Got up at 2am this morning, Jan 5, 2024, and was on the road heading back to SoCal after completing the 2024 Arizona Winter Six Pack of Peaks Challenge by 3am. Along the way, I decided to take a detour and do Strawberry Peak from Redbox.

I made pretty good driving time and made it to the trailhead shortly after 8am and began my hike up around 8:30am. Conditions were perfect! No mud. A little chilly at the start but it warmed up nicely. The summit had a slight dusting of snow left over from a day or so ago.

I ran into a small handful of hikers on my ascent and a few more on the descent.

Easy day and a great start to my SoCal Six Pack of Peaks Challenge. I finished with 7.25 miles and 1,879 feet in elevation gain in 2 hours 22 minutes moving time.

Once I got back to my truck, I decided to go ahead and drive up to Mount Wilson and do a little hike from the summit to make it my own. It was short and sweet, and fun to just hike around and explore a bit.

I started off by hiking over to Echo Rock (the actual summit) from the parking lot. Checking out all the buildings and Telescopes along the way. After Echo Rock, I just took off and started following various trails and ended up on the Rim Trail. So, I followed that trail until it ended at the paved walkway.

I started walking the walkway, taking little detours here and there. I found a dirt road and started to follow it. I realized quickly that the dirt road was just below the Kenyon Devore Trail. So I walked the road until I ended up at what looked like a large maintenance shed. From this point the road turned away from the Kenyon Devore Trail. So, I turned up off trail and followed a small draw until it connected up with the Kenyon Devore Trail. Once on trial, I walked out to the road so I could tag the Trailhead sign and then followed the Kenyon Devore all the way back to the parking lot.

It was a short and sweet hike, but it worked for me! I finished with 3.5 miles in 1 hour 24 minutes moving time and 741 feet in elevation gain.