Hiking

1 On his 70th birthday Ed hiked a bit og the Bright Angle Trail. Att hat time he had not been hiking much and was unprepared to go further.	2 Started at dawn and saw several sunrises whil going down.	3 Self portrait.	4 The trail downward.
5 It's a very well maintrained trail.	6 The hiker who took this one of me said he could get a better shot if I backed up a bit. I didn't fall for it!	7 Hiking Mt San Jacinto witht he Sierra Club. We rode the tram up to 8500 feet and did a mostly flat hike at that altitude. Next, the peak!	8 Cool weather, beautiful views.
9 View from the tram	10 Ed hiked the Ski Hut Trail to the top of Mt Baldy with the Orange County Hiking Club in June 2013.	11 We've reached the Sierra Club Ski Hut, about half way up. It was built in 1937. One can reserve it, but no one was in residence at the time. No bell hops to bring up luggage up from the car though!	12 Nearing the top.
13 Ed at the top. No, it wan't a piece of cake!	14 Marker plate	15 The stronger hikers reached the peak 20-30 minutes before Ed. Hike leader John Santy found one of the few rocks flat enough to sit on.	16 Kevin & Ed hiked to Supai in the Grand Canyon with some of Ed's OC hiking buddies in May 2012. The whole team at the trailhead ready to go!
17 Switchbacks through red filter	18 Here the trail is wide and smooth, but there are rough patches too.	19 The switchbacks	20 A friendly hiker did this group shot at a rest break.
21 Ed points the way.	22 Mooney Falls while climbing down.	23 Suzie is right in front of me (Ed), preparing to step into a short switchback to the next level. You can see Kevin ant the next level. We're still perhaps 100 feet above the canyon floor. If you look hard you can see people on a sandy beach below. (To the left of Suzie's backpack)	24 Suzie, disappearing into the tunnel.
25	26 Ed, emerging from the tunnel, smiles to conceal fear!	27 Note that there are now 3 young women between Ed & Suzie. They passed him as he was dealing with his "wardrobe failure". His water shoes fell apart on the way down!. The gal with a red pack is helping Ed find the next foothold as he backs down.	28 OMG, nobody said anything about ladders! And to think I don't even go up on the roof anymore!
29 Shear joy of survival is what we see here.	30 The right sole came off first. Ed left it whereit fell and pressed on. Then left one broke loose but not all the way. He had to use the other foot to pull it off the rest of the way, and the whole shoe cam off. These things ar hard to get on while sitting down. Try it sometime while standing on one foot and hanging on to a chine 50 feet above a canyon floor!	31 Kevin always looks so relaxed.	32 Yes, we got wet!
33 Ed spotted Charlie as someone in his age cohert and struck up a conversation. Turns out Charlie's got 10 years on him! Moreover, he carried a 44 pound pack down the Haulupai Trail. A fit and fine fellow who lives in Mesa, AZ.	34 Hold on, Kevin. Help is on the way!	35 Ed hiked Yosemite in September 2012. He did John Muir to top of Nevada Falls, then down the Mist Trail. To the right is the John Muir Trail leading to Nevada Falls and many points beyond. It is a broad, well maintained trail of modest incline for the most part. Nonetheless, you will be climbing about 2000 feet.	36 I met few hikers on the JMT since I started out at 6:50AM, well after the Half Dome climbers but before the shuttles start bring the masses to the trail head.
37 Half Dome is often in view along the JMT.	38 ... and I've come 2.3 miles from the Valley floor.	39 A fellow hiker took this at a viewing point.	40
41 Topo map of the hike. The red shows a route constructed beforehand using the Garmin BaseCamp software. It was downloaded to my Garmin GPSMap 60Csx handheld GPS. The gray shows the track recorded my the 60CSx as I hiked. Obviously, there are differences. First, I had to park some distance from the the planned starting point. Second, I planned to start out on the "Stock trail" on the left side of the Merced, which I did not find. Eventually I got onto the planned route, and from there on the differences are probably tracking errors due to high canyon walls obstructing satellite views.	42 Ed hiked the Couger Crest Trail to Grays Peak at Big Bear in August 2012.	43 Big Bear Lake in the background.	44 We covered a (very, very) small segment of the Pacific Crest Trial on the hike.
45	46 Rest break. We started at 6750 feet and reached the peak at 7920 feet.