Who is that Panda? That panda with a bikini and maybe a santa hat? I encountered this sexy vixen in the Cleveland National Forest on a recent hiking/campout with a bunch of SoCal Hiking Bloggers. How did we become friends? The story is below:
A whole bunch of us bloggers in Southern California decided to get together and not only hike together (as we had done previously) but also camp out afterward. Perhaps one of the first Tweetouts? I say yes!
The place we chose to meet up was the Cleveland National Forest to hike Los Pinots Mountain. The trail for the most part was a multi-use fire road and when I say multi-use, I saw hikers and motorbikes and super up Volkswagen Beatles on this track. Quiet it was not but beautiful it certainly was:
But the views weren't the only thing discussed, we had lots to catch up on about the world of blogging and tweeting and there is always a lot of "shop talk" when we get together.
As we chatted and gained elevation, Lake Elsinore and other mountain ranges came into view
Its about 700-800 feet on the ol fire road till you hit the junction with the Trabuco Canyon Trail and Los Pinos Mountain comes into view.
The junction is pretty obvious and you don't necessarily have to be a mountain goat to get up this thing since there is a gentler trail off to the right
HOWEVER, there definitely are some quad burning sections as you make your way to the summit and what is always depressing is that to go to the summit you actually go down a few ridge lines to get to the summit so you know you will going UP them later.
Finally we gained the summit and met that magical panda who resides in the summit register.
Made completely of rubber bands and with a jaunty spirit, the panda took all of our hearts in his paw. Sure, sure the summit contains great vistas
but if you don't also put a place in your heart for a little panda then I don't know what to say.
We made our way back and saw a second mountain (which we named Second Mountain, USGS please take note) and then scrambled up to the summit:
2 summits in one day, beautiful views, pandas and catching up with SoCal bloggers? Sounds like a great day to me! What hijinks did we get up to in camp? Stay tuned for part II coming out soon!
If you want to read the blogs of all of us SoCalers, check out:
The SoCal Hiker: http://socalhiker.net
Campfire Chic: http://campfirechic.com
California Through My Lens: http://californiathroughmylens.com
OP Adventures!: http://opadventureteam.com
Shoestring Adventures: http://shoestringadventures.com
Rock Grrl: http://www.rockgrrl.com/blog/
Nice write up Pete, can't wait for round 2! Some great pictures as well and I am excited that the USGS is recognizing what we named the second mountain!
ReplyDeleteThe government bends to my will, what can I say?
ReplyDeleteI'll Second that!
ReplyDeleteGreat hiking with you all (again). When's the next one!?