Santa Catalina is one of several islands located a relatively short distance off the coast of Southern California.


It's permanently inhabited by around 4,000 people most of whom are centered around the main settlement / tourist attraction known as Avalon.  Most of the rest of the island is controlled by the Catalina Island Conservancy and has a more rustic feel to it despite the existence of dirt roads and cell service almost everywhere.  They do control vehicle access but you can pay to get almost anything including yourself delivered to one of only 5 campgrounds.

The island is also famous for the buffalo herds that were originally transported to the island for a movie only to be abandoned and have lived there ever since.  And there's also a unique species of fox that is only found on the island.

There is a trail that runs from one side to the other called the Trans-Catalina Trail that's been on my radar for years.  Since I'd only ever been to Avalon it seemed like an ideal way to see more of the island.  I never got around to it before now mostly due to the cost and extra hassles involved vs my usual Sierra or desert based weekend adventures.  You have to reserve campsites, pay for a boat ride, and I'd heard from others that it was mostly a steep hike on fire roads.

Then this year I let Jen Blackie convince me to finally take a precious four day weekend in between WTC and AMP and head out there.  And it turned out to be one of my favorite trips of the past few years despite the odd mix of civilization (cellphone coverage, vehicle access to the entire island) intruding into the wilderness-y experience I'm generally looking for.

Silver Peak (1,804')
61 miles, 14,000'
[CalTopo] [Map]

Each year the 10 week Sierra Club Wilderness Travel Course builds up to a three day two night winter backpack outing into the Sierra Nevada.  And each year the staff nervously watch the snow forecast hoping we don't have a repeat of 2015 where we barely had enough snow to set up tents on.

This year it looked grim until right before the snow travel outing at which point a series of storms starting hitting both the local mountains and the Sierra.  By the week before snow camp we knew we were in for something memorable.


Even if the weather fizzled (which it didn't) this was looking to be the coldest snow camp in years!

March 16th to 18th, 2018

[Pics] [Map]

Wilderness Travel Course season gets pretty busy with most weekends being tied up in class outings but we do have the occasional opportunity to get out.  This trip was snuck in between the Orange County Joshua Tree and Snow Travel weekends.  In addition to just being a good excuse to get out and backpack in the local mountains was as an I Provisional for Jen Jones and had the added benefit of being a variation of something I'd done before that I'd wanted to scout as a potential WTC Experience Trip.

Unlike most trips where we drive out the night before and hike in in the morning our plan was to do the initial 2.5 miles Friday night to a known water source and then fill up in the morning and do another 2.5 miles to a dry camp near Cactus Spring.  We'd then dayhike Martinez, return to camp, and then Sunday do Sheep before hiking out.

And as an added bonus we had a winter storm sweep in dropping the temperatures to a low of 27.  Fun!

February 23rd to 25th, 2018

Sheep Mountain (5,141')

Martinez Mountain (6,562')
Day 1: 2.4 miles, 300'
Day 2: 10.5 miles, 2,500'
Day 3: 9.7 miles, 2,500'

[Pics] [CalTopo] [Map]

Joshua Tree is the second of four outings that make up the Sierra Club Wilderness Travel Course.  Two weeks ago everyone joined us for a 15 mile -ish dayhike and now we had an entire weekend bus trip out to Indian Cove to focus on rock scrambling skills and navigation!

And since we're Kaweah Group (one of the three groups in the Orange County area of WTC) we like to throw a theme into the mix for our summit shot and potluck.  Themes are suggested and voted on by the class and previous years have run the gamut from simple to elaborate.  This year the winner was Medical Misadventure beating out Business Casual Murder Clowns by a very small margin.  The result is what you see above!

For more information on what WTC is and how to take the course see the official site here. More posts by me about WTC can be found here.

February 17th & 18th, 2018

[Pics] [CalTopo]

This trip was a little different than my normal weekend fare since it didn't involve any peaks, hikes, or hot springs.  Victor Gomez and Lubna Debbini are two friends who came through WTC last year and they put this trip together around whale watching down at Laguna Ojo de Libre.

If you're like me and only ever seen whales Newport Beach style in the distance from the deck of a large boat the experience at Laguna Ojo de Liebre will completely ruin that for you.  Whales migrate here from Alaska to give birth and teach their babies how to swim.  These days it's carefully controlled so that only a set number of boats can go out and only in certain areas for 90 minutes at a time.  It's somewhat famous due to the fact the whales come so close to the boats that if you're lucky you can reach out and touch them.

