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.