Since I originally planned on hiking San Jacinto this weekend, I needed to find another hike to replace it with, preferably with some high elevation, snow and a county high point.  Enter the Mount Pinos – Sawmill Mountain – Grouse Mountain hike.  One trail, three peaks above 8000ft, intermittent snow patches and best of all, two county high points!

This was not the hardest hike I’ve done recently, but with a failed attempt and climbing Whitney last week and Clouds Rest the week before, I needed a win!

The snow was not bad, with the exception of one area after Pinos where it is very steep, I didn’t need spikes.  I put them on for this section, but just kept them on the rest of the day.  It was in the 50s when I started at 7am, so the snow was already a little soft.  By the end of the hike it was pretty mushy.  There isn’t enough snow to use snowshoes, but it’s also not very deep, so post holing isn’t terrible.