Mt Langley / Miter Basin / Cottonwood Lakes 4 Day Backpack Trip

4 Day Backpack Trip with Tom, about 34 miles total. We started in Horseshoe Meadows, spent the 1'st night at Cottonwood Lakes 4/5. Next day headed up Old Army Pass to summit Mt Langley and then down to Upper Soldier Lake for night 2. On the 3rd day we explored Miter Basin, Sky Blue Lake and then headed down Rock Creek to spend night 3 at Lower Soldier Lake. Day 4 we hiked out via the PCT and Chicken Spring Lake.

All photos were taken with my old Canon S95 point'n shoot camera in jpg format. Panorama's created with Autopano Giga software.


GPS Track Log


Cottonwood Lakes area


Cottonwood Lake #3


Cottonwood Lakes 4 & 5. This is looking down from Old Army Pass


Saw quite a few Bighorn Sheep around the 12,000' range as we summited Mt Langley






Bighorn Sheep heading down towards Upper Soldier Lake


One of the new large cairn's built to summit Mt Langley


Looking straight down from the top of Mt Langley, what is that, about 1,000' straight down? Not for those afraid of heights!


Looking at Mt Whitney from the top of Mt Langley


Tom coming down the ravine to Upper Soldier Lake


Upper Soldier Lake


Is this a baby marmot?? Totally wrong time of year if so, maybe one of you reading this knows? Please let me know if you can identify this little baby creature


Lodgepole Chipmunk


The Mighty Miter Basin area


Looking down at Lower Soldier Lake


Very pretty unnamed lake in Miter Basin


Tom in Miter Basin (The Miter in the left background)


Sky Blue Lake


Sky Blue Lake panorama


Miter Basin


Marmot Scat


Still some pretty flowers in Miter Basin


This is heading down Rock Creek


Beautiful Rock Creek


Sierra Tree Frog


Rock Creek area looking back at the Miter Basin area


Looking out over Big Whitney Meadow and Kern Peak in the far distance

Bighorn Sheep Census Count 2016 ABDSP

Annual ABDSP Bighorn Sheep Census Count happened this July 1'st - 3rd. I counted at Rattlesnake Spring again with a total of 40 unique sheep, thatis about 50% of our normal count numbers. Temperatures were much lower this year so the sheep seemed to just not be very thirsty. I opted out of bringing my digital camera and 600mm lens this year and instead took a trail camera. Here is my lame attempt at making a video from the hundreds of movie clips and photos it captured over the course of 3 days in triple digit temps....enjoy!

BTW, Total Mylar balloons this trip - 1 right at our count site!










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Santa Rosa Mountains / Martinez Canyon 12 Days of Backpacking Christmas Trip

Long overdue are some trip reports for Dec 2015 and the first quarter of 2016. Over the Christmas/Winter/Holiday (take your pick) Break I managed to get almost 12 days of backpacking in the Santa Rosa Mountains and Martinez Canyon area. Most of these photos are from a small Olympus XA film camera I picked up just for backpacking trips. It is a small lightweight 35mm film camera that takes very sharp pictures. Fuji Velvia 50 slide film provided lots of color and an old school look that I love so much in photos.

Sort of an Ansel Adams moment atop a razor sharp and crumbly limestone ridge


A panorama from the same ridge looking towards Cochella (click to see full size image)


This is a small area of the now dried up Lake Cahuilla shoreline. The years gone by have left an easily seen water line on the rocks


Personally I prefer to just squat over a hole in the ground but if you gotta sit while taking care of business then this would be your best friend


Moon rise from an unnamed canyon we camped in


Lots of Bighorn Tracks and body parts




Those old time cowboys really knew how to party, Gallo Wine and Hostetter's Stomach Bitters


There are also a handful of photos from my new Garmin Montana 600 GPS, it surprised me with how good of photos it can take and it is able to evaluate some tough low light exposures pretty well (sunrise/sunset).

Early morning sunrise looking at Toro Peak, yes, those are patches of snow on the ground, it was cold at night up on the mountain range!


Randy is hauling a hefty pack up several thousand feet of climbing in one day, I am not sure how he does it, especially with the light snow all over the place making it very slippery


The snow we had for a couple of days made animal tracking lots of fun and we did not need to carry much water since we could drink/eat the snow


Sunrise over the Salton Sea. I have to say that waking up in the morning and looking out over the Salton Sea from anywhere on the Santa Rosa mountain range is without a doubt one of my favorite parts of any trip up there, it is just magical


There are probably dozens of airplane wrecks in the Santa Rosa mountains, we found one










Gary & Randy enjoying some morning Starbucks looking out over Cochella Valley, damn it was cold..!!


Up near Rabbit Peak we could see down into Borrego Springs and Clark Lake


I hope you enjoy these photos of Martinez Canyon area and the Santa Rosa Mountain range