Liebre Ridge HP and Liebre Mountain

HPS Star Emblem Peak
Hiked: 4/24/2022
Distance: 8.9 miles round trip on trail
Summit Elevation: 5785' (Ridge HP), 5760' (Liebre)
Prominence: 1080'
Elevation Gain: 2170'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 1.7
Round trip time: 3 hours 35 minutes
Recommended water: 48 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Pine Canyon Road
Difficulty: Moderate

I wanted to pick up another Star Emblem Peak and Liebre Mountain (HPS #206, P1K) was the goal. Just north of Pyramid Lake on I-5 is the turn off to get to Pine Mountain Road. It is paved all the way to the trailhead. Remarkably, this area was within the northern reaches of the Angeles National Forest. I parked just off the road at the trailhead, but there was a small dirt turnaround where parking would have been better. The turnaround has room for 3-4 cars. The north and south bound PCT meet at the turnaround. The route to Liebre is the north bound trail on the right.

I followed mild switchbacks up the side of the ridge. The gain was low angle and mitigated by the length of the trail. On average, the trail gains about 500'/mile. Not difficult. There were plenty of wildflowers blooming in early Spring, and plenty of hikers. By the end of the day, I had met 9 PCT thru hikers. Everyone was cordial but no one struck up longer conversations. Views on the way up were limited to looking north. I passed through some pines, then tall oaks, then open meadows near the top. When I got to the ridge, I veered a short distance off the road to the Liebre Ridge High Point (per Peakbagger). According to the topo, it is roughly 20' higher than the official HPS Liebre Mountain, though this may be in dispute. The ridge HP had its own register and a wooden sign declaring it Liebre Mountain. I signed the register, then followed the ridge road another half mile to the official HPS Liebre. The HPS register in red cans were there, but no benchmarks. The only views on Liebre were south of the ridge, but included a nice look at Pyramid Lake, Slide Mountain, and Cobblestone. I sat down on some summit rocks, only to be have my legs swarmed with angry red ants. I grabbed my stuff and retreated to the road where I spent a couple of minutes swatting ants off my legs. I escaped with no bites or stings. Without an obvious resting place, I snacked on the uneventful trip down. It's always great to be in motion, and it's always great to be outside, but I found Liebre somewhat underwhelming for an emblem peak. It did push my P-index to 182 so that's something.

Table set up for thru hikers?

Sign and register at the Ridge HP

View north

Liebre Mountain HPS summit

View south to Cobblestone

Aquaduct

Yosemite Valley Seis Waterfalls

Hiked: 4/10/2022
Distance: 6.8 miles round trip on trail and cross country
Summit Elevation: N/A
Elevation Gain: 600'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 0.4
Round trip time: 4 hours
Recommended water: 48 oz.
Parking/Fees: $35 National Parks Fee (one car for one week)
Difficulty: Easy

On our second day of hunting waterfalls in Yosemite Valley, Leisa and I started by the Ahwahnee Hotel to view the Royal Arches Cascades. This is one of the seasonal falls that dries up in summer. It wasn't much in April, but the lower falls had a decent flow.

Top of Royal Arches Cascades

Bottom of Royal Arches Cascades
Then, we drove near Bridalveil Fall to start hiking. The road and Bridalveil itself was closed and fenced off for renovations. Despite being closed, it was the most popular waterfall in the park. Dozens of cars were lined up on the side of the road, with some adventurous vistors charging into the forest for a closer look. We were more interested in other falls so took photos from the road. Then, we jumped on the Valley Loop trail.

Bridalveil Fall from the road
Next up was Yosemite Falls, the highest waterfall in North America and second most popular in the park. The lower falls were a short hike and easy to reach on a paved trail. We hiked to the upper falls two summers ago, and it was a substantial hike to get there. It wasn't flowing much then, but was roaring now. We didn't want to burn half a day getting there, so moved on toward El Capitan and Ribbon Falls.

