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)!...

According to several sources Jakes Peak (or grammatically correct: Jake's Peak) is one of the most popular back country ski destinations in the Tahoe area. With its corner position at the north end of Emerald Bay it offers fabulous views of Lake Tahoe in general and Emerald Bay in particular. With the many many feet of snow this...

Jacumba is a small town right at the US/Mexican border, about 60 miles east of San Diego. It's known for the sulfur containing hot springs, which were most likely already used by the Kumeyaay people. The commercialization of the hot springs began in the early 20th century. In 1919 rail service connected Jacumba to San Diego and 6...

The Sierra Nevada got quite some early snow this season and I was eager to get out there after yet another month without serious mountain activities. My tour today only makes sense if the Northstar ski resort hasn't fully opened all their slopes and lifts yet. The otherwise very crowded ski area and groomed slopes would most...

What's special about 10935 feet? Nothing really, except if you convert it to meters, you end up with the "pretty number" 3333. Well that's the height of Highland Peak, my goal for the day. This peak also has a pretty high prominence of 2456 ft, so the view up there is expected to be quite impressive. One more time, the...

Today's prerequisites were very similar like last week's: not too much time and a hike in the Toiyabe National Forest. Today I wanted to make sure to reach my goal(s) and set the expectations way lower than last week: Silver Peak, in fact both peaks from the Noble Creek Trail head. Studying the topo-map and report on summitpost...

I had planned to do a hike & bike combination from Ebbetts Pass to Tryon -, Highland - and Silver Peak, then drop down to Noble Canyon and State Route 4 and ride my bike (which I left there before the hike) back up to Ebbetts Pass. Quite a program for the little time I had today. Well, due to a combination of lack of fitness...

Bull Run Peak caught my attention at the shore of Lower Blue Lake at the end of my tour to Deadwood Peak. At the time I had no idea which peak it was, but thanks to the udeuschle website, I was able to figure it out. On this day I actually had different plans to do an easy short hike with a friend. However, when I wanted to pick...

Pyramid Peak was the first peak I visited after moving to California, almost 3 years ago. Looking for some more workout with quite some altitude gain, I decided to go back and pay it another visit. This time I decided to walk up via Rocky Canyon (my way down the last time) and check out the north ridge for my way down and later...

I wanted to find out how much my rather unacceptable fitness level improved in the last few weeks and didn't have much time to prepare some "fancy hike". Therefore, I decided to do a variation of a hike I have done before. Climbing Freel Peak from Horse Meadow make an altitude gain of about 2500 ft and I should get an idea how...

There are quite a few mountains called "Twin Peaks" in the US, but the "double hill" in San Francisco is most likely the one which is known best. It is located near the geographic center of SF and offers spectacular views over the city, the many bridges, the Bay and the Pacific ocean. The hike up to the tops is very short because...

Deadwood Peak didn't really show up on "my radar" until now, but I am almost running out of peaks which make sense for me to do as "day hikes" (meaning: leave home early in the morning, drive not much more than about 2 hours, hike and then return home the same day). Deadwood Peak is one of the few left on this list. After reading...

The chain of hills between San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay is referred to as the Nine Sisters. During a previous visit of San Luis Obispo I already climbed two of then: Bishop Peak and Mount Madonna. This time I wanted to pay a visit to the 2 sisters which are closest to Morro Rock: Cerro Cabrillo and Black Hill. My starting...

During an extended weekend in the vicinity of Morro Bay we decided to climb a few of the many "Cerros" in this area. "Cerro" is the Spanish word for "Hill" and since this part of California has a lot of Mexican roots, most of the hills here are named Cerro "Something". As "Alto" in "Cerro Alto" suggest, the hill we climbed today...

Update October 23, 2020 see below* June 24, 2016: During my hike last week I saw a mountain which caught my attention. To my surprise, after consulting the USGS topo map, I found out that it didn't have a name on any map, even though it is quite a prominent peak with a topographical prominence to its neighbor (Mount Agassiz)...

Ralston Peak is a popular mountain in the Desolation Wilderness which is typically and often climbed from the trailhead close to Highway 50 near Camp Sacramento. However, my goal was to climb it via East Ridge from Echo Lake and also bag Becker Peak and Talking Mountain on the way up. For my way down I planned to take the...

Signal Peak wasn't exactly the prime peak on my todo list. I didn't expect too much of this mountain with little prominence, close to the highway, telecommunication installations on top and no apparent 'interesting' route to it's peak. However, my current fitness level and some minor health issues kind of forced me to look for an...

The two main conclusions from my hike a few days ago were: "There is plenty of snow on the Northern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains for a ski tour and I need to improve my fitness" helped me decide on what to do on this day: A ski tour with only little altitude gain on the northern slopes of Round Top. Since I hiked Round...

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...

The Santa Ynez Mountain Range near Santa Barbara is one of the very few east-west oriented mountain range in the United States, almost all other ranges are north-south oriented. This mountain range is also known for its hot springs, most of them very primitive and not commercialized (see for example this one). One exception was...