EISPIRATEN

I did my test yesterday, turning around 1000' below Villager because I'd reached my turn-around time. When I parked there were two cars in the lot and I soon met both parties in the flattish area so I was all alone. Because of that I was extra cautious and it took ~4.5 hours up, ~3.5 hours down ...

I hiked Sunset Peak on Sun Feb 15, 2026 via the ridge. I'd never been there before and I was pleasantly surprised to see some rocks just before the summit. Apparently the trail used to go around them but that part washed out. The rocks weren't difficult to get up and around, aside from lots of ...

I'm thinking of just going to Villager as a test on Sun Feb 22. That stats look similar to South Kaibab and I did that at night without any issues, but I'm worried about the tread making things harder. In his old post, Bob Burd says you only need tennis shoes for it, but I'm not Bob Burd. If ...

I too am no spring chicken, and I didn't have a problem with things like Rim to River in a day, hiking from Wilson down to the Chantry Flats area and back up, etc. I did White Mountain (the CA 14er) around 20 years ago and I was completely wiped out afterwards: I crawled back into my tent at ...

If anyone's interested in doing Villager on Feb 14, please let me know. Moderate pace, starting around 7am or so.

I'm hoping to do Villager + Rabbit Peak with the Sierra Club (I'm not a member) at the end of March.

(ADDED: I'd do this after doing all or almost all of the Rabbit Ramp Up series and I'd do the route that the SC does, presumably the Borrego Springs/Ocotillo Wells side. My main concern is whether I ...

On Jan 11, 2026 I set out to do a loop from the Monte Cristo campground that hits four HPS peaks: Iron #3, Roundtop, Granite, and Rabbit (in that order if you're going counter-clockwise). Both my phones were too low on the fireroad connecting the middle two, so I returned back to the Angeles Forest ...

On Sat Dec 13, 2025 I tried to hike from the top of Reseda Blvd to Will Rogers State Park but the Backbone Trail is now closed a mile after The Hub when it branches off Fire Road 50. The trail down to Temescal Falls blocked off too. So, I ended up turning around when the Temescal Ridge Trail/El ...

In the spirit of the last:

why not just camp down at the bottom and hike out refreshed? best night's sleep I ever got. also had the best beer of my life at phantom ranch.


Personally I wasn't wiped out by the hike down: I took that slower than I would have if it were at the end of the hike.

And, backpacking isn't exactly ...

I'd been to the South Rim before but didn't hike down and when I went to the North Rim I only hiked down a little bit. So, I'm no expert, but I think they shut off the water spigots on the Bright Angel trail in the winter. So, even if I'd taken that there *might* not have been a water source. Plus ...

On Saturday Nov 29, 2025 I hiked down the South Kaibab trail to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and then hiked back up the same day. It was strenuous but not overly so: I was able to keep to (what Polar thinks is my) Zone 3 for almost all of the up leg. I'd also trained for this ...

I haven't really looked into this so pardon my uninformed musings, but:
- without casting aspersions on her, could she have intentionally disappeared in some way, either by going back to Hwy 2 to a waiting vehicle or hiding out for a while? Was there anything she might have wanted to run away from ...

I did the same thing on Sun Nov 2, 2025. I saw the road scar but I assume they no longer have the detour, I stayed on the Tonto trail right to BA. I decided not to go to the River because it was quite hot at the Tip-off. I came up BA at night and that was great, although I probably wouldn't do it if ...

On Oct 25 2025 I drove by Eaton Saddle twice and there were several cars there. There are also recent reviews of San Gabriel Peak and Mt Lowe on AT.

Someone at Mt Wilson told me the USFS doesn't bother to enforce the burn closure, and hopefully if enough of us call this to their attention they ...

There were a lot of spent shell casings on Old Mt Emma (but none I saw on Mt Emma). That's bad from the pollution standpoint, but even worse the top is rounded so they couldn't really see where they were firing. OTOH, while people wrote on the other side of one of the summit signs and there were ...

I visited this and Old Mt Emma yesterday. Because the stats are moderate, I rucked it. It's steep and loose; the first didn't bother me so much but the second required a good bit of caution on the downhills.

I took the signed trail off Mt Emma Road. After topping out at Mt Emma, there's a steep ...

You should give it another go when you have plenty of time.


I had two headlamps and I'm OK with night hiking, esp since it was near a full moon. The main issue was worries about the solo part, esp since I had a rock fall into me on nearby Eagle Mtn, breaking a rib, causing a small pneumothorax ...

I tried this Joshua Tree peak on 10/5/25. The stats are moderate: maybe 10 miles RT + 2500' of gain. And, about 5 miles of that is flat. However, the rest of it is mostly walking on steep, loose rocks. It's mostly Class 1 with some Class 2, but the small rocks slow things down. And, you - or at ...

Kings Peak looks really hard as a day hike. 25+ miles? That's a tough day.


I'm not a morning person, I have trouble sleeping in my car or in a tent, and it takes me some time to get ready, but I don't think it would have been impossible if I'd been acclimatized and I'd got going at 4am after a ...

My road trip was mixed: https://goalhiking.org/s/gsrt2025
I should have done Kings Peak after CO, but I had to get back.
I hope to do Longs next summer.

Peanut butter in a squeeze pouch: 1000 kcals in 6oz and no mess.

Those are two county highpoints in Yosemite NP, and the first is the highpoint of the park. Would anyone be interested in a slower-paced trip to bag both, or at least Parsons?

Lyell has a glacier but apparently minimal crevasse danger, it also has at least Class 3 rock near the top and some mention ...

I did this about 6 weeks ago. I went counterclockwise, meaning you have several hundreds of feet for Democrat near the end, but you're going up Bross. You can also bail before Democrat if the weather turns bad. While going down Bross didn't look that bad, if I did it again I'd probably do it the ...

The 2016 report from that page matches my experience about not finding a use trail, but based on the 2016 report it sounds like both of us didn't descend far enough down the Backbone trail to the west.

The 2019 report from that page is confusing Mtn with something else. I assume Pop Top is the ...

On Feb 16, 2025 I did the attached route, going up the Mishe Mokwa trail and down the Backbone trail back to the Sandstone parking lot. There's a trip report with pics at my site .

I thought Boney Peak was another name for Boney Mountain on the lower left edge of the map. https://goalhiking.org ...

I joined recently. I've gone on a few hikes with Girl Hiker and I run a couple of Meetup groups one of which is, unsurprisingly, Goal Hiking Biking and Climbing.

I'm looking for people to do day hikes of Desert Peaks Section peaks at a moderate pace. I'm comfortable with Class 2 and 3. For Class 4 ...