Mt. Pinos

Last weekend, Super Bowl Sunday, I got out for a short hike to counteract three poisonous hours on the sofa with the tube on eating chips later in the day. I hiked up the Lost Creek trail in the San Bernadino N.F., up to snow and back, about an hour and a half.
Today, I went to Frazier Park in the Los Padres National forest, where I thought I would be cross-country skiing about now, but there’s no snow. Well, some. I hiked on compact snow or ice about 80% of the time up to the Mt. Pinos (that’s “Peye-Nos,” in the gringo-speak that comes and goes in SoCal) summit and then over to Sawmill Mountain, just over 8,800 ft. I wouldn’t want to ski on it though. It was enough for me to fall on, though, in a moment of distraction as snow gave way to sheer ice under a big tree, banging the hell out of my knee and putting a dent in the outer ring of my brand-new binoculars. That was a bummer. No harm to the optics, and I think I can unbend it. No condors, although the spot is known for them. On top is a beautiful stand of old-growth Jeffrey Pine, a new tree species for me. White fir. Some kind of falcon. I’ll have to go back and backpack there in a month or two. Nice views of the snowy Sierra Nevada
Oh, and two new Wilderness Areas: San Gorgonio in the San Bernadino N.F. and Chumash in Los Padres.