Yosemite Falls

Lower Yosemite Falls
Ribbon Falls is another seasonal waterfall and second longest in the park (1600'). The water appeared to evaporate about half way down, but the creek was wide and strong below it. We rock hopped over the creek as we continued on the Valley Loop Trail. On the way, we went up one of the climber trails to the start of the main routes to the nose on El Cap. I climbed up about 20' on solid, grippy granite, then abandoned my free solo attempt with 2,980' to go. Maybe next time, haha.

Ribbon Falls

Ribbon Falls and El Capitan
We completed the loop trail, then drove a short distance down highway 140 to The Cascades and Wildcat Falls. From the turn out, you can only see the top of The Cascades. We did some fun boulder scrambling to get closer to it. There was a short use trail to the bottom of Wildcat Falls, another seasonal waterfall. We saw another seasonal waterfall, Sentinal Falls, near the Sentinal rock feature, but didn't get any photos. We tried to get it on our third day, but it was socked in with clouds. We even hiked up the four mile trail to try to get a look at it, but never got another glimpse.

The Cascades

Wildcat Falls

Yosemite Valley Tres Waterfalls

Hiked: 4/9/2022
Distance: 17.5 miles round trip on trail
Summit Elevation: 6644' (high point on Panorama Trail)
Elevation Gain: 4200'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 3.3
Round trip time: 9 hours 15 minutes
Recommended water: 116 oz.
Parking/Fees: $35 National Parks Fee (one car for one week)
Difficulty: Strenuous

Leisa and I took drove to Yosemite Valley for a multi-day waterfall tour. On our biggest day, we visited Vernal Fall, Nevada Fall, and Illilouette Falls. Illilouette was new for us and is usually a short hike from Glacier Point. However, Glacier Point and the road to it were closed for renovation, so we had to get to it the hard way. Our path started at the Mist trailhead. We began at sunrise to avoid crowds on the way up. They would annoy us on the way down.

We had visited Vernal and Nevada on our Half Dome hike five years ago, but they were flowing much stronger in spring. A super soaker spray rose from the bottom of Vernal to drench everthing in the vicinity. As we climbed toward Nevada, we could see Illilouette Falls far away on the other side. When we reached Nevada, it roared with the same ferocity as Vernal. We had not been to the lookout point just below Nevada, so that was a new perspective.

Vernal Fall

Illilouette Falls from the Mist Trail

From Nevada Fall, we took the Panorama Trail that runs along the north valley rim. This area was new for us. All of the trails were in great shape. A series of switchbacks took us another 1000' above the rim, with most of the trail a running stream. There were also a few trees down on this section that required going around or under. We had great views of Yosemite Falls on the other side and a great look back at Nevada. Eventually, we started descending down toward Illilouette Creek. We crossed a bridge over the wide creek, then ascended a short distance to the optimal viewing point for Illilouette Falls. We took a long lunch break here. We returned the way we came. On the way back, we took a short use trail through some cut manzanita to Panorama Point, an unofficial Peakbagger summit. There was a broken metal pole there and a missing benchmark. Back at Nevada, there was a throng of people and it was conga line descending back to Vernal. To shake the crowds, we took the JMT back to the trailhead, trading elevation gain for some peace. The vertical valley walls added some noise to the GPS track, so the stats lack precision, but are in the ballpark.

Looking back at Nevada

Yosemite Falls on the other side

Illilouette Creek

Illilouette and Half Dome

Panorama Point

Dawns Peak

Hiked: 3/30/2022
Distance: 16 miles round trip cross country
Summit Elevation: 6582'
Prominence: 1062'
Elevation Gain: 6266'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 5.0
Round trip time: 15 hours 30 minutes
Recommended water: 240 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Rockhouse Canyon Trail
Difficulty: Very Strenuous

Dawns Peak (aka Lorenzens Peak, aka Peak 6582) is challenging destination in the Santa Rosa Mountains on the ridge between Toro Peak and Rabbit Peak. It is difficult to reach from any direction and has no trails. Summitpost has some background information on the origin of the different names. Peakbagger simply lists it as Peak 6582. I prefer Dawns Peak since it was the moniker used by Jerry Schad. The starting point was on the Rockhouse Canyon Trail dirt road, roughly 8 miles north of S22 outside Borrego Springs. The road was in decent shape, but the last few miles to the trailhead had large rocks and deep sand. 4x4 recommended.

