Lake Erie, Buffalo Harbor Sail Boarding

-James

Lele Kawa

Descanso Wall Hike

On the way home from San Diego, I decided it was well past time to take an exploratory hike of Descanso. It has been on my rock climbing RADAR for a while, but I wasn't sure exactly where it was or what the climbing looked like.

The turn around at the gate also serves as the parking lot.

I half intentionally passed the trail, in order to explore the area a bit more. Which was marked by an unusual large amount of dirt on the road.

"Cliff" at the base of the trail

The hardest part of the hike is the steep "cliff" between the road and the trail. Once I passed the Fire Fighter Memorial,

I wasn't sure which face was which. I took a quick break on the large boulder at the base of the wall.

Bolt on top of the boulder facing the main wall

After that I made my way east along the wall and saw a bunch of bolts along the way. At least four bolted routes, most of them look easy from the bottom. After exploring the bottom I scrambled up the rocks immediately behind where the memorial is to the top. There wasn't much up there until the east end of the face where there were 2 anchors and the easiest path down to the bottom. I look forward to head back here and do some climbing. Because of the easy access, hikeable top rope anchors and variety of difficulty, it should be a good place to take new climbers.

View from the top. Parking center left and I8 across the top

-James

Lele Kawa

Castle Rock, Big Bear Lake, CA

The weather was threatening so rather than commit to a long adventure, I decided it was a perfect time to visit Castle Rocks. Castle Rocks is a popular hike in Big Bear Lake because it is short, hard and rewards hikers with a great view of the lake from the top. The rocks at the end of the hike offer some large faces to rock climb, but I did not bring my gear on this trip.

Thanks to the weather the trail was not very crowded. Road side parking can get sketchy if it is crowded. The trail starts steep but well maintained and easy unless the altitude gets you. You first meet the rocks from a boulder field at the bottom and see the 100 foot faces for rock climbing. As you make your way around the rock clock wise, you reach the shorter back side that offers a pretty easy scramble up to the top. At the top you have your reward of the lake view. There are also climbing anchors scattered across the top, offering a repel down or top rope for climbing.

-James

Lele Kawa

Devil's Bridge, Sedona, AZ

Another of the Grand Canyon side trips was Sedona. Devil's Bridge was one of the outdoor activities in Sedona that came highly recommended, I took advantage of my vehicle's clearance and drove to the trailhead, rather than hike from the parking lot. Managed to only bounce my truck off the rocks once along the way.

The trail is a nice gradual mile long slope up to the bridge. The whole trail offers beautiful views of the valley, especially as you get heigher. Maybe because it was noon in July, but the bridge wasn't very crowded. After the obligatory photo op, we turned back as a thunderstorm began to threaten the valley.

North up the Valley

 Devil's Bridge from below

Devil's bridge from above

-James

Lele Kawa

Lava River Cave, Flagstaff, AZ

Lava River Cave was an unplanned adventure as part of my Grand Canyon visit. I planned to spend the day heading up to Snow Bowl and taking the sky ride, but the weather would not cooperate. The thunderstorms prevented us from going up so we headed underground. I am aware that heading underground during rain can be a bad idea, but there was a ranger at the cave entrance and he never even suggested people not enter.

The below map is just from the parking lot to the cave's entrance. The parking lot was a crowded mess, despite being 3 miles off the paved road. I was lucky enough to arrive right as somebody was leaving and park next to the trail. The trail to the cave entrance is well marked and obvious (along the fire road). It wasn't until we arrived at the entrance that we realized how cold it would be in the cave. The average temp is around 40 fahrenheit, so we returned to the car to get long pants and sleeves.

After signing into the registry we made our way in. The first 50 yards was steep, loose and crowded. Once past that its about a mile of easy flat walking to the caves end. The ceiling height varies from about 4 feet up to about 30, but for the most part it is a comfortable 14 feet. At the end there is a pile of rocks and a hole in the lower right just big enough for an average sized person to crawl through. I wiggled my way in but all I saw was about 50 feet of crawling and graffiti, so I just backed out.

 Looking up at the entrance

Long exposure somewhere near the middle of the cave

The end

-James

Lele Kawa

Devil's Punch Bowl

I heard about this "Devil's Punch Bowl" over a year ago. I did some research and found that at the time there were access issues. The trail from Ramona was closed as a result of injuries and issues with people drinking. The trail from Julian was still open but was about twice as long. This spring they opened the trail from Ramona back up under the management of recreation.gov. This management requires you to have a $5 permit to use the area immediately around the falls.

I got the permit and headed out to the parking lot. There was a Ranger standing at the gate of the parking lot, which was already full, to check permits. We parked along the road and geared up. We headed down the trail, which I did not find as hard and steep as advertised. We even had some time for a photo op. The only bad part of the trail was the complete lack of shade until you reach the bottom.

At the bottom you are awarded with the first shade and a view of the falls. There wasn't much water falling this day.

The water was plenty cold, and felt nice after the heat of the hike. There are signs that tell you not to climb the rocks, but people still made a splash. I was a pain, but we did manage to put up a slack line across the pool. It wasn't very long before it came off the rock. Only Jeff managed to stand on it. All I had to show for my attempts was a bruise on the leg.

In addition to the natural views there was no shortage of Souther California girls.

-James

Lele Kawa

Big Bear, Mountain Biking

Finally made it up to Big Bear Lake, CA with my mountain bike. I didn't have much of a plan, other than ride some single track. Based on my camping trip back in November, I knew I wanted to ride "Plantation", but I had no idea where the other good trails were.

I did some riding in town but the trails I found were marked no bikes. After my warm up ride around town trying to find a trail, I headed to the Big Bear Discovery Center. I bought "Follette's Local Trail Map 3.0" map to learn where to find some new trails. 

When nothing jumped out at me, I decided why not start with Plantation. At the top of Plantation, I saw the end of "Skyline Trail", still under construction. I was feeling the altitude on the uphill, but it was a fun ride down.

After Plantation, I looked at the map again and spotted two trails starting at Aspen Glen Picnic Area on Mill Creek Road. I ended up riding up and down Red Ant Canyon. It was a bit steeper and more technical that Plantation and a good last ride for the weekend.

-James

Lele Kawa