Icehouse Saddle Hike
This was a great hike, though a little difficult and later painful, hehe, because it was the first one for me in a long time. We started at about 5,500 feet or something and hiked up to just under 8,000 feet of elevation in 3.7 miles. It was really pretty, especially because of the fall weather, and also very, very cool to get out of the smog and uh, interesting to see freeways from the view at the top! Here are the pics!
The smog was bad the day we drove to the San Bernadino mountains. Plus, these pics add great contrast to the beautiful mountains we drove into within 30 miles of all of this!
Mountains coming into view!
Up in the hills, immediate change in scenery...
We get step onto the trail - this is the type of environment we were in for the first third of the hike - cool and smelling of fallen leaves and creek...I must have said about 10 times how much I missed California...
I certainly jumped when I saw this, but as soon as I registered that there was no rattle, I felt a little better and took a picture so we could identify it later for fun. It was really hard to identify, I searched the web for a while and finally sent someone a few photos and they came back with the decision that it was a California garter snake typical of the area but that it just had no visible stripes. Upon further examination I saw what he meant - it really did look almost exactly like a garter snake but without the side stripes.
Pretty fall colors...
This is where we took our first snack break - a lot of the middle part of the trail was boulder/rock spill like this...
Can you believe this is about 15 miles from a bed of smog?
It was chilly up at the top, even in the bright sun!
This is where we declared the top of our hike to be, which was indeed the saddle (surrounded by peaks). Unfortunately I don't have a picture of just the view, so maybe if you look hard you can see a main freeway running way out in the distance...cracked me up to see it from the near top of a mountain. Very different from the top of mountains in Aspen...
Ah...back down to the city...and smog...and hamburgers!!!!
The smog was bad the day we drove to the San Bernadino mountains. Plus, these pics add great contrast to the beautiful mountains we drove into within 30 miles of all of this!
Mountains coming into view!
Up in the hills, immediate change in scenery...
We get step onto the trail - this is the type of environment we were in for the first third of the hike - cool and smelling of fallen leaves and creek...I must have said about 10 times how much I missed California...
I certainly jumped when I saw this, but as soon as I registered that there was no rattle, I felt a little better and took a picture so we could identify it later for fun. It was really hard to identify, I searched the web for a while and finally sent someone a few photos and they came back with the decision that it was a California garter snake typical of the area but that it just had no visible stripes. Upon further examination I saw what he meant - it really did look almost exactly like a garter snake but without the side stripes. 
Pretty fall colors...
This is where we took our first snack break - a lot of the middle part of the trail was boulder/rock spill like this...
Can you believe this is about 15 miles from a bed of smog?
It was chilly up at the top, even in the bright sun!
This is where we declared the top of our hike to be, which was indeed the saddle (surrounded by peaks). Unfortunately I don't have a picture of just the view, so maybe if you look hard you can see a main freeway running way out in the distance...cracked me up to see it from the near top of a mountain. Very different from the top of mountains in Aspen...
Ah...back down to the city...and smog...and hamburgers!!!!
posted by Sara | 10:27 AM
1 Comments:
Amazing! I never really realized the mountains could be so pretty, so close to all the noise! Great photos, and I'm so glad you're there.
Love you!!!!
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