Day 1 I wanted to hang out at Chilao, but at 7am it was still pitch black with visiblity on the ACH very very low. Thereby I reversed the order of stops and headed down to the high desert and onto Devils Punchbowl.
The agenda for day 1 was project:Punchdrunk. I think I did a good job of imitating the idea as I found myself without a rope or topo map on a crumbly super steep very narrow ridge I thought should be called the ridge of doom. Very windy this day too. I ended losing elevation on the neighboring real ridge and then dropped into Punchbowl canyon. Overall the day went well as I surveyed for a return visit. I planned on camping along Big Pines highway. I suppose I wasnt sober yet as I had forgot to write down where Big Pines was and went all the way to highway 2. Wrightwood was bracing for a storm so I high-tailed it back the 20+ miles to camp at Big Rock Creek where I noted Big Pines Highway
The agenda for Day 2 was project: Side Dorr canyon. I waited for Caltrans and some guinea pigs to go up to the mountain, and then headed on up. At Vincent Gap it was back to no/low visibility so I went on the hike to Big Horn mine. On the way back I was running the Ready/Set/Go! parts of the trail and a rock up above dislodged with a thunderous boom....had I been walking hehehe....by the time I got to the car I was no longer on the edge of the storm and things were clearing up rather fast. I drove to Dorr's side canyon and surveyed the scene. This particular canyon had a big drop-off as it converged into Dorr canyon.
Continuing along the ACH, suddenly I finally got to Waterman ski area where the snow coverage was dismal. Then at Newcomb's ranch it was like "It snowed?". After that I hit up the Chilao scene and setup at site#23 in the Manzantia loop. If the Devils Punchbowl theme is Utah, then the Chilao theme is Sierra. Had a nice view, but the worst place of the bunch to actually camp, with the cold wind coming up directly to the camp. Being a goofy touron, I gleefully watched many poodle dogs meet their demise. And to play the part, I cooked a nice cherry pie using loppers to handle the pan. Check-out time is 11am, so its not a place to camp and then hike.
Day 3's agenda was project: Chilao...but like the other days with no rope, I ended up somewhere else....in this case pk 5248. There was a summit register from 2000 there proclaiming the name to be "Slim Peak". Kind of fitting considering the peak doesnt have much stature. There was another unsigned entry against summit registers basically saying that the orginial party dude is likely "gay", because he had an ego and was trashing the wilderness. I return to the car along the Silver Mocassin trail. There was a side road at the East Fork of Alder creek which made me curious for an explore. Telephone wires came down to a station, but beyond that I couldnt make any sense of why a road was paved down here.
No doubt hiding from the many hunters
The ridge of doom(middle of picture)
Short flute into an easy pothole...maybe 3 ft deep
day 2: Big Pines hwy
Inspiration Point area
A tributary to Mine Gulch
obstacle#1 in Side Dorr canyon
Day 3
X-C
Moving eyes up from previous picture
Summit register
Partial view from summit....basically most everything can be seen from this firebreak ridge.
Baldy from the ACH
, what is the large can on the upper left of the picture for? You think its for paint and they just tossed the ladder up there to get it out of the way?