Leatherneck ridge

Leatherneck ridge takes you up from the desert floor in Palm Springs to the tram station. According to the legend name came from a group of marines that had to be rescued from the ridge, hence the term "leatherneck".

Leatherneck ridge map

Parking is on the road near Visitor Center. Cross the valley and follow the ridge, which is directly west and runs parallel to Tram way road. There is no established trail, it's mostly cross country travel with deer 'trails' here and there.

There are few bushwhacking sections with the worst one is near the top. You will not stuck, but it does take time to find path of the least resistance and go back time to time to find better route.

Looking back at Visitor Center

Ridge

Deer

Ridge

First pine trees

Last section of the ridge

San Gorgonio

San Jacinto

 

Distance: 9 miles, altitude gain: 9200 ft, total hiking time 12:50

CEBOS loop hike

CEBOS is abbreviation for Cucamonga, Etiwanda, Bighorn, Ontario and Sugarloaf, not sure if anyone used that name before, but let's see if it will stick. I have done all of these peaks before except Sugarloaf and researching some of the longer trails online found that there is a 'path' connecting Ontario peak and Sugarloaf and descending back to Ice house canyon. I can't resist to check it out. 

CEBOS loop hike

Matching colors

View from Etiwanda peak

Ontario peak

Ridge

Sugarloaf peak (left)

Descent to Ice house canyon

Villager Peak

Villager peak (5,755 ft) is located in the Santa Rosa Mountains in the Anza-Borrego State Park. It lies between Rabbit peak to the north and Rosa Point to the southeast. Bad rainy weather forced me to think out of the box and did a desert exploration mission. We was considering continue hiking to the Rabbit Peak, but it was way too windy and view was blear and not very impressive.

Rabbit Peak (right)

Trail following this ridge

Coyote Peak

Walt's to McGee flight, 83 miles

Slow day with relatevly low cloud base. Could not get high enough to fly over Weller creast. Going around did not quite work for me, there was rain and a lot of shade in the mountains and I was too low to find anything in the valley.

Track: https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/3293188

US Paragliding Open, Chelan 2023

Another paragliding competition in Chelan this year. We rented a big house right next to the lake, so accommodations was excellent. No complains about weather either, only last day was way too windy and we have few tasks stopped due to rain/wind gusts, but overall I enjoyed the flying spending in the air close to 25 hours. Most of the gliders were 2-liners, including recently released Ozone Photon (EN-C), so racing was tough.

Lake Chelan from launch

Pilot's meeting at LZ

Alex B. on LZ

Stop task somewhere on flats

Looking at approaching rain from the bus

Lake Chelan

Launching my M7

Launch from the air

Start gaggle

Lake from the air

On glider across the river

Power lines

Following the cloud street

Thermaling over the flats

Results:

https://airtribune.com/us-open-paragliding-2023/results

Mt. Whitney

Annual Mt. Whitney winter hike just before the summer quota start. So much snow this year, I should have bring skis.

Lower gate

Scale at trailhead

My bivy spot

Sunrise from above Upper Boy scouts lake

Mt. Whitney from Iceberg lake

Mountaineering chute

Mt. Russel

Final 400 ft chute exit

Looking south

Top of Mt. Whiney

Busy parking lot