Basin Peak 2748 m

By now you've probably heard or read that California's Sierra Nevada got a lot of snow this winter. The Squaw Valley ski resort officials already decided that their ski lifts will stay open until the Fourth of July weekend. No wonder, because their cumulative total snow fall this season currently is at 623 inches (15.8 meters)!...

The start to the winter in California's Sierra Nevada was rather slow, but picked up in mid January and really kicked in in February. In the Donner Pass / Castle Peak area there were more than 7 meters of snowfall in February, with some daily totals of more than a meter. At this point the cumulative snow fall at Donner Pass is...

A friend recently told me about Frog Lake near Castle Peak and how beautiful it is. After doing some www-research about the lake, I found out that it (and it's surroundings) is still privately owned by a family, but will be purchased by Truckee Donner Land Trust and made publicly available in 2020. To get a glimpse of this gem, I...

After a very long break from "real" mountains, I wanted to find out how bad my fitness was. During the past 8 months I did almost nothing which would have helped my fitness. Working "as a contractor" and not really doing any cardio exercise made me wonder how much altitude gain was still possible for me. In order to find out, I...

First report about the world famous Nose on El Capitan, Yosemite on hikr.org! Basically nothing more to write. I did the first few meters, no kidding, did it, impressive! That should be enough to produce some "alternative facts" like its currently normal in the US, regarding the current Pretender in DC. Stroll around the base...

Kalifornien ist wohl für die meisten Leute nicht in erster Linie für seine Berge bekannt. Allerdings gibt es dort mehr und fast so hohe Berge wie beispielsweise in der Schweiz. Neben der Sierra Nevada (welche eine stattliche Länge von 640 km und Breite von 80 bis 130 km aufweist) gibt es im Süden Kaliforniens auch noch die San...