EISPIRATEN

I dug up a few more items. This is the best quality image I have of the Cliffe House (Mt. Lowe Tract #1).

MT LOWE TRACT CABIN 1 WURMSER.jpg

The filename includes "Wurmser." Maybe that's who owned it, but I don't remember how I acquired this file. Probably from Paul.

Here is a photo titled ...

Over the weekend some of us celebrated the forum's anniversary with a trip to Monte Cristo Campground and hikes to Rabbit, Granite and Roundtop. Cecelia and I started by driving to the campground on Friday afternoon and securing site #11, which has space for several tents under a big sycamore tree ...

...this is a western bluebird.
It visited us at Monte Cristo Campground.

...this is a canyon tree frog.
It lives in a pool near Monte Cristo Campground.

...this is a horned lizard.
It was found near Rabbit Peak.

David R wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2024 9:30 am Nobody mentioned the highlight of the hike, finding Cecelia's sunglasses. Nice to meet DN&M.

That's the highlight of every hike with Cecelia.

Dude, now you have a rocking camp chair! All I got was the neighbors' abandoned firewood.

Cover your boots in duct tape and try to get another month out of them! Thanks for the TR. I don't like your blood soaked shirt; it makes me imagine you dangerously flying over your handlebars into rocks.

It's not obvious how I can respond in quotes to part of the text from what you posted (do I just delete everything else?)...
Yes, you hit the "quote" reply and delete whatever bits you don't want between the quote tags. It's pretty straightforward when you're replying to one quote. It's trickier ...

Falling Sign Junction is on the Gabrielino in Big Santa Anita. It doesn't look like you were on Winter Creek. If you had hiked Winter Creek you would have ended up at Hoegees, not Sturtevant.

I swear I'm not the Sean who edited this photo.

HikeUp wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2024 11:23 am From April, 2009...

You probably have one of the last photos of this area before the Station Fire, which occurred four months later in August 2009. I think a couple of those trees in the background survived, but I failed to take a picture from that angle.

This trail, between Horse Flats and the summit of Mt. Hillyer, is in excellent condition. It passes through one of the more beautiful areas of the backcountry.

I didn't do the west ridge. I'd done it before, so it wasn't exactly on my bucket list, plus I'm saving my back for future hikes. I was excited for Jeff and Nate, though, this being their first time doing the scramble route.

Instead I followed the guys to Strawberry Meadow junction, then turned ...

Thanks for the report. Driving up to Monrovia is definitely the way to go.

For Cecelia's birthday I took her to the Mojave National Preserve for a bit of desert scrambling. We left LA at 4:00 AM, shopped in Barstow, and rolled into the Preserve at 7:50 AM.

IMG_20241124_075051466_HDR.jpg

We then reached Hole-in-the-Wall by 8:15 AM.

IMG_20241124_083149994_HDR.jpg ...

Thanks for the reports! Oh, so in addition to watching for the rape van, I also need to look out for the murder truck?!?

I guess it could be worse...

Often I've stood atop a peak in the Gabes and looked across the Mojave Desert at the various buttes that pop up here and there. Sometimes I'd even daydream about putting in the effort to drive here and there, and actually climb them. Well, Cecelia and I finally efforted our way to a couple of them ...

Thanks for the report. That rock on the ledge section is gorgeous.

In 2017 Cecelia and I failed to bag Middle Benchmark due to me being stupid . Today we rectified that mistake and finally got our butts up there. Yes, we drove 99% of the way, but, hey, at least we walked the non-road portion (i.e., the firebreak) and stood on the true summit. We also found the ...

Several years ago I painstakingly compiled a list of named peaks in the Gabes, both officially and locally named ones. From Peakbagger I learned of a small bump called The Moon, situated above the Acton Conservation Camp on Soledad Canyon Road. For my fiftieth birthday I wanted to hike something ...

I didn't particularly like the Moon Cheese.

IMG_20241208_102654921_HDR.jpg

It's a novelty freeze-dried snack that I found at Albertsons supermarket.

I did, however, enjoy leaving our pirate flag up there.

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We considered bushwhacking to point 3665, but after a ...

Thanks, Tekewin, for planning and leading this hike. It was a nice challenge, and tons of fun.

Because of my various health issues, I tried to take a less rocky, less sidehilly route back to the car. I had studied the landmarks earlier and figured I could at least get within view of the car. But ...

I stopped to pee near this ocotillo and decided it was picture worthy. I promptly lost sight of Tekewin and got lost after this. Thanks a lot, Ocotillo!
Bonus hedgehog cactus.

Someone left this wagon near Stepladder Mountain...
Now it's Tekewin's...when he goes back and hauls it three miles across the desert to his car.

You sound like you need six more glasses of wine...

Thanks for the report. You got some nice views up there. One of these days it'll snow again in the Gabes and we can freeze ass locally.

I haven't done much in the Upper Big Tujunga area. I've been helping restore the Alder Creek Trail, and some of us hiked the Strawberry Trail out of Colby Bridge. But that's pretty much been it. So on Tuesday I took Cecelia to explore Lynx Gulch.

My planning consisted of checking CalTopo and ...

Cliffed-out hiker near Sturtevant Falls.

https://fb.watch/wUa_kp_LTd/

This horrible, wind-driven fire is burning homes in Altadena and creeping up Eaton Canyon toward Mt. Wilson. Agenda-Free TV on YouTube is doing a decent job of monitoring emergency radio traffic and finding independent reporters like FirePhotoGirl, who drove into the storm of embers and burning ...