Another adventure in the local mountains.
We set out to find Vanalden Cave above Tarzana. I never knew we had such a large cave so close to us.
After we hiked to the Pirates Tower, we drove over to Aliso Canyon to hike up to Dripping Cave where Juan Flores and his gang would hold up after robbing stagecoaches.
Our weekly adventure took us to the Pirates Tower in Laguna.
I was not allowed to fly my drone but a resident forwarded me some great drone shots.
We had hoped to get closer to the tower, but the tide was coming in and we didn't want to get wet!
I particularly liked the 100 year old swimming pool that collected water at high tide and then left new fresh water to swim in at low tide.
It works the same way 100 years later.
Strange that the water level has not changed in 100 years.
I have never done much hiking or mountain biking north of the 118 freeway in Simi Valley, but today was the day to check it out.
I have always seen this trail going up from Las Virgenes Road and wanted to hike up.
Today we went to Vasquez Rocks to hike some of the trails that are farther to the west.
The morning started out very hot, no shade, and a bit smokey, but clouds came in with a slight breeze that cleared out the smoke.
If you get a chance to see these rocks do it, they are amazing!
Our adventure today took us to Burro Schmidt's Tunnel, where we hiked the half mile through the tunnel it took Schmidt 38 years to build by hand.
Back to the San Gabriels!
Our goal was to hike to Dawn Mine, which you can see on the map just to the right of the trails we ended up hiking. When we got to Dawn Mine trailhead it was closed, either for COVID or mating birds.
Our first hike since the trails opened after the Covid shutdown.
Malibu Creek State Park was just AMAZING today, but many people where wearing masks OUTSIDE!
Amazing hike today in Malibu State Park. The creek is totally dry allowing Marv and I to walk under the bridge where the turtles and ducks normally reside! It has NEVER been this dry before!
What an amazing day, Jose and I hiked to the Bridge to Nowhere yesterday, 6 very wet river crossings, some rock climbing, log balancing, and we saw bungee jumpers, bighorn sheep, a rattlesnake, AMAZING water, and had some great whiskey!
This is always such an epic hike, a right of passage if you hike Southern California!
Our Tesla trip to the Joshua Tree National Park, 426 miles, 2 charging stations, 12 hours total, and many many beautiful amazing hikes.
Check out our short video!
This was my first hike down Pressman Trail since the Woolsey Fire tore through Bell Canyon.
You could see every nuance of the trail including this old VW bug that still sits along the trail.
Our hike and rock hunting at Sycamore Cove Beach.
To much death on the beach. These turtles seem to be coming out of the water to die, but we did find some very nice rocks!
Rock hunting up the east fork of the San Gabriel river.
Omid carried out 150 pounds of rocks!
We planned a very full day in the Mojave National Preserve starting with,
* Mary Beal Nature hike.
* Mitchell Caverns.
* The Hole In The Wall ring's hike.
* The Lava Tubes.
We made it to all of them, but just made it to the Lava Tubes before dark.
We planned a very full day in the Mojave National Preserve starting with,
* Mary Beal Nature hike.
* Mitchell Caverns.
* The Hole In The Wall ring's hike.
* The Lava Tubes.
This was our hike through the Hole In The Wall ring's.
With all of the devastation from the Woolsey Fire, somehow my meditation chair, trail sign, and wood bridge survived even with fire swirling all around them!
If you have never hiked Malibu State Park, it is the Yosemite of Southern California.
My first hike in over a month, it was AMAZING, an amazing place and amazing weather.
Even saw a deer, but it was dead!
Another great hike in Southern California, our own amazing Malibu State Park.
This was my second time hiking up to the Hollywood Sign, but this time by way of Wonder View Drive and Trail, past Wisdom Tree. The views were spectacular!
We hiked from the corner of Las Virgines Rd and Mulholland Rd, the entire way through Calabasas to the 101.
It looked like maybe 6 miles on my map, but ended up being 11 grueling miles!!!
I always wanted to hike from the top of Stunt Road, starting at the abandoned tower, down to Mullholland Rd near Mountain Park.
