Cucamonga Peak. 8,859 Ft.
The first time I hiked Cucamonga Peak was a really though challenge, It was one of those hikes that you have to think twice before going back for a second time. Although the hike was extremely hard for us at that time, we felt in love with this amazing place. It definitely became one of our favorite hikes in Southern California.
The last half mile before reaching the peak will definitely get the best out of you. It feels like a never ending uphill and sad but true, some people turn back from this point without realizing they just need that little last push. A lot of people go to this place or to any other trails in general without doing any research and this is one of the consequences.
Reaching the peak it's one of the best feeling ever. The spectacular views will leave you speechless. Either you have a clear day or you can experience being above the clouds which is an incredible view. Either way you won't be disappointed.
Mt. Baldy 10,065 Ft.
Another great challenge for my group and I. Mt. Baldy is an iconic trail in Southern California and it's well known in the hiking community. If you are one of those hikers than have done Baldy, you can call yourself a "pro hiker". I have hiked Baldy about four times; three dry and one with snow and every time I had a different experience.
I always think about why is it different every time if is the same trail? Even though is the same trail it has a lot to do how many hours of sleep you get the night before the hike. Also, it has a lot to do what you ate the day before; in general, everything you did the day before has a lot to do with the performance you have on the trail. Mt. Baldy in general is a really challenging hike even if you are an experienced hiker. There are different routes to get to the peak but I believe via Register Ridge is the more challenging one. If you decide to do this hike eat healthy and sleep well the previews night so your body can be ready for the challenge.
San Gorgonio. 11,500 Ft.
It took me a while to decide to hike San Gorgonio. As everything they say about this beast, you really need to train for this one, you shouldn't attempt to summit this one without training for it. As I said before, this hike got the best out of me. It was a brutal beautiful hike that it will hold a special place in my heart. It beat me but I conquered it. 19 miles out and back with an elevation gain of about 5,000 ft the incline was no joke.
It was a group of three of us; Wendy, Jesus and I. We started at around 5:30 am and we got back to the parking lot at around 8:00 pm. It definitely was a long day in the mountains. We were hiking at a good speed but as we were gaining elevation we started to slow down and it wasn't optional but it was because we could not go any faster due to the elevation change.
There were times where I would have to stop and wait for my friends because they were hiking slower than I was. Sometimes I just focus on the trail and I keep going without realizing how fast I am going and then suddenly I am way ahead of everyone else. About a 1/4 mile before reaching the summit I sat down to waited for my friends that were about 1/2 mile behind. I honestly gave up at that moment 'this is it for me I am going back from here' I was exhausted and I had a headache due to the elevation which was at about 11,000 ft.
As I am waiting for my group an older gentlemen and a young man were coming down from the summit. They stopped and asked me if everything was ok with me, I told them that I was waiting for my friends and that I was going to turn back from there that I couldn't keep going because of how tired I was. The older gentleman talked to me about how hard the hike was for him and that there were moments he wanted to give up as well.
He told me the summit was about 25 minutes from where I was at that moment, and if I didn't finish the hike, the next day would have been hard on me for not finishing as I was 25 minutes from the summit. As we continue talking, Wendy and Jesus finally made it to where I was and surprisingly neither of them stopped, they just kept going. I remember Wendy telling me "what are you waiting for"? Let's goooo! I remember those words as if it was yesterday. Thanks to the strangers that talked to me and my friend Wendy, I could finish the hike. I guess I never thought of that moment until today that I am writing about that brutal and beautiful experience.
Half Dome. Yosemite National Park
I never thought in a million years that I was going to be part of the Half Dome history. I remember when my friend texted me telling me the news about her winning the permit to hike Half Dome. Wow!! Planning this adventure was amazing. The first thing we had to do was train hard, as everybody knows how difficult this hike is and a total of 15 miles for any hiker is not easy especially when we have to hike gaining elevation and 5,000 ft plus is not something easy to do. The day of the hike the weather was going to be warm and when I say warm I'm talking about 90 degrees, but in the valley it can feel hotter than that specially if there's no wind.
Thankfully on this hike you have access to fresh water from the Merced River, all you need is a water filter just to be safe. On the way up the last water resource is located at Little Yosemite Valley which is about 3 1/2 miles from the trail head starting at Happy Isles.
Mt. Whitney CA. June 3rd, 22.
By far the most beautiful experience of my life. My friend Mary Olivas reached out to our hiking group with the news that she had won a permit to Mt. Whitney. This was the last sign I needed to finally make this dream come true. As everyone in the hiking community knows Mt.Whitney is the highest mountain in the lower 48 states of the United States, and just by hearing this it can be somewhat intimidating, at least for me it was for a long time.
We had to start from scratch because we had no gear to do a backpacking trip, and we had a little more than two months to get everything we needed. The other option was to do the hike in one day as many hikers do, but as we talked about it we didn't want to put ourselves in that position because we knew 22 miles in one day can be a brutal thing to do specially when you have more than 6,000 ft elevation gain, so doing a backpacking trip was the best option for us.
For all of us this was the first time doing a backpacking trip and I can tell you, it was by far the most beautiful experience I had since I started hiking. Waking-up on the mountains is something magical that to fully understand it you have to go see for yourself.
Friends On Top of The World
From left to right. Juan Olivas, Mary Olivas, Estrella Sandoval and I.
These are the people that made this dream possible, without these people I don't think this dream could've been accomplished. I am so thankful we cross paths and we could push ourselves to conquered Mt. Whitney.
