Trail work on bear and Eleanor trails

Several miles of trails require annual clearing so we spent a few days hiking and clearing Eleanor and bear and south wall trails.

Catfish lake trail cleaning
4 inches of hail on 108 near little Sweden

Hosting pct hikers

A set of 3 2023 hikers joined us for two at the cabin as they are waiting out the snow melt and now in their way to the Canada border to find a snow free area of the pct they can do soon.

A wet and cooler week at Pinecrest with pct hikers
Fog or clouds at the cabin
Fog!
We celebrated Angela birthday at the cabin
First group of hikers

South wall overlook trail building and hike

One day we hiked and cleared the south wall overlook trail outside of Pinecrest. This is one trails that we built and now maintain and map for folks visiting Pinecrest.

View from south wall overlook
Almost around the corner
View to the east
View of the top of the sierras

Calavaras big trees hike

We stayed one night with new friend Tom outside of Arnold and visited and hiked about 7 miles one morning.

We hiked both north and south groves
The dogwoods were out somewhat
Big trees
Another big tree
Lunch at Tom’s place in Arnold
Creeks in big trees
Big trees!

More Pinecrest visits

This past weekend my younger daughter visited with her boyfriend Miles and other friends.

Hiking to the rock via rock trail
Molly and miles and Gus
Pizza oven at Pinecrest
Strawberry river walk

Pinecrest Ca

From sf we drove to Pinecrest to open the sierra cabin for the summer.

Pinecrest lake
Scott with brother steve and his family Memorial Day weekend
Morning walk at the lake
Hiking with Steve’s family
Pinecrest lake
hiking around the lake
Working on bear trail and 9 mile hike

Hiking in Marin

We hiked from mill valley to Stinson beach and back while our stay in sf. This was about a 17 mile hike over mt tam and back.

Our hiking group in Marin
Steep trails in. Marin
Muir Woods
Muir Woods
Mocha stop Marin

San Francisco bike ride

We spent 3 nights in downtown San Francisco at a friends house. The first day we did an all day bike ride around sf and then over the golden bridge to Sausalito.

A few block from our unit
Biking in sf
Haight and ashbury biking
Presidio
Ferry ride back to sf

Santa Cruz CA

Once we got off trail in acton ca we spent one night in tehachapi and then drove to Santa Cruz to spend one night with Mary and Frank. On that morning we left we visited redwood parks near Santa Cruz before driving to San Francisco.

Henry cowell state park
Our trail family visiting the redwoods
Giant redwoods

Wrightwood to Acton

This was our last section to complete before we finished all of the non high snow regions so far this spring. This 4-5 day trip was about 85 miles.

Our Wrightwood trail angel cabin
Hiking out of Wrightwood
Hwy 2 closed
Campsite on hwy 2
Morning hiking
400 mile mark
Morning hiking
Burned area

Big bear to Wrightwood

This nearly 100 mile section was a long and generally warm to hot section.

Looking back to big bear
Camping spot
Deep creek
Deep creek hot springs
Dinner with fellow hikers at deep creek springs
Deep creek
Bridge over deep creek
Famous Mc Donald’s stop
Camping up the hill
Early morning hiking
Hiking up to the snow at mt baldy
Half way to homeless as a pct hiker

Hiking to big bear

The hike from white water summits over a very high 8700 foot section of trail with some snow crossings. We hiked 22 miles before camping and then hiked 7 miles to hitch into big bear

High above the desert at 8700 feet
Lunch on trail
Early morning hike into big bear
Our tramily at breakfast stop
French toast in town

More Idyllwild to big bear

After descending about 5000 feet we crossed the desert and into the famous I 10 oasis

Camping
Miles and miles of down hill
Close to crossing desert
Howling winds until we reach this creek drainage under the i 10 freeway
Hiking to white water preserve
White water preserve flowing fast

Idyllwild to big bear

This 5 day stretch was filled with both snow and hot desert. The first day we got a ride to black mtn rd abd hiked 7 miles up to reach the pct. Near the top we ran into snow and used micro spikes on our shoes

Snow
Snow looking down into desert
Micro spikes
Heading down a 20 mile down trail

8 mile slack pack trail near tehachapi

We did this 8 mile pct trail section with a slack pack approach. Just a day pack and no camping

Major wind farms !
Flower blooms
Dropping down to 58
Flowers and windmills

Ridgecrest

We spent the night at a farmhouse outside of Ridgecrest with many animals including goats chickens cows sheep turtles and emoos.

Goats of every size
These guys follow you around
The farm site
View looking west from farm

Back to tehachapi stay

We got a ride back from Ridgecrest to tehachapi and stayed a night at another farm outside of town. This stay could be considered a old western adventure where the gracious hosts offered a fun filled afternoon and stay with everything from 4 wheeling, shooting guns and rifles, looking at Indian cave paintings and having a bbq.

The tramily western style
Shoot out
Double trouble
Cave paintings
Shooting
Exploring up the canyon after 4 wheeling
New friends
Gracious host

More tehachapi to walker pass

After grabbing water at the first water cache we hike toward the next water cache

Starting early to avoid the heat
Very mountainous trail
Second water cache
Big climbs
Crest trails
Campfire at first water crossing and campsite
Heading down to walker pass
Yellow super bloom

Tehachapi to Walker pass

We did this 86 mile difficult and minimal water options in 4 and 1/2 days with our trail family of 5. This stretch of pct trail is famous for a lack of water and the only water available for hikers is supplied by water angels offering bottled water caches in the desert. Even with these water caches water carry’s are around 20 miles

Big climb out of tehachapi
Lunch picnic on trail
Climbing mountains always
Camping
First water cache at 20 miles – dry camp the night before