EISPIRATEN

I've done Mt. Baldy a few times at night via the Ski Hut in snowless conditions. First time I was itchin' to get out on a hike in mid-summer, and didn't want to suffer under the late morning sun, so started about midnight. Nice to see all the stars above and lights down below. I've also gone a few t...

That's not a tree, its a bush . . . a manzanita bush.

Is might just be the distance & cloud cover in the picture, but does anyone else think that the flow going down Yosemite Falls looks a little weak for May? It might go dry in the fall.

These two really should be charged for the rescue. They clearly crossed the line between having an unforseen accident and engaging in intentionally negligent behavior, and in this case there's no 'gray area'. They are both over 18 (adults), went into Trabuco Canyon with drugs, got 'high', started wa...

Not sure about the Inidan Canyon Truck Trail - that's on the Elsinore side of the Santa Ana Mtns, and I don't get over there much. I've spent most of my time the last few years hiking the western side facing Orange County. I tried to find the start of the old East Horesthief Trail a few years ago (a...

Wow, from the map it looks like you were one uphill away from the trace trail up to Trabuco Peak itself. The Main Divide Road from the Trabuco Peak area to Santiago Peak has always been in about the same condition as you found it. Try it again in the fall when the weather cools down, should be in be...

Disclosure: Haven't been up the Trabuco Creek trail in about 5 years, but I HAVE been up the Holy Jim Trail, latest trip being last fall. The Trabuco Creek trail isn't hard to follow at all. It starts where the road ends (the trail is actually part of a closed-off truck trail) and is fairly well def...

I've been back there many times and its fairly easy to keep yourself found. Only two major trails, Holy Jim and Trabuco Peak/West Horsethief, rise out of the canyon near its end. Both trails will take you up to the Main Divide Truck Trail, a nice wide dirt road which runs the length of the Santa Ana...

For short & scenic, how about Sandstone Peak in the Santa Monica Mtns. Sure, its more than a 1/2 hour drive, and it'll have a lot of people on the trail, but its a nice view from the top. If you can get some time off during the week you'll have the place to yourself. Also more than a 1/2 hour dr...

Last picture definately looks like a pile of bear poop. First two I'd guess are cougar crap, but not sure; is that hair sticking out of it, or weedy bits?.

$12.80. And almost all of that was for bicycle tires I bought there last year. There's not a lot to buy at REI these days unless I turn into a yuppie that just wants to look 'outdoorsey' (not much chance when you're +50 yo). I've also got a $100 gift certificate that I could use it with to get a new...

I've always just used a piece of plastic drop cloth, too. Always thought those footprints were way overpriced and no better than plastic sheeting. Heck, I expect the bottom of a tent to get a few holes in it as it ages, and I just patch those with nylon fabric. A 9' x 12' plastic drop cloth can be c...

As mentioned above, which McKinley was this? There's one in the San Gabriel Mountains, the San Bernardino Mountains, one in Colorado, and the well-known continental summit in Alaska.

Its been a l-o-n-g time since my botany days in college, so I can't be exact without a picture of the flower, but I'm pretty sure its a species of Coral Plant. It grows in leaf litter under a tree canopy, doesn't have chlorophyll of its own (teh reason for the red color), so it relies on a symbiotic...

If you want to build a 'comfort station' to help those in need on Mt Baldy (during storms that they should not have been hiking through in the first place), why not use all those rocks to create a more familiar, comforting, protective structure: http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS3kQzoMlKRJnt...

One more for 2012. Not much detail:

http://photos.pasadenastarnews.com/2012 ... -rescue/#6

Rain started about 3:30PM today, pretty light. I believe the storm is picking up some tropical moisture, so its too warm for any good snowfall (bummer). Not many post on here lately, huh? Don't worry, the San Gabriel Mtns are still here. I went up Icehouse Canyon to Ontario Pk on Thanksgiving day. S...

Chipseal; you get what you pay for. Its is a cheaper way to put pavement on a roadbed, but it won't last as long as a regular pavement job. It'll probably be cracked and broken by the end of this winter, in need of a full repave job by end of winter 2013-2014. But as long as it survives until the el...

Have you tried comparing the calorie content of this diet plan with what you formerly ate? Apply a little OCD to counting calories and I bet you'll notice the commerical diet plan has fewer calories, which is what you need to cut down on anyway to loose weight. Just get obsessive about watching what...

Probably depends a lot on where this happened, but its strange that when you & friends went back the second day that all that had happened was maggots had invaded the carcass? Sounds odd, as I would have expected the area's wildlife to have started working it over - cougars, bobcats, mice, rats,...

Probably too early in the season, but it may have been injured in an early-season 'rut' fight with another male, wandered off and died here (internal injuries)? Fallen off a nearby cliff or other promentory and sustained internal injuries? Disease? or heart attack from trying to flee the Williams Fi...

severe injuries to the chest, hip, femur and head Oh, wow. So, do people no longer have a fear of heights? Or are these all "immortal" teenagers? HJ Nope, just a loss of common sense. And no, there's no I-Phone app to make a common-sense decision for you. Weren't these types of accidents ...

Contact one of the guide services about work - Yosemite Mountaineering (the one out of Yosemite Valley), Southern Yosemite Mountain Guides, maybe Rainier Mountaineering or American Alpine Institute up in Washington. Might be seasonal, maybe simple trail guiding mixed with some occasional vertical ro...

Taco wrote: ↑Yeah right, it'll be 115* in January at 10,000ft.

115 inches, or 115 cm (45 inches) of snow by January? Even with the avy danger that'll create, that would make a fun winter in the hills.

It was a pretty cool experience and I'm glad to have seen it I just wish it was brighter out. We didn't run but rather walked out of there at a steady pace screaming at it. We didn't have flashlights and just wanted to get out of there . :lol: Nice! How long did you stand your ground before retreat...

Cool you encountered one, regardless of how scared you were. You probably shouldn't have run away as that could trigger it to run after you like you were fleeing prey. I had a similar experience in Eastern Nevada a few years ago - got up in the middle of the night at a car campground, only to see a ...

Just saw this post so thought I'd bring it back up. Maybe Hikin Jim might see it and give you a few ideas. I've got an old SVEA 123 too, and the design hasn't changed. There used to be a shop in Tustin that sold parts for older stoves, but itsgone out of business. The 'Optimus stoves' website has a ...

Still using this as my PLB: http://www.acasports.co.uk/images/products/full/metal-whistle.jpg Used in once in the early 1990s when I got all bass-ackwards confused and off trail between Mammoth and Yosemite. Someone shouted back, I located them, got re-orientated, and got going in the proper directi...

Cool pictures. That wasp sure does look like a tarantula wasp, how big was it? They tend to be more common in the fall when the tarantulas spend more time outside their burrows looking for mates to breed with before the winter closes in. Damselfly adults don't eat, they just live long enough to 'rep...