It was on a backpacking trip last Labor Day weekend when my friend asked, “How come we have never done Whitney?” It was a good question. Certainly in 2020 after completing the Six Pack of Peaks Challenge, we were in shape and could have accomplished such a hike. It was perhaps a missed opportunity. So, it was on this trip we decided to make it our goal to do Whitney in 2023 and we would again train by doing the Six Pack of Peaks Challenge. Our San Gorgonio hike is a culmination of this year’s training.

To bag Gorgonio this time we decided to try Fish Creek Trail, a new route that neither one of us had been on. Initially we had decided we would do it as a long day hike. However, in looking at the climb to Fish Creek Saddle camp, the elevation of the camp itself it, and the hike to the summit and back out this whole trip somewhat resembles our planned Mt. Whitney trip. Also, since we also haven’t done a backpacking trip all year, we figured doing this as a backpacking trip would be a good dress rehearsal.

The road up to the Fish Creek Trailhead is a little rough in spots so I would recommend a high clearance AWD or 4×4 to reach it without worry. The trail to the saddle isn’t bad, but there are some fallen trees to navigate and about three spots that require some climbing up off trail to navigate around. There is water running just past the Fish Creek camp, but we opted to hike down to Lodgepole spring after setting up camp. The spring is running great, and Dry Lake is full.  It is a short, but steep climb back up to camp from the spring. Hiking to the summit via the Sky High trail was one of the best graded and enjoyable climbing hikes I’ve been on, and the views are great as well. There is still a large snowfield on the trail before you reach the summit spur trail, so we opted to bypass this and hike straight up to the summit.

Great weather for this hike and it never got too hot in the sun and the evening was pleasant. The summit was a little breezy, but with the sun it felt great and never chilly. There were some bugs at camp in the evening, but in general they were never really an issue.