It’s a long hike up from the bottom, with a vertical elevation change of about 6,000 feet. Down there in the valley – yet above the clouds lingering over the Inland Empire – is Forest Falls, where the trail starts:

I spent two nights on the mountain: one halfway up, and one at the peak. This gave me two opportunities to get a startrail photo, which is something I definitely wanted to do. Having said that, the main objective was to get away – this was the weekend before the start of yet another fall quarter. It was a very last-minute trip – I decided to do it around noon on Friday, and I was on the trail three hours later. As a result, I subsisted for three days on bread and cheese – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. To the great amusement of some people I met along the way, this doesn’t mean bread and cheese sandwiches, but literally a loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese, which I bit into for each meal. OK, I admit it, I had some bell pepper, too, but that ran out.

On the second day, there was a search for a hiker who’d been up on the trail for a few days longer than he said he would be, so there was a search and rescue helicopter flying overhead in the morning:

It seems the guy was ok in the end. I have a panorama shot from here waiting to be put together:

The way gets pretty barren once you get close to the summit:

Due to its topographical prominence, Mt. San Gorgonio is popular with dayhikers training for Mt. Whitney. This guy made it up the second 3,000 vertical feet barefoot:

And this guy knows how to keep it classy:

And here’s one to prove that I actually made it up, too. Notice Big Bear Lake in the background, which you can see over the range that includes Snow Summit and Bear Mountain:

The peak itself is barren, windy, and cold (it was in the 20s Fahrenheit during the night – yeah, I was cold). For this reason, there are some rustic shelters up there to for those willing to brave the elements.

I met these 2 guys at the top, living large with a tent, stove, and two bottles of whiskey:

My abode was humble by comparison, but every time I opened my eyes I had a spectacular sky above. Good trade.

The sun setting over the mountains of the Angeles National Forest:

I was up for the sunrise, too. What a sight. First light hitting Mt. San Jacinto across the valley:

Now that’s a shadow. Then it was back down to the real world.

All in all, great trip. I highly recommend it. In the future, I’ll add some panoramas that I took, as well as some startrail photos (assuming they came out alright). In the meantime, here’s a gallery of some of these and other photos. Hope you like them.

Gallery here

The 2 winds from the city of angels to the mysteries beyond the clouds..

Gallery

Full gallery here

This is what I look like in the middle of a football match:

And also this one, which does have photographic merit. Click on the panorama for higher resolution:

Follow the leader:

Some of the days were rainy, but Chicagoans are resilient, and they do like their jazz:

I put the camera on a tripod, set it for 30-second exposures at f/3.5 (ISO 800), set it on continuous shooting mode, and locked the remote control. I left the camera for 105 frames, or about 53 minutes. I then put all the photos together on my computer using this neat Startrails program by Achim Schaller.

Here’s the same photo in the original colors:

Click on the panorama for a larger version:

I flew all the way back from Colorado to California in a plane that fits all of 19 passengers: