On Friday, July 3rd, I hiked to the summit of Mount San Gorgonio, the highest peak in Southern California. I followed that up the next day by diving at the site of Old Marineland, south of the Palos Verdes peninsula and now home to a luxury resort called Terranea.When I got back from climbing The Grand, I wanted to take advantage of my form and altitude acclimatization, and bang out the hardest hike I had on the list of challenges: Mount San Gorgonio. I didn't hit on this idea until after I'd come back and learned that we had been given July 3rd off as a holiday at work, so I had to submit a wilderness permit application to the Forest Service on two days notice and was approved for my second choice trailhead: Fish Creek. I had originally wanted to hike Vivian Creek, since it's shorter, if more physically demanding. Fish Creek was approved so Fish Creek it would have to be. After I got the approval faxed back on 7/2, I called my dive buddy, Rich, and made sure he was free on Saturday so I could complete the second leg of the challenge. Then I booked a room at the Good Nite Inn in Redlands for Thursday night.
I drove up to Redlands on Thursday, after work, and found the motel to be exactly what I wanted. Cheap. $42 for the night and the room had a bed, bathroom, air conditioning and dead bolts; I don't need much more than that. The motel is only 35 miles from the turn off to the trailhead, so I set my alarm for 5:00AM and figured I'd get to the trailhead by 6:00.
On the drive up, I stopped at the Mill Creek Ranger Station to try to get the Forest Adventure Pass you're supposed to hang from your rearview mirror. It was closed. As were all other locations where you could buy one. The constant stopping and peering into windows delayed me, wasting at least 30 minutes of time. Then, I finally made the turn to Heart Bar Camp / Fish Creek and discovered the 7 mile "Forest Service Road" that had been mentioned on several websites. That... Road... Sucks. Bad. To drive the seven miles too another 40 minutes. The parts that didn't have off camber turns or 6" deep potholes were 11% gradient washboards that made me grateful I had a 4x4 (even though I wound up staying in 2 wheel drive). That road felt like my knees did coming off of Yosemite Falls.
I got to the trailhead, and left a note on my windscreen letting the Ranger know of my attempt to get an Adventure Pass, should they check, and then got underway.
The hike up Fish Creek trail was, sadly to say, sort of boring. It is to mountain hikes what Veteran's Park in Redondo Beach is to diving; boring, bland with just enough stuff to look at to keep you from just saying "to hell with it" and turning around. Honestly, if I hadn't had the goal of getting to the summit, I'd have turned around after a couple of miles. The first part of the trail was nice: green, lush, lots of wildflowers, but after 2 miles or so, all that goes away and you are up in the timber zone, such as it is. The landscape just doesn't seem to want to support life, lots of white, barren rock with pines sticking out of them. I suppose it's not THAT desolate, at least up to Fish Creek Campground... it just seems that way in my memory.
When I got to Fish Creek Campground, I had to consult the map and compass pretty heavily to find my way out of there. The campground was a mess of trails and matted ground from people walking back and forth beween the tent pads, so determining which one led to the correct trail required trusting the degree heading that the map told me to follow. Especially as the sign at that trail only mentioned "Lodgepole Springs" not "San Gorgonio". But you should always trust your compass (unless you're diving on an oil rig) so I did and sure enough the trail followed the countours just as the map said it would.
Once you get above Mineshaft Saddle, all greenery disappears and it's just pines and white/grey talus. There are occasional spots of wildflowers on the path, just as there are occasional crabs and starfish at Vet's Park. The hiking at those switchbacks was somewhat strenuous, at least for me. I imagine for the average hiker though, it would be pretty difficult. At one point, I was focused so hard on just moving as fast as I could that I hiked through the wreck of a C-47 military transport aircraft from 1953 and didn't even see it! Focus indeed.
Once at the summit, I took the requisite pictures, signed the log in the ammo case, and had a bite to eat (including a pair of Excedrin), and then headed back down. This one summit satisfied the criteria for two of my challenges: Challenge #2 - Hike San Gorgonio and San Jacinto and Challenge #9: Hike San Gorgonio then dive within 24 hours. San Jacinto is going to have to wait for later in the year, but I now had the clock ticking on getting into the water by the end of Saturday.
I bolted down the trail. Each step bringing me back down into the (relatively) thicker air. As the air got thicker, I got more energy seemingly, and I wound up running out the last two miles back to the trailhead, stopping only occasionally to let the hotspots on my feet in my decidedly NON-trail-running-suitable hiking shoes cool off.
Back at the truck, it was a sweaty, dusty, nasty drive back out on the same "Rue du Merde" to Highway 38. Then I drove home.
I had told Buddy Rich, that I was going to want to sleep in on Saturday after blowing out a nearly 18 mile hike on Friday. So I got up at 9AM, and started getting my dive gear in order for our 12:00 noon meeting at Old Marineland (henceforth referred to as Terranea). About 10AM he sent me a text message saying that his daughter had decided to go with us, for which he was very justifiably excited, but had to arrange her gear and get her a tank. So we pushed the meet time off to 12:30. I wound up running late that day (in fact all weekend I was at least 20 minutes late to everything, which I don't like doing), so I got there about 12:50 and we sorted out the parking and started prepping our gear.
I didn't clearly ask Rich if I could borrow a tank for the dive, so he didn't bring one for me, which caused a slight scramble as his daughter drove back to their home to get a tank for me, rather than making me go to Dive'n'Surf to rent one. Rich, you're one helluva guy! So, now tanked, I got everything ready, loaded it onto a dolly I had had the presence of mind to bring with me, and we went down to the dive area.
It's a nice, clean little sandy beach with public access, surrounded by an exorbitantly high priced resort. The sand ends about 15' from the water and there are big slick rocks you have to walk over to actually do your entry/exit. We did our safety checks and got into the water and let the surge pull us out about 75 yards then dropped down to about 15' at the bottom. The visibility somehow sucked out there, and the surge never relented: in the kelp, against the eastern reef, in the western kelp bed. Surgy everywhere. We did find a TON of Spanish Shawls in the reef, each of them looking like they should have a FedEx logo on their sides. As we were swimming out, I caught a glimpse of a couple of sheepsheads in the kelp, but didn't investigate. I was getting worried about being driven onto the Purple Sea Urchin that were coating the reef.
Apparently, that dive site isn't recommended when their is a southern swell, which is exactly what we had. As that cove is directly exposed to the south, the swell just rolls in and either pushes inshore 10' at a time, or drags you out as the waves recede.
In the end, I didn't get my 100'; I wasn't going to push it since this was Rich's daughter's first real dive and I wanted to do everything I could on Rich's behalf to make sure she had a fun time diving. But for me, the depth isn't that important. What I wanted to prove to myself, is that I had the physical and mental ability to plan, prepare and execute two wildly different and physically demanding tasks and then complete them in a short time span. It was a challenge of my organizational ability, scheduling ability, my physical fitness and my adaptability. I think I did a fantastic job. Challenge #9 is in the books. Challenge #2 is half way there!