We had a truly monumental camp out and hike to San Gorgonio Peak with a group of my Boy Scouts this weekend.

We got to Vivian Creek Trailhead at about 5:30 pm on Friday and hiked up to Vivian Creek Camp where we stopped to pump water. It got dark just as we finished pumping, so we hiked the next 2 miles to Halfway Camp in the dark by headlamp.

We got in to Halfway and made camp about 8:00pm and made a little dinner and got to bed by 10:00pm.

We were up the next morning before dawn and made some breakfast and were on the trail by 7:00pm.

The hike up to the peak from Halfway was about 7 miles, but it started getting tough about 2 miles before the peak. It got steep and really cold, so that we all had to break out our jackets and beanies and the wind got so bad it was blowing us sideways.

We had planned on lunch at the peak, but between the cold and wind we just decided to take a few photos and hike back out of the wind.

We stopped at the ridge line for lunch, about 2 1/2 miles from the peak and then headed back to Halfway to get our gear.

By the time we got back to camp we had already hiked almost 14 miles, and it was pretty tough to put those 40 lbs. packs back on to hike out, but the scouts all had an great attitude and muscled through the 3.6 mile backpack hike back down to the parking lot.

I rewarded them all with a root beer float at A & W and they were all pretty happy to have conquered San Gorgonio and be sipping on root beer.

What an awesome group of young men.