We love the San Gabriel Mountains that are in our back yard in Pasadena. We spend an enormous amount of time hiking, camping, climbing and skiing in what we consider Southern California’s greatest range. From the Los Angeles side of the San Gabriels, it would be easy to think that the mountains are only dry […]

The Altadena Crest Trail is not very well known, which makes it a great place to hike, mostly free of mountain bikers or horses. The trail winds through excellent chaparral in the low foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It has steep sections and switchbacks to climb out of the small canyons but the views at each […]

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. […]

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 […]

This is one of our favorite hikes in Los Angeles and is also just blocks away from where we live. The Eaton Canyon Nature Center and the first part of the Eaton Canyon Trail are part of Los Angeles County and are well maintained but also very, very popular on weekends and holidays. If you […]

Quite unexpectedly, we were able to take a short, local flight this morning from the El Monte Airport, about a half hour from our home in Pasadena . For an hour or so, we flew in and around the mountains that we love to hike. To have such a bird’s eye perspective and to pass […]

In a recent post, Why would a blind person climb a 10,000 ft. Mountain?, we wrote about a group of blind Braille Institute students who climbed Mt Baldy in Los Angeles. It was a maximum adventure for those involved, both the students and the sighted guides. Just before they climbed the upper section of the mountain, […]

Undoubtedly one of the best peak climbs in Southern California. Mt Baden Powell is a very prominent, pyramid-shaped peak that can be approached from several points. We chose to hike from the Vincent Gap trailhead, which is found a few miles north of the Grassy Hollow Visitors Center on the Angeles Crest Highway (Route 2). […]

The trail was hot and dusty when we started walking at 2:30 in the afternoon. We made sure the dogs had plenty of water before starting, but even so, they started panting and looking miserable within a few minutes of getting on the trail. Our solution was a trick we saw in brittany field trials…we […]

We often talked about buying a GPS as we wondered how far we hike and what elevation gain and loss we experience. After seeing several great websites that cover hikes in GPS detail, we decided to make the investment and purchased a Garmin 62s. This model is meant for hiking and could once and for all […]