I was up in this area to climb Diamond Peak and Black in 2012 but after a rough first day climbing from the cars at 6k, setting up camp at 10k, and then doing the 13k Diamond via the north chute my fellow carpool riders were completely trashed by the time we made it back down to camp.  Figuring I'd be back here sometime I elected to hike out the next morning with them rather than make them sit around and wait.

I've always intended to go back in the spring for Black (and nearby bonus bump Mary Austin) but dreaded the climb up Baxter due to the condition of the trail.

4 years later I'd mostly forgotten and finally figured it would be worth another shot.

June 4th & 5th, 2016

Mount Mary Austin (13,051')

[Pics] [Map]

I found out about this cave by accident coming across it on a topo map while looking for a new area to spend a few days backpacking through for the annual Memorial Day Massacre trip.  It ended up being a multi day loop with a car shuttle on Highway 99 hitting the cable crossing at Durrwood Crossing and then swinging south to visit Packsaddle Cave.  The writeup for the entire loop can be found here but I thought this was interesting enough to deserve it's own writeup.

Getting There

You can get to Packsaddle multiple ways.

From Highway 99 Near Fairview Campground - Roughly 5 miles and 2k gain round trip

From Brush Creek along Sherman Pass Road - Roughly 4.4 miles and 1800 ft gain

From the south passing Salmon Creek - 8.7 miles and 3500 ft gain

If these three I've done hiked the second and third.  The Brush Creek route is dry and hot but the southern route is beautiful passing through heavy vegetation and with views of some spectacular waterfalls.  These trails are also dirtbike accessible if that's your thing.


The trail to the cave is marked with a duck in the middle of the trail and is located just a few hundred feet from where the Packsaddle Cave Trail meets the Rincon Trail.  There's a footpath that runs a short distance up the hillside to the cave entrance which you can pick out from below.

The Cave

The cave has suffered vandalism as is unfortunately almost the rule with open caves like this.  You can see multiple places where people set fires or spray painted the walls but it's still well worth exploring.








It's deep enough you're going to need a headlamp and be ready to do some crawling if you want to explore all the way.

The Massacre

For more about our particular visit that included crossing the Kern at the Durwood Cable Crossing and hiking most of the Rincon and the rather nice armed gentleman we ran into in the cave see the full trip report here.

[Map]

Memorial Day is the first long weekend of the year where it's reasonable for me to get into the Sierra.  And as it's also soon after the end of the amazingly fun yet exhausting Wilderness Travel Course and Advanced Mountaineering Program courses I volunteer for I always look forward to doing something big.  A combination of aggressive plans and early season weather challenges have led to some...memorable trips over the years hence the name the Memorial Day Massacre.

This year my recovery from the microfracture surgery I had on my right knee in November kept me from making any big plans and in the end I decided it was better to stick to the three days I had off work vs trying to pull off the usual 4 or 5 day epic.

We did do one of those also this year but not until the 4th of July when we redid the weather aborted 2015 Massacre.

For this weekend we were looking at more snow up high than we'd seen the last few years so we decided to stick to the south.  After some casting about we settled on a a route a bit north of Kernville that was low enough to be snow free, contained an interesting looking cable crossing of the Kern, had a wild cave, and even allowed campfires.

May 28th to 30th, 2016

Mount Durrwood (5,851')

[Pics] [Map]

May 7th & 8th
[Pics] [Map]

Trip season at last!

The first and last parts of the year I dedicate a decent amount of time to volunteering with the Sierra Club Wilderness Travel Course and Advanced Mountaineering Program.  These are both amazing programs and I really enjoy all the new people I get to meet every year.

However they do keep me in town and out of the mountains a little more than I need to stay sane so when Spring AMP wraps up I'm always gunning to get out of town and start climbing.

This year AMP wrapped on May 1st so this was the first chance to really get out.  And it was also my first "real" backpack since having a microfracture on my right knee last November.

The Sierra Club Advanced Mountaineering Program or AMP was started in 2009 by Dan Richter and Pat McKusky to teach basic and advanced mountaineering skills with the goal of promoting safe climbing and train a new generation of club leadership. While it's primarily targeted to WTC graduates and Sierra Club leaders anyone is welcome. It's run twice a year in the spring and fall and staffed by an array of hard working volunteers.

This post covers the Spring 2016 AMP class. More posts about AMP can be found here. More information on AMP and instructions on how to sign up can be found here.

This was a long weekend.

The AMP13 rappel day was Saturday and the setup requires waking up painfully early to meet up with Jack, get to Chatsworth, and set up 6 separate rappel stations complete with separate belay anchors.  By the time the students show up around 8 I'd already been up 5 hours.  Actually teaching the course was a ball like always and I managed to stay coherent through the post class meal.

Needless to say by the time I got home I pretty much showered and passed out immediately.  Only to wake up at 3 am, quickly throw together a daypack, and then drive out to meet John Slagle and Mark Butski at a local carpool point so we could drive 3 hours to Sheep Hole Mountain north of 29 Palms.

Fortunately John was up for doing the driving.

April 24th, 2016

Sheep Hole Mountains HP (4,613')

[Pics] [Map]

This was the first "real" hike I'd been on since Knee Surgery 2015.

Prior to this I had done a snow travel outing with my WTC group and a number of short local hikes but I was anxious to get back out.  The last 6 months of being laid up had taken a toll on my sanity.

I picked this peak almost at random while looking around on Peakbagger.  I'm getting low on DPS peaks I need and I really wanted a two day desert trip with a car camp in between.

Clipper is just south of the infamous Edgar and Mitchell Peaks and Providence Benchmark nearby looked to make a decent pairing with it.

As I posted on Facebook that morning:
"Middle of nowhere, parked in an abandoned dump, about to do a long slog for a seldom visited bump of no particular significance. All is right with the world. -ish"

March 26th, 2016

Clipper Mountain (4,593')

[Pics] [Map]

March 3rd, 2016
[Pics] [Map]

About once a month a group of us get together and paddle Newport Harbor after work. We launch from the beach at the Newport Aquatic Center and paddle over to Pizza Nova in the main harbor in a combination of kayaks and SUPs. There we dock our boats, partake in feast of pizza and beer, and then paddling back to the cars. We do this all year round and in pretty much all conditions. Light, dark, rain, and the dead of SoCal winter where you're tempted to put a
sweater on with your flip flops.

You can find writeups of other pizza paddles here.

This should be the last one for a while that will happen in the dark due to daylight savings time. .All of the regulars except for Kristen, Jen, and myself were tied up elsewhere but we had 7 folks join us for the first time including students from this year and last years WTC class and our favorite former WTC bus driver.

January 13th, 2016
[Pics] [Map]

About once a month a group of us get together and paddle Newport Harbor after work. We launch from the beach at the Newport Aquatic Center and paddle over to Pizza Nova in the main harbor in a combination of kayaks and SUPs. There we dock our boats, partake in feast of pizza and beer, and then paddling back to the cars. We do this all year round and in pretty much all conditions.  Light, dark, rain, and the dead of SoCal winter where you're tempted to put a sweater on with your flip flops.

You can find writeups of other pizza paddles here.

Yet another hot spring posts since that's about all I'm able to do for another month or so due to Knee Surgery 2015.

During the stay at Conway House on Halloween the caretaker recommended the Bungalow Cabin as being even more private with an even better view of the mountains so that's what we went for this time.