California

My Swiss hiking projects typically didn't have the same starting and end point, because I was almost exclusively traveling with public transportation and I would often choose to end my hike at a different train station or bus stop than the beginning of my hike. Here in California public transportation is basically non-existent, in...

Memorial Day Weekend was coming up and we had plans to visit friends in San Luis Obispo (aka SLO). Besides hanging out with friends, camping, soaking in the hot springs, going to the beach, etc., I also wanted to check out some mountains in the region. I found out that between SLO and Morro Bay there's a chain of nine volcanic...

Reached the Paso Picacho campground at 4pm. Left $8 in an envelop at the entrance for parking in the day use area. Found the Lookout Road after walking through the campground, and followed it up to the top. On the way down, I took the Conejos Trail to Azalea Springs and back to the campground. The trail junctions were all well...

Rain and snow was forecasted for the Sierra Nevada mountains on this day, so I decided to visit the coastal range where the weather was promised to be sunny. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare this hike so I picked one of Bob Burds collection. There he nicely describes how to climb the 5 summits of Mount Konocti. Since I'm not...

This was already my third attempt to get to the top of Tinker Knob. Even though there are no real technical difficulties to get to the highest point of Tinker Knob, I managed to miss this goal twice already. One attempt failed last December when I started at Goose Meadows Campground (on 89). The idea was to walk up the ridge on...

When I saw the peak of Sierra Buttes last year it was immediately added to my Sierra goals. When looking up some non-standard routes to it's top I couldn't really find any useful information. However, judging from the US topo map there should be plenty of "interesting options" to get to the highest point. Most people who visit...

Left the car at the Inspiration Point viewpoint, and walked through the closed campground to the trailhead. The trail to the falls was short and easy (though a bit rocky in places). Near the end, the trail isn't obvious (the ground is covered in granite slabs, and people go in all directions), but you can climb down some rocks to...

Left the car at the pullout on the north side of Hwy 89, past the (still gated) Spring Creek Rd, and walked to the end of Spring Creek Rd. Couldn't find an obvious trail, and turned back when after half an hour of bushwacking a view up along the winter route showed nothing but more of the same, and not a speck of snow. Next, I...

Left the car at the gated entrance to D.L. Bliss State Park, and walked down the road (with some shortcuts) to the trailhead. Followed the trail to the boat campground at Emerald Bay. The first mile or so didn't have much views, but the rest more than made up for that. Encountered quite a few people on the trail; must get very...

Last week I added a mountain to my Sierra to-do list. Looking west from the top of Donner Peak, Devils Peak caught my attention. This week I can report that this to-do is already completed. After searching the net about Devils Peak, I found out on Bob Burd's site and on summitpost.org, that climbing this mountain was...