[singlepic id=103 w=320 h=240 float=left]

For 45 minutes drive from Mammoth and there we came to the Yosemite national park east entrance. A small parking next to the gate was the trail head to the Gaylor lakes and Granite lakes. It starts at 9900 feet.
The beginning of the trail was steep. After getting up to the ridge, around 10600 feet ,  the beautiful view of the Gaylor lake shows up when looking down in the valley. The view of  snow mountains in the far back are amazing too.
Passing Gaylor lake, it’s a easy walk to the upper Gaylor lake then to the miner’s shack, except a part on a snow field and attack of hundreds of mosquitos. I tried to use hood and hat to protect my face but still got a few bites. They even bit through my long sleeve jacket on my shoulder. This year the snow melt later than usual and it seems the mosquito season is delayed too. It’s wise to have some bug nets and bug spray with you. On the way back, i took some nice photos of some wild flower and the granite lake.
The hike was totally 5 miles. Came back to the trail head, we decided to drive a little bit more into the Yosemite. Olmstedt point was 8 miles away. From there view of Half dome is pretty clear. It’s obviously a popular spot of photo shooting.
Tenaya lake is a huge lake on the way to the Olmstede point. It is very beautiful but just not so quiet because of the popularity.
Dinner was at the lodge, including sauteed chicken, boiled corn and veg soup. It was delicious.

[singlepic id=100 w=320 h=240 float=left]

Left LA 6am on Friday and arrived Mammoth around noon as planed.
Drove up lake George,  there is a short hike to Barrett lake and T.J. Lake, just good for the first day warm up hike.
Altitude is one important thing can’t be ignored hiking in high sierra mountains. The Mammoth town where we stayed is 8000 feet high, and lake George is above 9000 feet elevation already. As soon as walking up little bit, my heart started beating much faster. I was glad I did some hiking in Baldy last weekend.
This was only a small hike for the body to get adjusted to the  altitude, but I’ve got a few nice photos of the lakes and some wild flowers next to a creek.
Dinner at the lodge,  had fried rice and chicken Veg soup.

[singlepic id=99 w=320 h=240 float=left]This was the first time hiking at Mt. Baldy in the mid summer. At the ski hub, i was surprised to see wild flowers were blooming like in the spring.
The ski hub trail is a pretty steep one. It’s about 7 miles round trip with 3800 feet elevation gain. Even it is short, it took us 4 hours to go up and 3 hours to come down.

[singlepic id=96 w=320 h=240 float=left]Crystal lake area used to be a popular recreation resort for hiking, camping and boating. After the big fire 3 years ago in Los Angeles, some of the road got damaged and this area was closed for a few years. Finally it’s partly reopened again.

The view of beautiful lake between the mountains on the way to the crystal lake trail was amazing. I didn’t expect to see so much water in L.A. area. San Gabriel river east fork and west fork cross here. We hiked in the east fork last year to the bridge to nowehere.

During May, we hiked 3 trails in Crystal Lake area.
Windy Gap trail
The elevation was already very high where the trail starts, it was hard for me to walk fast. The trail was made even difficult to walk since many burned trees fell down and blocked the trail at many spots. The Windy gap was quite windy. Still some snow patches left in the shade.

Smith mountain
It was a beautiful trail with many wild flowers all the way up. but at the very end, there’s a very steep part to the peak, 0.5 miles with 800 feet escalation. Some part requires both hands to climb a little bit. After hiking this trail, my ankles were very sour for a few days.

Winston peak
[singlepic id=95 w=320 h=240 float=left]Because of the road closed for that day’s maintenance, we hiked 8 miles, 4 miles longer than our plan. It was my first time to see the snow plant. And there were so many of them. They look like red flower of some plant. But when you look closer, they don’t have any green leaves or stems.
The last part to the peak didn’t have any used trail. Even it was not very steep, probably with the escalation, I felt pretty tired.

It was 2 years ago we hiked up Hongdo Canyon located in Topanga Canyon. I always remember how beautiful it was. Most part of the trail were shaded by trees. And at the point going up to the overlook, the ocean view showed up all of sudden and gave a great surprise.

