With winter fast-approaching, I’ve been looking for ways to continue hiking all year-round. When I lived in New England, winters were very cold and while trails were accessible, the weather was fickle and it could be deadly to get caught out in marginal conditions. Plus, the scenery there did not hold a candle to anything on the West Coast which just made it that much harder. Now that I live in California with Yosemite just a stone’s throw away, getting out there in the winter is so much easier. I visited Yosemite Valley in peak fall conditions a few weeks ago and again this week at the onset of winter conditions to get some conditioning hikes in.

I typically only hike in summer which means that I’m usually very out of shape at the start of prime backpacking season. Thus, I’ve been making a very concerted effort this year to get out in the backcountry year-round. Due to forecasted high winds, I did a quick day hike in the Hoover Wilderness rather than try to do an overnight trip. I had never been to the Hoover Wilderness before but it offered quick, easy access to the Sierra high country and ended up being a great day outing.

The last major backpacking trip of the year for me. Most of my weekend trips (and even my longer trips) tend to keep it under 3000 ft of elevation gain, mostly because the majority of the eastern Sierra hikes that don’t involve climbing a peak usually don’t exceed 3000 ft of gain. Granite Park though is a whopping 8.5 miles and 4500 ft of gain from the Pine Creek trailhead. I viewed this hike as a challenge to check my physical fitness and also check out an area of the Sierra I’ve wanted to see for a long time.

An easy and relaxing trip to the mountains was just what I needed to close out September. I met up with my friend Nicole (and her pup Noodle) and her friend Carlos for a trip to Little Lakes Valley for the weekend. This is one of the easiest high elevation hikes in the Sierra with plenty of great views right from the trailhead. We set up camp relatively close to the trailhead and then rambled around the upper lakes for the rest of the day.

I set out to photograph sunrise from the summit of Mt. Morgan South on a chilly summer morning – the last Saturday of summer, in fact. It had snowed on two separate occasions the week before and, unbeknownst to me, the upper reaches of the mountain held 3+ feet of unconsolidated snow. The conditions slowed me down immensely and I made it 150 ft below the summit just as the sun painted the surrounding peaks orange.

I hadn’t done a true cross country hike in a while, and I can’t think of a more worthy one than a jaunt into the Ionian Basin. This started off as a planned Labor Day Weekend trip to Darwin Bench which had been on my backpacking list for a while and slowly evolved as researched the area and learned about the fabled basin.

This peak is often overlooked in favor of its more popular neighbors (Vagabond and Cloudripper) but it has one of the best views of the Palisades that can be found in the Sierra. Being that the Palisades are oriented northwest to southeast and tower over most of the front range peaks on the east side, Sky Haven offers an absolutely amazing sunrise view.

This was my second trip here this summer, the first being in late June with my friend Holly. The lakes were not as concentrated with glacial silt back then and I messed up a photo of the Milky Way I had really wanted to get, so I planned a second more last-minute trip for the first weekend of August when I knew the moon would set well before the stars came out.

This was my first proper scramble since moving to California and it was a great one to ease into things again. This was a tiring but easy scramble on really solid rock and was honestly more just hiking up talus. I want to watch the sunrise from the summit so I woke up at 2am – a decision I don’t regret in the slightest.

Over the Independence Day holiday, I had plans to do a leisurely loop and hit most of the famous lakes in the Ansel Adams Wilderness with my friend Holly – Ediza Lake, Nydiver Lakes, Garnet and Thousand Island – but due to an unfortunate knee injury she exacerbated a few days before, this ended up being a solo trip. On the eve of my intended start date, I had major misgivings about even following through with this trip. You see, I had already visited every lake on my planning route, some of them multiple times even. The main intention was to do some astrophotography (a set of skills of which I’m woefully lacking) and show a hiking friend some new sights.