It starts out a fire road but quickly turns into this back bone of rock. There was a trail, but some parts were challenging.
Omid wanted to go up to the tower, but the security patrol turned him back.
We have hiked MCSP maybe 30 times, but we wanted to see what El Nino did to.the park.
Century Lake was full of debris, right up from the lake, the bridge that crosses the creek was washed out, and that is no easy feat since the bridge is concrete and an entire half is gone.
We had our eye on four hikes in one day I the Santa Barbara area.
The Gaviota Wind Caves, the Gaviota Hot Springs, the Nojoqui Falls, and Lizard Rock.
This is our hike to the Wind Caves. They are spectacular indeed, how does the wind do this?
This is our hike to the Wind Caves. They are spectacular indeed, how does the wind do this?
We had our eye on four hikes in one day in the Santa Barbara area.
The Gaviota Wind Caves, the Gaviota Hot Springs, the Nojoqui Falls, and Lizard Rock.
This is our hike to Gaviota Hot Springs. The hot springs were the best that I have ever been to, and we had to get in.
Omid enjoyed the spa mud very much.
We had our eye on four hikes in one day in the Santa Barbara area.
The Gaviota Wind Caves, the Gaviota Hot Springs, the Nojoqui Falls, and Lizard Rock.
After the rains, we made our way over to see the damage to Malibu Creek State Park, the Yosemite of the south.
We found massive damage!!!
This was such a great hike out to Mesa Overlook in the fog and rain.
I always saw this trail up the rock face above the Malibu sand dunes and even though it says to keep off, it is WAY to inviting, and I have done it at least 3 times. The cliffs overlooking PCH are sheer and steep, but the views are so worth it!
We always wanted to hike the trails of Point Dume.
I saw this hike in the L.A. Times and wanted to go, so Omid and I planned a day to get down there.
Starting at the Reagan Ranch Trail, we hiked over to Malibu Lake Overlook. We have hiked and ridden all around this lake, but I always wanted to hike above the lake.
We then hiked over to the Mash Unit from the back of the lake. What a wonderful day.
After hiking to Mount Baden Powell, we saw that the parking lot was shared by this hike. So we planned to come back and hike down instead of up. This was a rather short but exciting hike to Big Horn Mine.
Our hike to Murphys Ranch in Santa Monica. It was a Nazi camp that was established in the hopes that Germany would win, oh well.
You can see a sign saying that graffiti is illegal, yet you will see some amazing graffiti on this hike! The stairs down go on forever.
I worked in Chatsworth for years before finding out that the Manson Family held up just miles from our offices at the Spahn Ranch and hung out in the caves just behind the ranch.
Me and my buddies, Marv, Omid, and Pete helped me clear a trail up to the 20 foot waterfall in our backyard.
Today I put stones along the trail and dug out a dam for the water to rest for awhile.
This was an EPIC hike straight up the face of Mt Bone to Sri Peaks and then over to Sandstone Peak, and down to the car.
We started up from Newberry Park and climbed what looked like a sheer cliff. For whatever reason Omid hung way back, scary far back. I don't think that he liked Pete. It was Marv, Pete, Omid, and I.
It was hard to navigate what ended up being two groups, sad!
I read about this in the L.A. Times, and coordinated with Marv and Omid to drive up and check it out!
It was as amazing as the article described! This year was a perfect time to visit them on foot, since the drought kept the water levels low. Usually you would have to take a boat.
Marv and I hiked up to Mt Boney by way of a creek bed. It what a nasty 9 miles!
A hike to the Overlook on Topanga Trail.
We have hiked this trail hundreds of times, but this morning gave us some of the best water mist photos that I have ever taken.
This was a special morning indeed!
Our six mile hike from Agoura Hills to Malibu State Park. I want to redo this hike in the spring to see the many types of flowers. There were so many different kinds, so beautiful, and a few caterpillars and more than a few butterflies.
A day hiking is like a day in heaven! Always wanted to do Happy Camp above Simi and Moorpark. 11 miles of beautiful valleys and vistas, with my buddy Omid.
Marv had planned to come but was down with the flu.
