Tag Archives: outdoors

Trail Report: San Bernardino Peak

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The Quick and Dirty:
Location – San Gorgonio Wilderness
Distance – 14 miles round trip
Terrain Type – Dirt and Sand, Switch backs, narrow trail.
Difficulty – Intermediate to Strenuous
Best Time – Spring through Fall
Special Conditions – Permit required, apply in advance.

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San Bernardino Peak sits 10,470 feet above Redlands, California.  While not the tallest peak in Southern California, it is one of the best destinations for weekend backpacking due to the close proximity to the greater Los Angeles area.

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Gear Review: Tarptent Squall 2

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The Squall 2 is a non-free standing two person tent that utilizes one or two hiking poles to pitch.  The tent packs small and has a minimum foot print in your pack.  It has a great space to weight ratio, making it popular with ultralight backpackers.  Please note the photos don’t show the tent complete taut.  It was 95 degrees outside at 9:00 AM in the morning when I was pitching the tent in a few of the photos.

Fly Creek UL2, Tarptent Squall 2, Mountain Hardware Scout

Quick and Dirty
Gear Type: Tent
Material: Sil-Nylon
Trail weight: 34 oz
Price: $249
Link:  Tarptent Squall 2
Pros: Light, collapsing tub, uses four stakes to pitch, great wind stability, larger than comparable tents, very small pack weight
Cons: Condensation, misting during the rain, difficult to pitch in rocky or hard packed dirt Continue reading →

Trail Report: Mount Whitney

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The Quick and Dirty:
Location – Eastern Sierra Nevada, California
Distance – 10.7 miles one way to summit, 21.4 miles round trip (RT)
Terrain Type – Rocky, Sandy, Gravel, Switch Backs
Difficulty – Strenuous
Best Time – July-August after the snow melts
Special Conditions – Special permit required for backpacking and day hiking to Whitney summit.

Mount Whitney summit

Summit of Mount Whitney

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Three Peaks in Three Weeks – Trip Planning on a Tight Schedule

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We both have full time Monday through Friday (sometimes Saturday and Sunday) jobs and it is difficult to break away to do long outdoor adventures.  Over the course of three weeks, we climbed three separate peaks with a few of our friends and family, planning around our work schedules.

We compiled a list of time saving tips we keep in mind when planning multi-day backpacking trips and the best way to take advantage of your weekends if you are busy with your careers like we are.

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Scoring Day-Use Permits for The Wave- Arizona

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The Wave is an area located on the Arizona, Utah border. It is an geological marvel, red sand stones carved into wave-like striations covers 6-miles of  Bureau of Land Mangement (BLM) Land. This is a geological formation that is unique only to this region, there is nothing else like it anywhere else in the world. I think I first saw a photo of the Wave as a Windows 98 (95?) screen saver and thought it was the most memorizing landscape I’ve ever seen. We’ve been wanting to go for quite sometime and have applied for a day use permit once earlier this year but was unsuccessful. Our friends and I decided to try again last week and we were granted 6 day use permit passes for hiking the Wave on Sunday, October 27 this year!

The Wave, Arizona

Photo of The Wave courtesy of Wikipedia 

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