7/29/2023:

Woohoo!  With grace from my Almighty, I found the will to bagged Old Greyback.  In a way, he was merciful to me.

I was invited to hike up to San Gorgonio from a hiking sister of mine.  She's training for her South American outdoor adventures.  She ordained a ICU doctor to be the lead of our group.  He was a strong, fast paced hiker.  He's schedule is very hectic. He would hike early in the morning and be back to work at the hospital later the day.  On this particular day, he had to showed up to the ICU room latter of the late afternoon.  He said he would maintain a 3.5 miles the entire time.  I couldn't catch up. And the worst part was my hiking pants kept falling off.  I remembered to pack everything except for my belt.  Every 5 paces, I need to pull my pants up.  I eventually hiked up to San Gorgonio by myself.

I started my hike at 3:30 a.m. to beat the heat.  I got rained 3 times during the morning hours.  It was a great sense of relief from the early morning warmth.  And a bonus was the rain packed the dirt well.  So, it wasn't that dusty and the gravel wasn't loose.  I slowly paced myself up to the Dollar Lake saddle.  I ate a little and continued on.  On my way, I met another hiking brother who hiking up to San Gorgonio to celebrate his birthday.  His group was also fast paced.

I have a love-hate relationship with Old Greyback.  I love hiking up to San Gorgonio peak for the spectacular views.  And it serves a good training for Mount Whitney which I got invited in mid-August of this year.  San Gorgonio trains me physically for higher elevation peaks.  The part I hate about hiking up to San Gorgonio peak is the various false peaks on it.  Getting to San Gorgonio peak is like forever!  I would be going up and down forever.  And when I saw hikers celebrating at the peak, I got the nasty hill to push through.  With a sigh of deep breath, I finally made it to the top of San Gorgonio peak.  All this time, dark ominous clouds hovered over me.  I got rained on my 3 times earlier.  And with my sagging pants, I didn't want the rain to weigh me down more.  So, I decided to take summit photos and scrambled myself down it.  Coming down to San Gorgonio was faster for me than going up.

Woohoo!  I bagged San Gorgonio with the blessings and mercy of Old Greyback.  Thank you Old Greyback for your hospitality.  See you soon.