Corriganville is an interesting movie set where movies like Creature From The Black Lagoon were filmed.
Corriganville is at the east end of Simi Valley and everything is uphill from here with a tunnel under the 118 with some creative graffiti.
Tri Peaks by way of fossil trail was an amazing hike up to the top, and we got to see some million year old fossils.
This was the hike of a life time. I had seen The Wave on motivational poster forever, and every time I would see the poster, I wanted to go. Doing my research to go, I found that they only allow 20 people a day to hike to The Wave. 10 passes are awarded online and 20 in person. I tried for two years online with no success. So Marv and I........
This hike was high up on my bucket list.
We spent the morning at the rangers station in Kanab, trying to get a pass to go to the Wave, WE GOT THEM!
We then headed out to start the hike to the Subway.
Marv, Omid, and I decided to hike up above Thousand Oaks while Kara shopped with her friend below.
Other than that crazy dinosaur, all went well.
Marv and I hiked down to the border to get a first hand look at what is going on, and then Marv had to go and cross into Mexico!
The NSA was looking for us for the rest of the day.....
Today we thought we would do something different and hike over to Paramount Ranch. So many films and TV series have been filmed here.
This is a very special area for hiking out on the Pear Blossom Highway that has some very unique rock formations.
We were looking for a coastal hike that we had not done, and we found this one.
It only got 3 stars on Hikespeak.com, but off we went.
Red Rock Park near Old Topanga Blvd, so beautiful!
This hike took us up La Jolla Canyon Trail, which headed up from the parking lot to La Jolla Canyon and then up the rock falls to the trails beyond.
Always looking for a challenge, we decided to travers the entire length of the Verdugo Mountain range in one day. It would require two cars, one at each end. The hike was special and quite unique. I doubt that many hike the entire length.
We decided on this short hike up Devils Canyon today, but out of nowhere these guys showed up.
But they were very peaceful.
This was our EPIC hike from Solidad Canyon Rd into Vasquez Rocks, 8.9 miles of amazing hiking.
I always wanted to hike from Soledad over to Vasquez. It gave us more of an adventure than just driving to Vasquez Rocks.
Don't get me wrong, Vasquez is the goal, where they filmed so many movies and TV shows, from the Flintstones to Star Trek, but this gave the day a purpose.
We wanted to hike the back side of our own mountains, so we drove over to Santa Clarita and had our way with the trails in the Placenta Canyon Nature Center. We hiked to the very top and did the loop, then Omid had to leave and Marv and I hiked over to a dry waterfall.
At 60 years old, Marv took on the tire swing!
Obama getting his ass kicked on the Bridge to Nowhere.
Had to bring masks, it was Halloween!
This is a 10 mile epic hike to see the bridge.
We hiked over to the Cave of the Munits to see if we could get a blessing!
Omid, Marv, and I wanted to hiking every last inch of this park, and so we did. From Paradise Falls, to the cave, to the teepee, up to look over into Santa Rosa, and back to the car. What an amazing day of hiking!
We started this hike at Malibu Creek State Park, then hiked up challenging Bull Dog and hooked up with Mesa Peak Motorway, which is old Back Bone Trail, and then down to Malibu Canyon Road. 11 miles in 100 degrees temps made this a VERY rough day, but we got to take shelter near the meditation rock formation.
What a great day hiking over to Eagle Rock and trying to traverse the side with the tree on it.
I took Kia and a gaggle of her friends out to Parker Mesa Overlook for a night hike.
We saw some snakes and a bunch of wild life, and you could see the planes lining up to land at LAX.
Nov 30th 2011
This car must have been from an old TV show or movie, but artists have had their way with it over the years.
Omid and I road over to the Mash Unit in Malibu Creek State Park, and then up Bull Dog to the old abandoned house.
28 miles of aggressive riding. Malibu Creek State Park is like the Yosemite of the south.
When Kia was maybe 13 we visited the Grand Canyon for the first time and hiked a mile down Bright Angeles Trail. The walls were so high that I asked Kia to sing so that her voice would bounce off the walls for all to hear!
I vowed that we would return and hike across the entire canyon.