I wanted to hike there again. We decided to go there on Saturday morning.
After we walked out of the canyon, instead of go up the overlook trail again, this time we climbed up a off road trail which was so steep that needed to use both hands. We saw some spiky bushes with beautiful pink wild flowers that we’ve never seen before. Fortunatelly there’s another way going onto overloook trail so we didn’t to go down the same place.

We had 8 mile 2000 ft escalation up.

[singlepic id=94 w=320 h=240 float=left]Looking for the color of fall, we started drive to Mammoth mountains on thursday afternoon. It was rainy in LA when we left. After passing Palmdale, we saw huge, dark clouds sitting on the hills we just came from. A few rainbows later showed up on the way as well.
According to the precipitation it would rain/snow in Mammoth on that specific afternoon when we planned to drive up to there. We left LA as early as possible to avoid situations being trapped in bad weather. Fortunately it was not raining or snowing in Mammoth.

[singlepic id=72 w=320 h=240 float=left]Friday morning was sunny. We decided to go to Convict Canyon trail which go up into the canyon above the Convict lake. The first 1 mile of the trail was very easy. The lake was decorated with trees with golden colored leaves, which made it difficult to go fast without taking pictures. After the “John muir wildness” sign, the trail start getting steep. Finally it came to a river which we are supposed to cross. The water was rushing down fast and it could be dangerous if anyone fall into the river while trying to cross it. So we had to go back a little bit to find a easier spot to cross the river. On the other side of the river, it was hard to find the used path mentioned in the book. We tried to climb higher to be away from the narrow canyon and the river. The used trail appeared and we followed it for a mile. It leaded to the first later after the river crossing.
Even there’re more lakes that we wanted to see, it was 2pm in the afternoon. Looking at the black clouds gathering at the top of the snow covered mountain that not far from the lake, we headed back.
The hiking turned out to be 10 miles and 4000 feet escalation.

[singlepic id=71 w=320 h=240 float=left]Drove to the Topanga State park then follow the sign, we walked on a fire road to Eagle rock.
It was a fogy morning. The woods and mounts were all covered by white fogy air. We were lucky to see a pretty big mail dear close to the trail head and then a little bit later and gray squarrel with a bushy tail greeted us with some strange noises.

Eagle Rock is a huge nice shape rock, reminding me some western movies with native american riding a horse standing on the top.

On the way back we saw a beautiful california wild rose. They are relative rare. We so far saw them only twice on a hiking trail.

[singlepic id=69 w=320 h=240 float=left]It was like a summer day with 80F in Santa Monica, but you can feel it’s the autumn from the cooler morning. We drove to a farm in Thousand Oaks, called underwood farm for their October harvest festival.

The festival area was not so huge and I felt it’s more for the kids. We walked around and saw some animals, such as goats, Turkey and even Alpacas. Several wagon cars loaded many children and adults going circles in the crowded farm. The pumpkin field and sunflowers decorated the place nicely.

Since it’s a festival we had some burgers and roasted corns, also tacos at the food stands at the festival area. At last, we went through the big pumpkin filed and finally chose 4 of them out of thousands. One huge orange pumpkin costed only $10. And 3 smaller ones with pale color and flat shaped were around $5 each. We went back with a great satisfaction.

Chumash trail is at the far end of Malibu, next to La Jolla Valley. This trail is said one of the oldest trail, which was used by native americans, the Chumash, from 7000 years ago.

We soon found out that it was a very steep trail. It has 1000ft escalation within 1 mile. Imaging that the Chumash people were climbing here up and down everyday between their little village and the ocean, and sometimes had to carry the food they found, we had to agree that they must be good hikers.

The downhill was not so easy for our tired legs. It was a short but great work out.

This is a famous hiking trail for summer season, because of the river is still full of water in the heated days, with 100F+ temperature. The parking lot was full before we got there. we have to walk longer in the hot sun.
As soon as we came to the trail head, we found out we needed to cross the river already. Walking through the river was fun, and something very different with other hiking. We tried to count how many times we had to cross the river but somehow forgot about it when we got lost from the trail. Some spot where to cross the river were obvious but some are hidden.
Even it was not comfortable to walk almost 10 miles with wet shoes, it was a great hike . We turned around before half mile to the “bridge to nowhere” since I got a headache in the heat. But I will see it next summer.