First Post COVID-19 Backpacking Trip

Sometimes I take things for granted, such as going backpacking whenever the urge strikes me. With the COVID-19 lockdown in California backpacking was out of the question. Many trails remained opened, but trailhead parking was closed everywhere. Some areas, such as the San Jacinto Wilderness were completely shut down. As things began to open up here, it was time to take a trip.

Weather and Logistics

The weather has been hot at home, with temperatures in triple digits, so I looked to the mountains. A slow and easy 3-day, 2-night trip seemed to be the antidote I needed. A start at high desert elevation progressing up to over 6,000 feet for cool days and nights. My, that sounds more difficult than it was, especially since all this lockdown stuff started I have allowed my hiking legs to atrophy.

Old Gear Time

A couple weeks ago I finished the resuscitation of my old Chouinard pyramid shelter. (That’s another story you can read about here). The weather forecast was zero change of rain, but I brought the shelter to test it out. Since I was brining the old tent, I decided to go whole-hog and bring most of my older gear. Old doesn’t meany heavy — total weight of everything to include food and water was under 20 pounds.

The shelter worked out great.

One nice thing about this large shelter and my old external frame backpack, is I can prop up the pack inside the shelter against the pole, for easy access to gear during the night.

Given the shelter has so much space, it safe to cook inside. In nice weather I only cook inside in the morning, preferring to stay in my sleeping bag, brew some coffee, wake up, and then eat breakfast in bed.

Stove, pot, water, coffee, and drinking cup are set in front of the pack. Food is in the pack. At night my shoes are next to my head with my headlamp and anything else I might need in the middle of the night stored in one of the shoes.

I even brought my ancient candle lantern.

Location…

It had been a while since I have hiked in the Santa Rosa Mountains, so that seemed like a good place to go.

We live at the base of Mount San Jacinto — on the East side of the mountain, which from our house has an escarpment of over 10,000 feet. On this trip, looking at Mt. San Janicto from the “other side of the mountain,” it looks much tamer.

Well, that’s about it. Below is a gallery of pictures if you would like to browse.