San Gorgonio 2002
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Summary
San Gorgonio Summit Climb: 28 April 2002
Detail
Tim Newson, Nancy Mathison, and I headed south on Saturday, the 27th of April. Our
goal: San Gorgonio. We took two cars due to my allergies to cats (Nancy being
very full of cat-dander). The day was none too sunny.
Traffic through LA sucks. I don't like LA. If you live there and like
it, you probably don't drive through it. We lost about an hour in
traffic, but what are you going to do?
We did stop at the Hollywood Bowl for a quick bathroom break.
we reached the trailhead rather late, around 4:30pm as I recall.
This put a bit of a rush to get to camp since we wanted to get
there before nightfall.
Tim carried eight liters of water, I carried six,
and Nancy carried a water pump. Our packs were
heavy but we were ready and willing for a mountain
climbing experience, so we were off.
We met many people along the way. One lady and
her daughter stopped and chatted with us a bit.
They had done the hike in a single day. The woman
was a bit on the tired side. Nice people and
a nice conversation.
Our timing was such that we needed to press on
rather diligently. It was getting dark soon, and
it was getting chilly. The valley below was full
of clouds and the sun was above, giving a rather
mystical effect. I could have gazed upon that
wonder for an hour. Unfortunately, we still hadn't
made it to camp.
Finally, we made it to High Camp. It was cold!
Tim and Nancy started setting up the tents; I
started donning extra clothing. It was a good
thing we were prepared with heavy clothes! I
started scouting around for a bear tree.
Nancy wasn't feeling too well, so after setting
up her tent she had some water and a Luna bar,
then lay down. Tim started cooking the dinner
and I was flashlight man.
The cuisine of the evening was split pea soup with
smoke sausage. It was ready in about 1/2 hour to
45 minutes. I tasted it and it was excellent!
Tim is a gourmet chef with packaged foods. Warm
food always fits the bill when you are cold and hungry.
By this time Nancy was up and feeling a bit
better, so she joined us for dinner.
After dinner, Nancy showed me how the bear bags
work. It isn't too hard to do, but takes a
bit of practice. We needed to do this in the
dark; there wasn't much choice in the matter.
Soon I was in dreamland in my mummy bag. I slept
about four hours without waking. At this high
altitude, I was surprised. The rest of the evening
was more like I expected, i.e. waking and dozing.
I was wearing my thermals, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt,
and still I was a bit chilled. My mummy bag is
rated for sub-zero temperatures!
Sunday morning we headed up. The weather was sort
of strange in that the wind was chilly, but the sun
was warm. I took off and put on my shell many times.
To compensate for the altitude, a slow grinding hike
was required. The violently agitated wind was cold
and bitter in the last stretch to the top, but
the actual peak was somewhat sheltered and quite
enjoyable. We stayed at the top some time, taking
pictures and chatting with Juliet and Roy. Juliet
and Roy were folk from our same campsite.
We headed down, broke camp, then headed back to the
cars.
The drive home was much quicker than the drive
there. Tim and I stopped at A&W for a burger.
The food there was acceptable, but while waiting
in the drive-thru, we smelled something revolting.
We took 38 to 10 to 83 to 66 (foothill) to 30 to 210.
This was because HWY 10 started to really suck
w/ respect to trafic. It would have been better
to have a different CA map.
San Jacinto GPS Waypoints
Here are some of the GPS waypoints I recorded on this trip. These points are in Degree.MinuteSeconds, not Decimal Degrees.
Click the GPS image for the Waypoint+ (Waypoint Plus) file for a Garmin eTrex.
| Select San Jacinto GPS Waypoints | |||
| GRG | Gorgonio Peak | 34.055710500 | -116.4929669000 |
| HGHCMP | High Camp | 34.051109600 | -116.5048993000 |
| VIVIAN | Vivian Creek Camp | 34.050385900 | -116.5109000000 |
| HGHCRK | High Creek Camp | 34.043585900 | -116.5123000000 |
See some images of our trip.
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