Conditioning Hike or Snow Travel?

This past Saturday 27 of us headed into the Angeles National Forest to hike up to Mt Wilson. This was the Group 4 conditioning hike for the Sierra Club's Wilderness Travel Course. Throughout this 10 week course there are 4 weekend outings, this first of which is the "conditioning hike".  The purpose of the trip is to practice newly learned navigation skills, work on nutrition & hydration while hiking and get used to clothing and gear choices. The round trip loop from Chantry Flats to the top of Mount Wilson always proves to be a challenge at 14+ miles and close to 5ooo' of elevation gain. This year a small winter storm threw a new, but very cool challenge to the mix, SNOW and near freezing temperatures at the top. The "snow travel" outing is usually the 3rd outing for the course, but we got a preview this weekend! This was also a great hike for us to check our fitness level as we are now in serious training mode for our Mt Whitney hike in April with the Big City Mountaineers Summit For Someone program.

For many, this was the first time hiking up to Mount Wilson and we have to say everyone ROCKED this hike. Each person rose to the challenge and did great! We are super excited to head to Joshua Tree National Park with the group for the next round of adventure.

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Getting Outdoors with the Family - New Year's Resolution!

[gallery type="slideshow" ids="132,133,72,68,69,67,64,65"] So much of our outdoor time is "training". We head out to the gym, go for a run, or hit the trails with a specific goal in mind, whether it be time, distance or skill specific. We usually do these adventures with just the two of us because they are so specific. The one bummer about these outings is that part of our family usually gets left at home... our four-legged adventurer Norman. It is not that he doesn't want to come... because he does, but being a bulldog he can only go so far and so long. Although if left up to him he would go until he dropped....literally.

So we have been trying to designate one of our weekly outings as a "family" adventure so we can take him with us. These have become some of our favorites, because they are really about enjoying the moment. We stop and take lots of pictures, notice things that we may not otherwise see, let him get dirty and overall just have fun! Our New Year's Resolution is to do this regularly.

We often joke that he is our child, but the reality is I can imagine this is very similar to taking young kids outside into nature to play. The exercise component may be lacking for you, but the quality time spent with your family, exploring nature, seeing things from a different perspective are totally worth it. Even a short hike can be filled with new experiences, things to see and learn about, opportunities to get a grimy and a great chance for you to become a kid again.

Let us know what your favorite kid friendly adventure is!

The Big Switch

This weekend started our official switch from Ironmen to hopeful climbers, Tony Stark to Spiderman. Friday, after a Thursday of turkey we road from our house to Newcomb's ranch, 25 miles up to 6000 ft. with our often training partner Adam Kisor, had some lunch and then was driven home, nice.

Saturday we really started the change over and headed to rockreation in Santa Monica to work on our climbing chops, it was fun but we have some work to do in that department.

And finally Sunday, we hiked from Lake Ave. to Inspiration Point via Echo Mountain then met up with our friend Steve Soong, who is training for an ultra marathon, and ran down with him, we kept up most of the way.

It was our first weekend dedicated to our build up to our mountaineering goals but it has to be looked at like any sport one does, build, recover, build, recover, build, recover, peak (good pun right).

Off we go!