We all knew this wasn't going to be an easy hike but we were committed to work hard to accomplished this goal. It was a beautiful journey training for it; you have this goal and you know you don't want to fail trying; you want to come home and talk to your friends and family about your successful summit.
At The Edge
The idea sounded crazy when we talked about it. “Let’s walk all night to catch the sunrise from 8.859 ft”. “They said” For a long time I’ve been wanting to watch a sunrise from Cucamonga Peak but it was really difficult because not many people are willing to walk all night with you. We talked about a backpacking trip which was the main idea but since our work schedules are so different it was really hard to come up with that plan, so we decided to do something a little crazy, so we came up with the idea to hike from 12am to 5:30am to catch the sunrise.
For me the hard part wasn’t the hike, but my work schedule. The plan was to start at 12am on Saturday August 6th, 22. I worked on Friday from 4pm-10:30pm so I had to go straight after work to meet my group at the trailhead. Work it’s been super busy lately since we are short in staff and that Friday wasn’t any different. I arrived at the trailhead at around 11:30pm so that gave me time to take a short nap before starting the hike. Thankfully my friends were a little bit late so I could sleep a little longer. We started to hike at around 1:00am. It felt a little bit strange to start walking at that time since we are not used to starting that early, so all the way to the top we did not see anyone else on the trail, I think we were the only crazy people to hike at that time.
The night was a little bit cold, not so much but as we were gaining elevation it was getting colder. One of my friends didn’t bring her jacket because she thought it was going to be warm, big mistake. Always check the weather before going to your hike just so you’re ready and your hike is enjoyable. This is the first time I saw so many scorpions on the trail; they were small but we saw at least 30 of them the whole way up. I’ve hiked this trail many times but since my body is not used to hiking at that time of the night, my body had a hard time adjusting; there were times when I felt some nausea but nothing to worry about.
We reached the Icehouse Saddle Junction at around 3:20am; remember, this is the last place when most people get some cell phone signal, so take advantage of that to let your love ones know you’re OK. Some people get cell phone reception at the summit but that just depends on your cell phone service provider.
The part of this trail that I hate the most is after the Icehouse Saddle and right before Minor Saddle. It feels great going down for a bit. Once we reached Minor Saddle the view of the city at night was so freaking amazing, I couldn’t believe my eyes it was like a dream to actually be there specially at that time of the night.
After Minor Saddle you have ahead of you some killer switchbacks with some elevation gain but once you reach the summit that’s when you know it was totally worth every single step. After 4 and 1/2 hours hiking in the dark we finally made it to the top. We reached the summit at around 5:45am and as we got close to the edge, it was an incredible feeling looking at the city lights and the sky line was starting to look golden. We made it just on time to make some coffee and wait for the sunrise. We took some amazing pictures, I believe my favorite picture of all time was taken here that day. It was like a dream of mine and my friends to be able to see a sunrise from this location and we weren’t disappointed at all. The next plan is to do a backpacking trip here because hiking all night was kind of brutal
A Backpacking Dream
Even before we hiked Mt. Whitney, the first plan to do a backpacking trip was to hike Cucamonga Peak. We talked many times about it but we never made the time to plan it out. A lot had to do with the fact we didn’t have any gear to do a backpacking trip and we basically had to start from scratch. We came to buy everything right after my friend Mary won the permit for Mt. Whitney. We finally did it, we stayed over night at Cucamonga Peak and it was an incredible experience. We brought steaks just like we talked about. The plan was to start our hike on a Saturday afternoon at around 1:00 p.m. That was October 1, 2022. At that time of the year weather still somewhat hot here in Los Angeles, and specially at that time of the day. It was like 80 degrees when we started our hike.
We all have done that hike before many times, but never with 35 Lb on our backs; that was the real challenge. I honestly thought it was going to be easy, not easy easy but not as hard as it felt. Total elevation gain 4,501 ft that’s the elevation gain for six miles, so you know that’s a tough hike. We made it to the top at around 5:30 p.m. About 30 minutes before sunset. As soon as we got there we set up camp and got dinner ready. It took us longer than expected to set up camp and cook, and as result we didn’t enjoy the sunset as we had planned, but it was beautiful to be up there cooking at sunset.
When it got dark we were delighted by the city lights, it was something we were dreaming about and we were finally there to see it with our own eyes. We try taking pictures of the city lights but we weren’t successful on capturing what we were seeing. Pictures are not even close to what it was to actually be there. Right after sunset it got really dark so since there wasn’t anything to do we went to bed really early at about 8:00 p.m.
The weather wasn’t too cold but it got a little bit colder later at night. The wind started to pick up at around midnight but it wasn’t too bad. We didn’t sleep many hours because we simply are not used to sleeping outside; remember, this is our second time spending the night on the mountains, so we didn’t get much sleep. We slept enough to have energy for next day. I am not complaining I am just saying I missed my bed that night.
It was around 5:00 a.m. When my friend Mary shouted ‘Vega, the sun is about to come up, come outside look at the sky’. I replied, ‘The sunrise is at 6:45 a.m. It is only five o’clock’. We got up anyways because we were there to enjoy the morning and that was part of it, so we sat outside on the edge of the famous Cucamonga Peak rock where everyone takes their picture when they reach the top.
What a magnificent moment, I call that ‘a memory of a lifetime’. Drinking hot coffee and watching a sunrise on the mountains with your friends, that, that’s a precious moment. Moments like these makes life worth living
Strawberry Peak. Los Angeles National Forest, California
definitely one of the best hikes in Southern California. With a total of 7.2 miles out and back, the trail is beautiful all the way up. I highly recommend this hike. It's a beautiful moderate hike, but get ready for the last mile because it will ge the best out of you.
