In search of snow

I light of the fact that it is almost February and Mary and I had not seen snow we decided to head to the local montians for the day. Our first stop was Pine valley where we found an incredible amount of snow 2 years ago.

Well Pine Valley didn't have any snow at all. 2 years ago (pic on left) we couldn't even drive up to the old cabin. Today we didn't have any trouble and didn't even have to lock the hubs.

We drove over to the gate at Deer Park Road to see if we could get through but of course the forest service had it locked.  Deer Park road will take you on a scenic back route that winds all the way up to Mount Laguna from Pine Valley. According to the lady at the forest service I spoke with they had just closed it in anticipation of the wet weather.  Bummer.

We spent a little time hiking around Pine Valley and then zipped up Sunrise Hwy. to find some snow.  On the way up we purchased our "Adventure Pass" which allows you to day park at any of the US National Parks. We decided to get the annual pass since it was only $30 and $5 for an extra pass. Can you say EBay?

We ended up parking at the Mount Laguna side of Deer Park Road, also locked, and hike into the Mount Laguna backcountry. There was around 2-3" of snow and the dogs had a blast.

 

After hiking for a couple hours we drove the LandCruiser back down the mountain and stopped for lunch at Major's Diner in Pine Valley. Decent diner type food and an ecletic mix of weekend bikers, tatooed locals and families. 

All in all we had a great time and Diesel and Sadie loved getting out to run around the wilderness. Sadie even brought back a souvenier which I will call the "Tick from Hell". It took Mary and I 30 minutes and three sets of tweezers to dislodge it from her paw.

 

You can view our photo slideshow of the day here.

 

Joshua Tree

We got up early Thursday to drive out to meet Mark Kinsey and his family in Escondido for a trip up to Joushua Tree. This was our first attempt at real rock climbing, unless you count the rock climbing gym as real.

According to Mark and Jeff (his friend we met out there) people come from all over the world to climb the rocks at Joshua Tree. To put it in a perspective that my surfer friend's would understand, Joshua Tree is to rock climbers as  the North Shore of Oahu is to surfers. 

We met some great people out there including this smaller Italian guy from Santa Cruz that we called "Monkey Man". He was free climbing pretty much everything. Nice guy and serious climber. Felt prettly lame trying to muscle my way up the rock while he effortlessly  traversed everything Joshua Tree could throw at him.... and this with no ropes or harness.

The incredible Monkey Man

After a 1/2 day of climbing we all headed over to the group camp site. The temperature was dropping pretty quick so we wanted to get set up at camp. We managed to get a great fire going which really made all the difference. A few of the campers (Kaiel) got a little too close to the fire and melted their shoes. Hard to blame them since the temp was in the mid 20s F.

The next morning it was COOOLD!. Made coffee and watched the water ice up as I poured it into the pot. We quicly started another fire to thaw everybody out and spent the morning bouldering on the rocks around the camp. Mark's friend Jeff and family had to take off so the Kinseys and Barans took an alternate route out of Joshua Tree. Luckily this route was off road and we got to do a little 4-wheeling. Most of the trail you could do in 2 wheel drive but  there were a couple technical sections that were a lot easier in low range.

We found this huge sand hill that the boys just had to slide down, while the parents watched and took pictures. After 2-3 hours we finally hit pavement, jumped on the freeway for the long drive back to San Diego. Great trip and now that we have done a little rock climbing we are anxious to do it again.

Thanks Mark and family !

Check out the photo album here.