california

Over spring break, I took my oldest daughter (13) on her first true backpacking trip, in that she carried all of her personal gear and a portion of our shared gear and food in an overnight pack for a fairly long distance. Our destination was Henry W. Coe State Park, a wonderful, hidden gem of a...

We arrived in Yosemite on Sunday evening and were amazed to find campsites available at Porcupine Flat. In fact, the campground was more than half empty all night…and they had spaces at the Tuolumne Meadows campground as well. It's hard to imagine that the park would be that open in the middle...

I know its California and not Utah, but thought I'd share a recent trip. Its so enjoyable reading all the TR's here from other folks while sweltering in the South Florida heat so I thought I'd pay it forward. The Lost Coast Trail...

Back in September we did a big road trip to California to visit the redwoods, yosemite, san fransisco, and santa cruz. Fantastic trip.

When I was in elementary school, every few weeks my teacher would hand out a brochure from Scholastic with paperback books that you could get your parents to buy for you. I'm sure that every other class in the country received the same or similar brochures regularly. Anyway, the brochures were...

Hiked in from the Ostrander Lake Trailhead, since Glacier Point Road is now open. Only tiny patches of snow visible all the way to Grouse Lake, where we camped. Not a single mosquito--but it was cold! Water frozen in our bottles overnight. We decided we'd rather sleep in a warm cabin than a...

Recently I asked for some help on here for a place to go jeeping and camping. I recently moved out to California and have yet to take my jeep off roading. I have a completely stock 2013 Jeep Wrangler 4 door. Lets just say after this trip I am completely hooked, and now want to get some real...

The weather forecast, a rare thing in southern California, ended our trip plans to drive, camp & work the trail on a 6000' ridge above Santa Barbara. I'd been itching for this trip and had to fight to get Friday off work, my wife made plans to party like a rock star while I was gone, so I had to...

A service project was suggested by Death Valley National Park. The Coalition of American canyoneers jumped on board. The death Valley Wilderness Coordinator Charlie Callagan wanted to survey a not historic plane crash site. Here Charlie describes the crash...

A few years ago we took a trip to Death Valley in the spring...thinking that it would be a good way to get in some hiking while the Sierra was under snow, and it would also give us a chance to see one of the largest US national parks at a time when the temperatures were conducive to hiking and...

I just got back from an intentionally mellow trip with Stan and wasn't planning on a trip report, but I got some cool shots and the Bishop area doesn't get much attention here so I decided to write this up in the photography section. I'm sure Nick will move this if it's not in the right place...

Clark Mountain, at nearly 8000', is the high point in Mojave National Preserve. It's a lofty bastion of limestone with a complex topography involving numerous radiating ridges and precipitous basins. The mountain is covered in single leaf pinyon and juniper, plus the typical assortment of...

It was my privilege two weeks ago to help clear one of the roughest and scariest trails I’ve hiked. The Mission Pine Trail is the most spectacular trail in my local haunt, the San Rafael Wilderness. I hiked the east end of this trail three years ago, three days into a weeklong backpacking trip...

To celebrate the yearly reminder that I'm way older than I ever wanted to be, I signed up with a local meetup group for a brutal day hike - the east and more distant end of the Hurricane Deck. The organizer called it "El Marathon de los Muertos" because it was 26 miles, occurred on the Latin...

My Rainier buddy Pryor was in town shortly after our big trip. Being an avid climber from Leadville, CO, he was ready for 14,000' in the high Sierra. We left my place in Pismo Beach alittle after 3:00 a.m., and, after getting lost in Tehachapi, we made it to the Lone Pine Interagency Center a...

OK--since people seemed to have enjoyed my last post about Green Lakes, here's another trip report from this summer: a wonderful trip to the southern side of the Cathedral Range in Yosemite. Because there are no marked trails through here, this area gets a lot less traffic than trails just a...

This weekend we visited Yosemite with a visitor from Italy--one who wasn't sure she wanted to spend the night in the wilderness---so we took her on a few day hikes. And had a wonderful time. That's Taft Point and El Capitan below Admittedly, the waterfalls in Yosemite are barely trickles...

New here, but thought I'd give a boost to the Sierra Nevada with a post about our last trip out of the east side trailhead, Green Creek. The trail up to Green Lake is a very pleasant stroll up the canyon. Some of it runs alongside Green Creek, and none of it gets too steep. You couldn't ask...

Back in july my girl and i went down to San Francisco to visit her grandparents. On the way there we were able to camp for two nights in Yosemite, and do a little hiking. Not quite as much as i would have liked, but you know, it's never enough. We slept at a rest stop on the way down, and then...

Top of the Contiguous USA Friday - Tuesday, August 22-26, 2014 Mount Whitney- at 14,508 feet it is the highest mountain peak in the contiguous United States. While I have always thought about climbing to the summit of Mount Whitney at some point in my life, I really had never seriously planned...