Gorgeous San Gorgonio

San Gorgonio Peak is the highest point in Southern California. It is pretty hard to miss if you look west from Joshua Tree National Park or the Coachella valley. Surrounded by Mount San Jacinto to the South and San Bernardino to the west. It's a perfect summer hike since the mountain still has water from the winter snowmelt.

CRHT: 39 miles in just under 48 hours

Some of you may know, we are planning to hike the John Muir Trail this summer. In preparation for that, we have been slowly working our way through SoCal Hiker's six pack of peaks. But we also wanted to ensure all of our gear was in working condition by planning and executing a longer backpacking trip. Because of this, we decided to hike the California Riding and Hiking Trail in Joshua Tree over spring break.

Mount Wilson

Mount Wilson is part of the San Gabriel Mountains in the Angeles National Forest, just north of Pasadena. Although not a prominent peak, it can be spotted from northern LA by the number of transmission antennas on its peak. We decided to make this trek as part of a training routine for the John Muir Trail which we plan on doing this summer. Also, we thought it would be a nice way to spend our Sunday.

Walker Ranch Loop

It was Matt's Birthday, so we decided to do a winter hike! Walker Ranch is less then ten miles up Flagstaff Road from Boulder. At 7,000 feet or so, it is a bit cooler and a lot more mountainous, but not really the alpine setting that is like a lot of our other hikes. We did an eight mile loop with a solid amount of vertical up and down.

Shrine Mountain Pass and Janet's Hut

We celebrated the end of another successful semester by taking a few days to hang out in the snowy mountains between Vail and Leadville, CO. We spent two nights at two separate huts that are part of the amazingly maintained 10th Mountain Division hut System. The main concern leading up to the trip was the lack of snow pack, making a number of winter sports difficult. Even though other parts of the country are experiencing unseasonably cold weather, in-part due to a warming arctic, Colorado has not had good snowfall.

Cactus to the Clouds, the hike

It is more than a coincidence that a hike and our blog share the same name. We mimicked the name because we liked the imagery and, to us, 'Cactus to the Clouds' contains sounds similar to 'California to Colorado'- where we each currently live and the states where we spend most of our time exploring. When first learning about the hike we found this monster described as, "The deadliest hike in America", "Largest elevation change of all day hikes", and "The most difficult experience of my life". Of course this enticed us and we made it a medium-run goal of ours. We also felt that if we were going to talk the talk with the blog name, we'd better walk the walk (err.. hike the hike).

Green, Bear, and South Boulder Peak

There are five major peaks in Boulder. Mount Sanitas is the furthest to the North. It's a steep and fun trail we've spontaneously hiked a hand full of afternoons after a solid day of work. Flagstaff Mountain is just west of where we lived last summer and north of the Flatirons. While there is no path to it's peak, we have bounced around the trails at its base a fair number of times given their proximity. The other three peaks, Green Mountain, Bear Mountain, and South Boulder peak, form the backdrop to the Flatirons, extending from Chautauqua Park all the way to El Dorado Canyon.