Tomales Point Trail is a very popular hike from Pierce Point Ranch to the northern most tip of the Point Reyes Peninsula. It offers spectacular coastal views toTomales Bay, Bodega Bay, and the Pacific Ocean. It is also a prime wildlife viewing trail. Lots of seals, gulls, pelicans, cormorants, interesting flora and you'll most...

While visiting a friend in Santa Barbara we decided to climb the close-by Gaviota Peak. Besides the marvelous view from the top of this mountain, the main attraction is the natural hot springs on the way to the peak. The hike itself is very easy and mostly follows a gravel fire road. We start our hike at the Gaviota Hot Springs...

For some peaks you need several trials in order to make it to the top. For me, Needle Peak falls into this category, it was on my goals as "plan for the day" 4 times. The 3 failures were never due to technical difficulties on the mountain. On this day, I finally made it. The first time Needle Peak was on the goal list was here,...

Mount Tamalpais (or Mount Tam how the locals call it) is a very popular mountain north of San Francisco. I climbed it once already in a rather long hike, all the way from Stinson Beach. Some friends who live in the Bay Area know that I like to hike and asked me to "guide" a tour up there. Due to the various hiking experience...

During my outing to Reynolds Peak, I had originally planned to also climb Raymond Peak. Due to some early fall snow, the north sides of the mountains were still covered in snow and I had to give up my trial then. Today I wanted to make up leeway for this missed peak but use a different approach from northwest instead. I park...

Even though I've visited Black Butte already (see here), I had the urge to go up there again. Since I didn't have all day for my hike on this day, but I still wanted to do some fishing at Caples Lake, I thought that I could try a different approach for this interesting little gem. My goal was to try to climb the peak from north or...

My announcement to come back to Fallen Leaf Lake and climb Angora Peak and Indian Rock didn't take very long to happen. I hiked up to Angora Peak from the south end of Fallen Leaf Lake, via hiking path and later the not very distinct northeast ridge, followed the connecting ridge to Indian Rock and Echo Peak and dropped down to...

North Peak is a very attractive and high mountain on the boundary between the Inyo National Forest and Yosemite National Park. I already tried to climb it once, but failed already early in the morning due to extremely strong winds. The peak offers several different routes from easy to difficult and is climbed quite frequently in...

Today's plan was a tour at the south end of Hope Valley. 3 Peaks which can easily be combined in an day: The Nipple, Jeff Davis Peak and Markleeville Peak. However, in order to get to the very top of Jeff Davis Peak, I would have had to be a little braver (or would have needed a partner with a rope), because the scramble on the...

My main goal for the day was Needle Peak. Well, I saw Needle Peak today, but didn't even get close to it. The reason for not reaching my goal on this day was a mix of unexpected rain and disappointment/frustration about a prime example of how nature can be destroyed by the installation of ski lifts. The name of the mountain I...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

Last week a storm brought about 10 inches of snow to the Tahoe region. So I was hoping to finally get my skis broken in for the season. In order to make sure an attempt to do a ski tour wouldn't fail this time, I planned to start at an elevation of almost 8000ft and in addition choose north facing slopes for my tour. Waterhouse...

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...