Mt San Gorgonio in the San Bernardino Mountains is more than the highest peak in Southern California at 3506 m (11,503 ft)…it is also also the 18th most prominent mountain in the United States. The peak is visible from great distances and nicknamed “Old Greyback.” It has the strange distinction of claiming the lives of […]

What do you think of when you hear “Birmingham, Alabama?” Do you think of the Old South and Steel Industry or do you instead see a city of rolling hills and great restaurants being remade in the model of New South? Birmingham is a surprise for those who haven’t been there. If you look around, […]

Barely a month after hiking the Haleakala Crater to Paliku Campsite, we were back in Maui to hike the remainder of the trail that goes from Paliku Campsite down to the Kaupo Ranch Trailhead. The remaining distance was less than 12 km (7 mi) but a whopping 1800 m (5800 ft) elevation change over that […]

This is an extremely popular hike in the San Gabriel Mountains and one of the most popular hikes in Los Angeles and for good reason. The trail is easily accessed off the 210 Freeway in Pasadena by traveling north on Lake Avenue until it ends at a sharp left turn and becomes Loma Alta Avenue. […]

We have always heard great things about Runyon Canyon and know it as one of the most popular hikes in Los Angeles. Even with high expectations, we were pleasantly surprised by this fairly urban getaway. Parking is the biggest challenge since there is no specific lot and the street parking is competitive to say the […]

The following is a continuation of Hiking the Halemau’u Trail to the Paliku Campsite at Haleakala National Park. One of the best parts of camping is sleeping when the sun sets and waking when it rises. We were awake a little after 5am with the pleasure of enormous slugs crawling on the tent’s screen. It […]

The Halemauu Trail to the Paliku Wilderness Campsite is not a two-day hike for the casual hiker. Fortunately, we’re no casual hikers and were well-prepared for the altitude, wet, cold and 32.8 km (20.4 miles) round trip. We paid our $10 to enter the park for three days, and made our way to the Haleakala National […]

You can have no doubt by now that we love the Hawaiian Islands. While they are just one of fifty states, they are in every other way almost nothing like the Mainland. The palm trees, warm breezes and gorgeous tropical flowers can be found elsewhere, but in no other American state can you find the […]

Another weekend and another chance to bag a peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near our home in Pasadena. This is one of the more popular hikes in Los Angeles, as it turns out. San Gabriel Peak was once thought the highest in the area close to Pasadena at 1878 m (6,161 ft) but is […]

With an afternoon to spend near Thousand Oaks, California, we decided to take one of the several trails we found on the National Park Service sites in the Santa Monica Mountains. We chose Cheseboro Canyon over Paramount Ranch based on a recommendation from the Visitors Center. While Paramount Ranch would have been interesting for its […]