"Hardcore" Henry Chen and I left the OC at 2 AM and arrived at the trailhead just before 5 AM. We started out in the dark crossing mostly open desert in the direction of the black sillouette of the Santa Rosa ridge. After 1.8 miles, we started up the first steep ridge that leveled out into a plateau. We were following the standard route and it drops into a wash near the end of the plateau. The wash was easy going and mostly flat. A few dry falls required class 3 or a bypass which was always available. At the end of the wash, we dropped a water cache under a boulder for the return trip. Then, we climbed another steep slope toward peak 3439. At the top of the slope was another plateau, but we were surprised to also find a masterfully constructed 4' cairn. It looked like a mini-version of the giant cairn built on Dawns Peak.

Looking in the wash from the 1st plateau

Ocotillo bloom

Dropping into the wash

Dryfall with cool chockstone, we came down that way

Leaving the wash

Henry on the slope to Peak 3489

Mini-cairn with Dawns in the background
From the 3489 plateau, we appreciated the massive size of Dawns. We dropped off the plateau and started a mile plus traverse across open desert and small gullies toward the ascent ridge. We took a long break at the base of the ridge before starting the brutal 3000' of class 2/3 to Dawns. The ridge was broken into three steep sections with short connectors. The rock was solid, but may not be anchored well to the slope. Some manzanita, junipers, and pinyons dotted the landscape. We were now in full sun, and I was moving slowly but deliberately. Henry kept a short distance ahead of me on the scramble. At the top of the ridge, there was a final bump to Dawns summit. The brush and trees here were thicker. There was a mostly clear path through but we didn't find it on the way up, so ended up with some unnecessary class 3 and scrapes. Dawns ridge is comparable to the Rabbit East Ridge, but higher angle. The summit was glorious with the famous cairn as a backdrop to the 6000' drop to Clark Dry Lake. Both Toro and Rabbit looked very far away. Salton Sea was shining. Since we didn't find the register, we left one.

Start of the ascent ridge

Two on the summit

Looking at Toro Peak

Looking at Rabbit and Salton Sea
My slow ascent put us behind schedule, so we didn't spend extra time on the summit. When we started down, we found a clear path through the brush, but dropped a couple of hundred feet on a rib past our ascent path. It looked like it connected below so we forged ahead. This cost us more time and energy as we carefully dropped down a chute, then crossed an unstable scree field to get to the right part of the ridge. Correcting course overheated me a little and I never fully recovered. We continued down the steep ridges, easier with gravity, but nearly as slow as going up. By the time we got off the ridge, I was fairly miserable. The unrelenting descent was a quad killer, and it was a sufferfest the rest of the way. I alternated taking sips of water and pouring it over my head to cool off. I guessed it was 10 degrees warmer on the mountain than the NWS had forecast. One intentional change we made to our descent was that we dropped immediately into the wash below the Peak 3489. Going up, we climbed the slope more directly. I thought the wash route was better. Shortly after, we picked up our water cache. To save energy, we downclimbed/slid all the dry falls instead of bypassing them. At sunset, my body retained the sun's fire, but I got some relief and enjoyed the shadows and twilight as we continued down. We almost made it off the mountain before dark, almost. The open desert return to the truck seemed to go on forever. I was in zombie mode at this point, shuffling across the desert, but still took notice of the bright star field. We made it back without seeing another soul on the mountain or the road.

Almost off the ridge

Almost off the mountain