San Gorgonio via Vivian Creek is a fitting final hike in the Six Pack of Peaks or Six Peak Challenge. The hike takes you through so many different landscapes. As if it knows that the hike is long and hard and tries to distract you from the effort. The path starts climbing steeply right after you cross Mill Creek. My highlight was the part where you walk parallel Vivian Creek with the monumental pine trees and the lush, green vegetation. Once we cleared the tree line, the wind really started to pick up. The peak itself is very elusive. Each time you think (hope?) you can see the peak, you realize it is around the corner…again. It is only when you are a few 100 yards away from the actual peak, that you can see it. By now the wind was literally blowing us over. We needed our trekking poles to stabilize ourselves. The peak itself was super busy and everybody was trying to get their hand on the wooden sign for the obligatory picture and get down as fast as possible.
The sense of relief when you are finally out of the wind. Wind wears you down. Never realized that.
The hike down is long, long, long. The last steep descent down to Mill Creek was a lot steeper going down than I remembered going up with fresh legs. My legs were burning, but I was comforted by the fact that we did it. The Six Peak Challenge was conquered.
I started it as a great way to get some quality time with my daughter Iris, before she is off to UCSB. Because if you walk, you talk. The Six Peak challenge was just the little extra motivation we needed to actually go out and do it. And I can truly say it has blown my mind. We spend amazing hours together and I never realized that these mountains were only a 1-2 hour drive away from where we live.

One thing I still don't understand: how unprepared many hikers seem to be. Every time we hike down the mountain, we see people literally just starting their hike up. They start at the warmest part of the day, hike up in running shoes and will never make it down in time before dark. Especially worrisome where the number of people on San Gorgonio that were hiking up late, planning to ‘sleep at the top' and seemed to have no clue about the windy, cold conditions on the top.