DG aka "Why Wait!?" and I wanted to go for a "hike" a long time already, but for one and the other reason it never happened yet. Today it did and it was a fun showshoe/back country ski outing on a wonderful spring day in the Sierras. We did the loop from Woods Lake to Round Top and back, like Donnie Darko and I did...

California's weather is currently influenced by a so-called "blocking high" off the Atlantic coast which brought us nice warm and sunny T-Shirt days down in the valley for almost all of December so far (and it doesn't look like it will change any time soon). Unfortunately this prevents the winter storms from rolling in and the...

After my failed attempt to climb Tells Peak last week I did my home work, studied what went wrong and why I didn't find the Highland Trail. After checking the different topo maps on caltopo.com, I realized that the US-Topo Map which I had with my (and was on my GPS) was outdated and contained an old version of the Highland Trail....

Quick trip to the Sierra to check out the snow situation at Round Top. I should have brought my skis along, because there was more than plenty of the white stuff. Walked from Carson Pass to Winnemucca Lake to the saddle between The Sisters and Round Top and then via west ridge (snow free) to the top. Back the same way. (For...

Today I had rather ambitious plans: almost 20 miles of distance and 4000 ft altitude gain. Depending on the snow situation some of the hike would have had to be done on snowshoes as well. The plan was to walk from Donner Pass to Tinker Knob & back and on the way to Tinker Knob bag the 4 peaks which are somewhat on the way...

"Twin Peaks" is probably known best as the fictional Washington town from the famous American television serial drama of the same name. A lot of people probably also heard about San Francisco's "Twin Peaks", the two hills near the geographic center of the city. I doubt a whole lot of people know the "Twin Peaks" in the Tahoe area,...

After my last weeks outing in the Carson Pass area, I was hoping for a little more snow on the north facing slopes in the Tahoe region, maybe even enough for a ski tour. However, due to the absence of the white stuff up to almost 8000 ft, I had to leave the skis in the car and took my snowshoes along instead. For my goal today I...

After a long abstinence from the mountains (for several reasons), I finally was able to get back to the beloved mountains. The California Sierras haven't gotten a lot of snow yet this winter, but with a big storm passing by last week I was hoping for enough of the white stuff to take my snowshoes out before it's summer again here....

On my tour to Thunder Mountain at the beginning of January, I peeked over to Thimble Peak and noted it as an interesting project in this area. After reading up on it on summitpost and Bob Burd's page, I knew that getting to it's highest point wouldn't be easy. After Thimble Peak I also planned to visit the Covered Wagon Peak...

On my hike to Pyramid Peak (my first Sierra hike after moving to California last October) I noticed an interesting looking mountain in direction southeast which looked like a volcanic peak. I asked the person who was on the summit of Pyramid Peak together with me what the name of that mountain was, but he could not tell me. After...

Squaw Valley was the host site of the Winter Olympics in 1960 (click). Today it's one of the largest ski resorts in the USA. If you're willing to pay a whopping 114$ for a day pass you can enjoy about 3600 acres of ski areas. If you're not really into those things like me, there is also the possibility to climb mountains in the...

The Sierra Nevada hasn't gotten much snow so far this season. In fact it looks like this will be the driest year on record (all over California). Therefore the amount of snow in the Sierra is rather meager and after my last weeks test of the snow up there, I decided to not scratch my skis any further until some serious snowfall...

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...

Die Wanderung auf den Mount Tallac (2967 m) am Lake Tahoe (1897 m) ist ein Highlight, dass unvergessliche Ausblicke über die Sierra Nevada und den Lake Tahoe bietet. Am Tallic Trailhead kann man nicht nur gut parken, sondern man erhält auch die für das Gebiet erforderliche Wilderness Permit. Nachdem wir dies...