Rabbit, Villager and Rick Kent sighting, 31-Jan-2009

TRs for desert ranges.
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Tim
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Joined: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:55 pm

Post by Tim »

Joined Ze and his group to hike Rabbit and Villager yesterday. I originally intended to only hike to Villager but somehow got talked into going all way to Rabbit again. Now I remember why I didn't want to go. What a brutal hike. The main difficulty is the terrain, which is incredibly rocky. Other than that, it was a nice day with clear skies and very clear views. There was only a slight breeze and the temps were mostly mild.

We started at 5:15am and finished just a little before 7pm. I few of us camped near the trailhead the night before. It was pretty cool to sleep under the stars with just a tarp and a sleeping bag, although I kept having visions of coyotes surrounding us, ready to pounce. None of us got any meaningful sleep.

About 90 minutes into the hike, we stopped for a rest and out nowhere came a solo hiker moving pretty fast. He stopped to say hello and said he was headed to Rabbit. It's pretty rare to see a solo hiker dayhiking to Rabbit of all places, so some of us theorized it was Rick Kent. But we weren't sure, so for the rest of hike we kept thinking of ways to verify if was him (i.e. is he running the trail? Is he taking a lot of pictures? Is he eating brazil nuts?). We didn't see him again until after returning from Rabbit and turns out it was Rick Kent and he went to Rosa Point before moving on to Villager and Rabbit.

I'm not sure whether it was just a coincidence or he was sneaking up on us like with Kevin's group, but it made for some interesting conversation that day. Most of the people in our group didn't know who he was, but when we explained the kind of hikes he does, they refered to him as "crazy hiker dude." :D

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Ze Hiker
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Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:14 pm

Post by Ze Hiker »

here's my TR

Tim really wanted to go to Rabbit, don't lie! :lol:
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HikeUp
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Post by HikeUp »

Nice TR's guys. You say you camped near the trail head. Why not at the trail head? I thought there was ample space to car camp at the trail head.
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Ze Hiker
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Post by Ze Hiker »

just to get away from the noise of cars passing by. there's a dirt road heading south opposite of the trailhead which has some good flat spots a few hundred yards away
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KathyW
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Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 9:00 pm

Post by KathyW »

Those pictures are beautiful - really clear. Congrats on Bagging Rabbit. Rabbit is a long haul but the Santa Rosas are beautiful, so it's well worth the effort. I'd like to do the hike again sometime from the Coachella Valley near Oasis/Valerie Jean instead of going over Villager.
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Rick Kent
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Post by Rick Kent »

Ze,

It was nice running into you guys! Looks like we got down at similar times. I wasn't sure my descent route worked all that well.

I put a report up here:

http://www.mtsanjacinto.info/viewtopic.php?t=1271

-Rick
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Ze Hiker
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Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:14 pm

Post by Ze Hiker »

Yeah I don't know if you ever read this TR: http://www.gpsmountaineering.com/rabbitandvillagerpeaks

If you haven't, I guess I should have mentioned that the descent down the west side seemed to be more of a pain that it's worth!
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He219
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Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:18 pm

Post by He219 »

Nice TR
Tim wrote:.. some of us theorized it was Rick Kent. (i.e. is he running the trail? Is he taking a lot of pictures? Is he eating brazil nuts?)
:lol:
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406
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Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:36 am

Post by 406 »

nice work.
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