I woke up around 4:00 AM to eat a quick bowl of oatmeal and a protein shake before getting gas and driving out to the trail head to start the hike at around 5:45 AM. This hike was interesting in that involves crossing a dried-out river bed about a half mile in and then has a fairly intense mile of climbing before the trail levels out to a flatter and more leg friendly incline. The most interesting thing I saw on this hike was two baby bears and their mother playing near the trail about 2.5 miles in. The mother stared at me as I started to walk by and then began walking towards me and growling as I stopped for a picture, so I kept walking and was able to get a picture at a more safe distance so I didn’t end up like Leonardo DiCaprio from the Revenant. This hike took place on a Thursday as I will be out of town this weekend and so I saw only one other person going up on the trail (although I did see two coming down while I was ascending). This trail was actually pretty nice and not too steep except for the aforementioned early mile and then the last two miles towards the summit. I will admit the last two miles had my legs pretty gassed, but I did make it to the peak in about 4 hours from when I started, I then took pictures and a video of the surrounding views, as well as pictures of the summit campsite. I then ate my traditional protein bar and drank some water before heading back down.

As has become customary, I ended up running most of the non-technical sections while walking as quickly and safely as possible through the more technical ones (although I did roll my ankle at one point, fortunately, it was not enough to cause a lasting injury, just a little stiffness), and made pretty good time on the way down. I saw some more hikers on their way up, but not too many (probably around 10 overall) so it was a pretty good day to be on the trail. I finished this 18.15 mile hike in 7 hours 13 minutes and 44 seconds, which beat the 8 hour time I was shooting for by a fairly wide margin, so I was pleased with that. This concludes the SoCal 6 pack of peak challenge. I’m happy and proud to have completed it in the fashion that I did by trying to choose the longest and hardest routes that were still doable in a day. I’m also certainly going to tackle some of these back-up peaks that the challenge also mentioned which could be used to replace any of the original 6. I moved to California from Florida because I missed the mountains I grew up with in West Virginia, and so this challenge scratched an itch that was in desperate need of scratching!