February 10th to 12th, 2018

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It's that time of year again where we start taking the new crop of Wilderness Travel Course students on outings!  After three weeks of classroom sessions we spent Saturday hiking Santiago Peak via the Holy Jim Trail.   It's an Orange County classic it involving 15 ish miles and 4k gain all on trail making it a great fitness assessment before we continue on to the rock scrambling, snowshoe, and finally a winter backpack in the Sierra!

February 3rd, 2018

Santiago Peak (5,687')

[Pics] [CalTopo] [Map]

Deep Creek Hot Springs is located out near Apple Valley and is one of those places I've heard talked about for years and always wanted to check out.  It's only accessible via a hike involving a short and steep two mile descent or a longer route from the PCT and is known for its unique setting and prevalence of naked folks of a hippie inclination or otherwise.

And of course there are the usual warnings about amoebic meningoencephalitis and fecal coliform.  But hey, if that really bothers you you're probably not the sort that should be looking at backcountry hot springs to begin with.

January 28th, 2018

Deep Creek Hot Springs

4.1 miles, 970'

[Pics] [CalTopo] [Map]

I was going to stay home this weekend.  I really was.  The last few weeks of constant trips and frantic work weeks had left me with quite a bit to do around the house and I decided I should really just stay home and deal with it all.

That resolution lasted until about 3 pm on Friday.  5 hours later Kristen and I were driving out to the desert planning to knock off some things that had been on the list for awhile but didn't really warrant their own weekend.

Dyadic is a peak near the DPS Spectre Peak out to the east of Twentynine Palms.  Jen Blackie and I did Spectre back in 2013 and due to running low on water we'd skipped the two named bumps nearby and ever since I'd heard people talk about Dyadic and how difficult it was.

And they were right.  I tend to discount a lot of the Joshua Tree area peaks as trivial but this one has solid high end 3rd with a bonus of non trivial route finding.  It's a great pick for a Sierra Club M provisional with the only drawback being it's tough to day hike and any plan to backpack the peaks requires you carry all your water.  And who the heck wants to do that...

January 27th, 2018

Aqua Benchmark (4,419')

Dyadic Point (4,360')

14.1 miles, 3,200'

[Pics] [CalTopo] [Map]

Once a month a group of us get together and paddle Newport Harbor after work. We launch from the beach next to 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. For notifications on when we're doing the next one see our facebook group Pizza Paddle Associates. (Send me a message so I know you're not a spam bot!)

We had skipped the December Pizza Paddle in favor of paddling along with the Newport Christmas Boat Parade which is always a lot of fun but of a different sort than our normal monthly excursions and I was looking forward to starting these up again.  Sadly we're still launching in the dark for at least another paddle or two due to the constraints of gainful employment but on the plus side that means smooth water perfect for paddling even if I do miss seeing the sunsets as we go down the main channel.  (And more importantly it's damn near impossible to take decent pictures at night from a moving boat!)

January 25th, 2018

[Pics] [Map]

Yesterday's climb of Picacho Peak had been the main attraction for the weekend but I didn't want to drive all the way out to Yuma just for a single peak.  I'd already done Muggins, the two DPS Peaks off the 8, and The Thumb + Palo Verde Peak in the area and I was really starting to reach for new ideas when someone suggested Little Picacho.

USGS Little Picacho Peak is the bump to the north of Picacho.  It's confusing because the Sierra Club Desert Peaks Section likes to refer to Picacho as Little Picacho to distinguish it from Picacho del Diablo aka Big Picacho down in Mexico.  Nevermind the fact you also have *another* Picacho peak in the state park not far to the east.

USGS Little Picacho is a short hike from the road leading to the northern trailhead for DPS Picacho and could easily be done on the same day if you had a suitably fast group.  It's a rough approach but there's some quality scrambling near the top and I'd love to go back and see if there was a way to get even more down lower.

(The picture at the top of the article is a view of Little Picacho from the summit ridge of DPS Picacho)

January 21th, 2018

Little Picacho Peak (1,508')
1.3 miles, 1,300'

[Pics] [CalTopo] [Map]