california

I spent the last three days doing trail and solitude monitoring in the Mokelumne Wilderness. It is amazing how little you have to hike to get really and truly alone in this area. The first day I hiked into Summit City Canyon from the Evergreen Trailhead at Upper Blue Lake. The place was...

Days: 48 - 68 Miles: 565.4 - 789.1 (+ Mt. Whitney and Kearsarge/Onion Valley side trail) Zero Days: 4 Heads up, this TR is going to be wordy. About 25 miles after leaving Tehachapi, I was stepping over a littering of small downed twigs and branches. I heard a loud pop and felt it reverberate...

Days: 21 - 47 Miles: 208.5 - 565.4 Zero Days: 3 Thru-hiker trick, always wash your socks several times before you put them in the washer. If you can spare the money, wash your socks in a different machine completely. If you don't do this, the chance of your sock funk contaminating the rest of...

OOOOOKAY, so it has almost been 1 year since I touched the Northern Terminus (09.20.2021). I finally have internet aaaand my Sawtooth backpacking trip/job hunting has been delayed due to someone backing into my car. I have officially been carless for 12 days and have not left home for 8 days. My...

On an invite from a good friend, I headed out to the Sierra Nevada for the first time in a few years. I was really excited for this one - the Sierra doesn't have quite the "wild" feeling of my usual trips in the GYE or Winds, but the sheer size and beauty of the scenery is hard to beat - and the...

Warning: tons of photos, probably too many Sequoia National Park 7/28 - 8/5/21 (8 nights) Shepherd Pass Stock Trailhead (Inyo NF) Total distance ~70 miles and 20,000' elevation Day 1: Stock Trailhead to Anvil Camp (CalTopo miles) - distance: 9.08mi range: 5681' to 10245'gross: +5541'...

n Nov 26th I headed for Mid Hills Campground. After setting up I did the short hike to Eagle Rocks. Near sunset I walked out to the unnamed mountains at the head of Black Canyon on the south side of the Mid Hills road. To summit Eagle Rocks requires climbing a pure granitic 40 foot steep face...

My final day in Death Valley for 2021. Began the day at Harmony Borax Works. Cottonball Basin was beautiful in the morning. Harmony Borax Hill by John Morrow, on Flickr Cottonball Basin, Death Valley Natl. Park by John Morrow, on Flickr I drove to Mile 1.1 on the Chloride Cliff Road where...

A big storm was coming to the west coast so I ditched my Yosemite camping plan after one snowy day and headed to the coast. I spent a couple of days in the coastal rain, (not snow :whistle:) car camping and day hiking the short trails in Point Reyes. I was looking for wildlife to photograph but...

This trip report ended up being way longer than I had anticipated it being. I tried to keep the number of photos down as well but if you do want to see more photos and read less text I've set up a Smugmug account recently and I've got a photo centric report over there. Here is the link to that...

Background Knowing that I was heading out to the Sierra at the end of June, on a whim I decided to look for last minute backpacking permits for the 4th of July weekend. Earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic Inyo NF had moved their permits to all online reservations, and I was able to grab the last...

Background Armed with a new hip and 2 months of obsessive training, I planned to test out my hip on one of my favorite big Sierra hikes, a loop through Evolution Basin and Darwin Canyon starting at Sabrina Lake and ending at North Lake. The route passes through some of the most prized terrain...

Mojave is one of the most underrated National Park Service Units in the nation, in my humble opinion. After mostly a rest day I arrived on the Aiken Mine Road NW of Baker, CA. Any SUV can make it down this road with ease, from the North, for the first 8 miles (a spot roughly between Button Mtn...

Just to the east of Yosemite lies the Hoover Wilderness. When they made Yosemite they probably grabbed as much land as they could without upsetting local landowners. Hoover Wilderness lies just outside Yosemite but it doesn't know it is not a national park. It has some national park worthy...

After skipping my traditional spring trip to Utah and spending way too much time cooped up in front of the computer, I finally escaped last month for a "local" trip to the Sequoia backcountry. I say "local" because I could do this entire trip self-sustained with only one stop at a gas pump along...

*All photos are sized for my Instagram account, so I apologize for the picture quality haha Alright guys. Second solo trip! Woot woot! I did NOT do the 27 miles I had planned. I think I did…about ~13 ☹ My excuse is that Monday I tore 3 tendons in my foot/ankle, but honestly, this was an...

After spending 2 nights at Stovepipe Wells Campground, I was pretty excited and nervous to pack up and head to Wildrose. I had originally read horrible reviews for Wildrose and raving reviews for Stovepipe Wells. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I disliked Stovepipe Wells very much and LOVED...

I am going to try to skip my story and keep this short, because I have so many pictures I want to share! I focused on sharing the main tourist attraction photos and not necessarily my favorite, but you can see them all at the link below...

This relatively new National Park is located in Central California, closer to the coast than it is to the High Sierra, Pinnacles is a great day hiking destination. It remains snow free and accessible all winter. There is only one campground, located on the East side. There is no road through...

June-July 2016 This is a recap of my favorite backpacking trip – one I hope to repeat in the next few years. We were limited to the last week in June and first week in July due to work constraints. We lucked out that year because most of the snow had already melted. Had we gone the next year...