This summer was one of the rainiest in the Sierra in recent memory. I had tons of weekend hikes that ended up with me holed up in my tent for most of the trip and even a drive over Sonora Pass with heavy hail, lightning, and rockslides. Multiple people would console me that this is just not normal out here and I’m not entirely sure I believe them yet. On this fated Labor Day Weekend, I spent a very soggy weekend at Hungry Packer Lake in the Lake Sabrina area.

I have been wanting to check out this set of glacial lakes for years, ever since I had seen some gorgeous photos of the jade/teal color of Ritter Lakes. They’re nestled in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, probably my favorite area in the High Sierra. I was able to convince my friend Nicole to join me on this trip. She’s not as comfortable with off-trail travel but we made it through with only some minor mishaps. Due to the extremely high snowpack this year, none of the glacial lakes really took on their jade colors...which just means I’ll have to go back next year!

I recently finished up my Ph.D. program and took a month off before starting my new job. I don’t usually spend much time in Washington in the spring but thought experiencing the mountains in a different season could be a nice change of pace, and boy was I right! Cool temperatures, a refreshing mist on the trail without rain, zero mosquitoes, and cloud inversions for days were just some of the benefits I reaped on my first backpacking trip of the season.

I thought I’d dedicate a quick post to some of the easier hikes I did that didn’t feel like they warranted their own posts. Many of my favorite day hikes involved more driving than hiking on the east side of the Cascades, and yet I’d still say it was totally worth it. I felt like I didn’t hike as much as I’d wanted to this summer, and this fall was going to be when I made up for it. And so on an unseasonably warm Friday morning, I set out from Seattle at 4am for a quick hike in the Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness.

After just having got back to Seattle from another trip to the Chelan-Sawtooths the night before, I grudgingly woke up at 5 AM for a weekend backpacking trip. The plan was to camp at Libby Lake and then catch sunrise the next morning from Hoodoo Peak. It was definitely a late start for this trip meaning that I didn’t get to the trailhead until 10. There were three cars at the primitive trailhead when I got there and two more that arrived as I was getting ready.

Continuing with the theme of doing easy, popular hikes during larch season, I planned to check out Wing Lake in the morning and then head up to Maple Pass at sunset with my friend Holly. I ended up doing the whole loop and boy was it a treat! This is definitely a hike that’s popular for a reason.

I normally wouldn’t write about such a short hike but felt this trip warranted its own report since I surprisingly enjoyed it so much. I’ve only hiked once in Mt. Rainier National Park, halfway up the Skyline trail in 2014. The only reason I haven’t been back since then is unfamiliarity with the trails in MRNP while also having a huge backlog of hikes to do in the Cascades. On Friday, my friend Holly asked me if I’d be interesting in doing a sunset hike up to Tolmie Peak Lookout. I had had plans of doing Vesper Peak but figured it would probably be better to ease myself back into hiking after taking a month off, so Tolmie Peak it was.

I had already been up to Monte Cristo and Glacier Basin earlier in the summer as a conditioning backpacking trip, but my plans this weekend fell through and I decided to head back up there for a solo trip up Cadet Peak. I’d never been up any of the Monte Cristo Peaks so this was a real treat for me in near perfect summit conditions.

On a hot day in early August I convinced my friend Holly to check out a place in the North Cascades with me which I had seen on a list of scenic cross country hikes. I knew it would be a bit of a slog – a bushwhack plus scramble – but given the relatively short distance, I felt it would be okay and certainly within our skill levels. Well, Holly called me a demon for dragging her on this hike when all was said and done, ha ha ha ha ha.

It’s been a really hectic eight months but I wanted to finish writing about fall escapades before moving on to other trips. I took two days to rest after Stuart Lake/Horseshow Lake hoping that it would allow my knee to recover. I planned to do a day hike on Thursday and then head out to the Chelan Sawtooths again with my friend Tobin. While I’d initially thought to head to the North Cascades, I decided at the last minute to do a thru-hike of the Enchantments.