. The setting sun was in my back, lighting up the mountain in fire.

Here is another picture, a few minutes farther up the road. The trail does not stay this wide and clean and it turns into switchbacks very quickly.

Here is a view from the trail about halfway up the mountain.

Finally, at the top. The elevation is 5,730 feet, and the parking lot was at about 4,900 feet. So it’s only and 800 feet elevation change. The bars on the right bottom of the picture are a frame for a display that is not yet installed. In the center of the image is Cuyamaca Lake, very empty and only a shadow of what it was 20 years ago. All the rain of this past season and the hurricane did not make much of a positive difference to the water level.

Our campsite at Pinezanita is five miles away from this point, pretty much straight behind the mountain the the center.

The hike from the parking lot to the peak is about two miles long. It took me about an hour to get to the top. I had to go a little slower as I forgot my hiking poles and I needed to pay attention to my foot work lest I trip. I was back down in within less than two hours just before it started to get dark.

Stonewall Peak is great quick hike with very dramatic vistas in all directions high above San Diego.

Within a week from each other, I went on two hikes that were in some ways very similar, in others, very different. Here is the tale of two hikes:

On Monday, June 12, I hiked part of the Halemau’u trail on Maui in Hawai’i. Here is my post about that hike.

Exactly a week later, on Monday, June 19, I hiked part of the Fuller Ridge Trail on Mt. San Jacinto in Southern California. Here is my post about that hike.

For similarities: On both hikes I went in and out on the same trail. There were no circular options. On the first hike, I went in for 2.8 miles and then turned around. On the second one, I turned around at the 2.3 mile point, because it was the high point. Both hikes had a high point right around 8,000 feet. On both hikes I was on the trail for about three hours.

But the differences were much more dramatic.

Trails in Hawai’i are much rougher. Volcanic rock is sharp, sometimes brittle, and difficult to walk on. Even when the rock is smooth, like on boulders, it’s slippery and uneven. Volcanic rock does not break in sheets like granite, so surfaces are rounded. Walking on Hawai’ian trails requires actively looking at foot placement of every step, to the point where my neck would start to hurt from the constant looking down to my feet. This way, I also miss some of the views. Sure enough, a few times I’d look up and enjoy the sights while walking, and I’d promptly twist my ankle. Not a good idea miles out in the wilderness. Trails in California are generally wooded. Yes, there are rocks and boulders in many places, but foot placement is much simpler. You can look up along the trail and walk safely much of the time. That’s much better for the neck.

The fauna in Hawai’i is much reduced. There are bugs and flies, but not many, and I can never remember being bothered by bugs. While there are ants in Hawai’i, since they were introduced through human activity over the last couple of centuries, they are not everywhere. When you sit down for a snack on a California hike, you always have to be careful about sitting down near an ant nest. They seem to be everywhere, and ants are one of the main reasons why I never liked cowboy camping (sleeping without a tent). There are also gnats and mosquitoes from time to time, although that depends on the season. There are a lot less bugs in California than there are on the East Coast of the United States, of course.

In California, there are always several animals you have to be on the lookout for: Bears, mountain lions and rattle snakes. I have been lucky enough that in all the decades of wilderness hiking, I have never run into any of these animals, but it is always a worry and a concern when hiking. In Hawai’i, there are no snakes, and no native mammals, so no bears, mountain lions or any other predators. There were no mammals at all on the islands until sailing ships brought them with them, including domestic animals, and of course rats and other pests.

The Hawai’ian weather is tropical; we call it pajama weather. You can live in shorts and T-shirts all day and all night long. You really never get cold. That is different at altitude, of course, so it depends on the hike. Jackets and windbreakers are needed above 5,000 feet in elevation and vital at 10,000. But for the most part, it’s very warm. Although the sun can be brutal. Sun screen is a must. There are many similarities in California. The sun is also brutal most of the time, but it gets cold at night and warm clothes are necessary. California is essentially a desert, hot in the day and cold at night. So appropriate clothing is important.

I thought you’d enjoy this short analysis of two very similar, but very different hikes I was fortunate to do within just one week. The contrast struck me.

 

According to the Forest Service, the Fuller Ridge Trail just opened up on June 5 this year, due to significant snow at higher elevations. Our company gave us the Juneteenth (June 19th) off as a holiday, so what better activity for me than to drive high into the mountains and do a high country hike. I drove up Black Mountain Road from Highway 243 west of Idyllwild. The road is 7.5 miles up the mountain one way. You come back the same way.

This is the start of the road on the left. On the right you can see Highway 243. On the map below you can see this point at the red arrow.

The road looks pretty harmless at first, but it quickly turns rough, in some spots very rough.

Here is an example where I left my car there for scale. These ruts are two to three feet deep in some places, and it’s pretty much required to have a high clearance 4-wheel-drive vehicle.

After about six miles up the mountain, we come to some very dramatic lookout points. I call this picture “Jeep in the Sky” for obvious reasons. Looking down from that rock, this is the view:

You can see the San Bernardino Valley about 6,000 feet below us here. The line is Interstate 10. In the distance, you can see the snowcapped peaks of San Gorgonio, the highest mountain range in Southern California at 11,503 feet (3,506 meters) elevation.

About 7.5 miles up, at an elevation of 7,400 feet, I get to the Fuller Ridge Trailhead. This is a large parking and camping area. Usually there are just a few vehicles here. The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) crosses Fuller Ridge Road here. This is where I parked my car and started my hike up the PCT.

The trail climbs steadily uphill and for the most part is well developed.

There are some good stretches of fairly easy hiking, except, of course, always uphill.

There are many crashed trees that obstruct the trail. This one here is at least four feet thick and I had to take my backpack off and literally crawl under this to get through. In some other spots the trail was fully obstructed by fallen trees, I had to climb up or down around them to move past.

