Occidental Peak and AnotherShot at Mt. Sally
The usual Wednesday crowd was heading to a hike in the low, kinda-boring Verdugo Mountains, but I managed to convince one of my fellow hikers to head up into the San Gabriels and bag a couple of HPS peaks.
Occidental Peak is kinda funky because there really isn't much of a trail there. You have to edge your way around a fence enclosing a radio antenna complex, and past a helipad. Then you follow an indistinct use trail along the side of a ridge for a couple miles, 'til you make it to the top. If Pat (my partner in crime) hadn't known how to find the trailhead, we would've been out of luck.
After that, we picked up Mt. Sally, which Pat needed for the list. I'd already done it from the east, but this time we did it from the west, via Shortcut Saddle. The west is definitely the prefered direction -- it wasn't nearly as steep, and it was far easier to dodge the pointy, ubiquitous yukkas.
Woo hoo, that's 18 peaks. Just seven more to go 'til I hit the magic 25 to join the Hundred Peaks Section!
Occidental Peak is kinda funky because there really isn't much of a trail there. You have to edge your way around a fence enclosing a radio antenna complex, and past a helipad. Then you follow an indistinct use trail along the side of a ridge for a couple miles, 'til you make it to the top. If Pat (my partner in crime) hadn't known how to find the trailhead, we would've been out of luck.
After that, we picked up Mt. Sally, which Pat needed for the list. I'd already done it from the east, but this time we did it from the west, via Shortcut Saddle. The west is definitely the prefered direction -- it wasn't nearly as steep, and it was far easier to dodge the pointy, ubiquitous yukkas.
Woo hoo, that's 18 peaks. Just seven more to go 'til I hit the magic 25 to join the Hundred Peaks Section!
posted by K at
10:01 AM
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