This one was at a lower altitude and thankfully didn’t obstruct the trail. 

Soon I got to the first snow bank. This was one of the first. The snow was at last six feet deep – on June 19!!

The vistas were amazing in all directions. Especially higher up the granite outcroppings towered over the trail.

Looking north east, more views of the valley, and the thin strip of light on the horizon to the right of the tip of the tree is the distant Mojave Desert.

Eventually I reached the crest of Fuller Ridge at about 8,000 feet elevation, and the views in all directions were spectacular.

Here is the San Jacinto main summit ridge. The highest point visible from here is actually a false summit. The summit itself, at 10,834 feet, is behind that peak.

Turning my head to the south I can see all of the Southern California “Inland Valley” area, including Temecula, Murietta and Hemet, and countless mountain ranges. I was also able to spot sections of the road where I had just driven up.

Here is another section of the trail at the ridge. The wind was blowing fiercely over this narrow ridge at 8,000 feet.

After reaching the ridge, at about 2 miles up the trail, I wanted to press forward, but the trail was descending down on the other side through a series of switchbacks. Since time was running short, and I had another hour and a half to walk out and then another hour and a half to drive down to the highway, I decided to turn around at about 2.3 miles. To do this enjoyably, I need to come back with a full pack for an overnight stay on the mountain. That’s for another day.

You can see my turnaround point at the green arrow on the map at  the top of this post.

Overall, the views are spectacular, the hike is dramatic, and on the trail itself I did not see a single person. I was totally alone on that mountain, and I loved every minute of it.

 

 

The Lahaina Pali Trail in West Maui is a 4.6 mile one way trail. You can hike it in either direction. I took the east to west approach, because I wanted the morning sun in my back, not in my eyes. It goes from about 20o feet above sea level to 1,560 feet in elevation, and then drops back to sea level.

If you have ever been to Maui, you surely have seen the windmills on the West Maui mountains. This trail climbs up to the windmills, crosses the ridge behind the 10th one counting from the bottom, and goes back down to meet Highway 30 just west of the tunnel on the road to Lahaina.

[as always in my posts, you can enlarge the photographs by clicking on them, and in this post that might give you a better sense of the scale of things]

All the posts and comments on the AllTrails app say to start early. 8:00am is not early. I set my alarm for 5:00am, which seemed the middle of the night. Sunrise in Maui (just a week before summer solstice is at 5:45 am. I was at the trailhead at 6:00am sharp, and the first rays of the sun hit me as I was ready to go.

I had allocated three and a half hours for this hike one-way, and I ended up using three hours and 28 minutes. You might think I know my hiking equipment after 66 years of testing it.

The first rays of the Maui morning sun put everything into a golden light. This is a shot of the trail (can you even see it to the left of the tree?) just a few minutes after I started. The sun is right behind me and you can see my endless shadow in the picture.

Here I am a little further up the trail, and the golden light has turned into fierce Maui sun already.

Turning the other way, as the sun hid behind a cloud for me, I am looking down the valley between the main island and the West Maui, with Kahului (the largest city) in the back on the horizon.

Down in the bay we can see Maalaea Harbor, a very popular departure point for whale watching and diving tours on Maui. Of course, in the back you see the vast expanse of Haleakala itself, with 10,023 feet altitude the tallest point on Maui and one of the most massive volcanoes in the world. Here is my review of my hike on Haleakala from a few days ago.

This is a special shot of the Maui waters with the island of Kaho’olawe in the the background. This island is completely uninhabited and since a couple of decades ago again owned by the State of Hawaii, after it was used for decades by the United States military for bombing exercises.

I thought I’d show you a map to put this picture in context. The start of the green arrow is about where I stood when I shot this photo, and the arrow points to Kaho’olawe. The bay under the arrow is one of the most important breeding grounds of the humpback whales, hence the busy whale watching port of Maalaea. There are no whales in June, but during the winter months between January and March, people have posted that they can see countless whale breaches from this hike.

Finally I reached the windmills. They are gigantic. I took a dozen pictures, trying to get the picture to give a sense of the size, but none do them justice. There is no scale I can put on these, but I do know that each blade is 111 feet long.

This is how close I was allowed to get to them without trespassing.

Eventually I got over the ridge and then the long trek down the other side started. I must say that this is one of the rockiest trails I have ever been on. This picture shows a section of the trail. The boulders in the back are as tall as I am. This is the trail. Can you even see it?

Finally, I am getting close to the other side. You can see the highway in the middle of the picture. The end of the trail is in that green area by the highway.

Here is a picture of me waving down to my wife on my final approach. She dropped me off at the start and came back to the other side of the mountain to pick me up. With my camouflage outfit, you probably have trouble even seeing me. That is by design.

Here I am finally back. Thoroughly tired, very sweaty. Legs wobbly.

The trail is very, very, very, very rocky, all the way. You literally cannot take your eyes off the trail for a single step, lest you risk twisting your ankle or worse. Loose rocks, boulders, rounded rocks, rocks, rocks everywhere. Even though it was only a 4.6 mile hike, it felt like 10 miles. You need good boots to do that. At my age, hiking poles are a must. I don’t think I could even do this without poles.

I brought three liters of water and used about half of it. On a desert hike, in the tropical solstice sun, I bring plenty of water and I never regret it. This hike is always hot, no matter what time of the year or time of the day. Most times it is also very windy, but it was not today so early in the morning. The sea was as calm as a mirror.

I strongly recommend this hike – but you need to be a HIKER. This is not for the casual tourist. You need hiking gear, preparation, and you have to know your body.

I met very few people. One hiker passed me going east to west, and a total of six people met me coming the other way.

I was alone on the mountain, and I liked it that way.