California Institute of Technology

This page has information on local (and not-so-local) areas for rock climbing, hiking, mountaineering, canyoneering, caving, skiing, backcountry skiing and ice climbing. And yes, I recognize this page is incomplete and always will be, so please send (nice) suggestions about areas to add, or information to change. To navigate, see the links in the right column.

Hiking

Hiking is of course very popular and there are thousands of places to hike in California, so trying to list them here would be futile (there are also many great websites that do try to list hikes). You might find good information at the JPL Hiking Club website, the San Gorgonio Wilderness Assoc.; the Sierra Club's hiking links; or Tom Chester's hiking website (nice, but last updated in 2000).

Also recommended is summitpost.org; here is a list of San Gabriel peaks on summitpost; a list of Santa Monica mountains, and a list of the San Bernardino mountains. Another useful site is localhikes.com; here is their listing for hikes in LA/Riverside/Orange counties.

In June 2008, Mike Olson asked for hiking suggestions (in particular, for hikes that start within an hour's drive of Pasadena), and received many responses from our listserv. Below are the responses he got, and the number of people who suggested the hike (as an indicator of quality):

Mt. Baldy	12	link
Chantry Flats	3	upper and lower winter creek trail - link
Strawberry Peak	2
Mt. Wilson	2	recommended route: pick up the "Rim" trail from the Observatory (also interesting, check out the museum). Thence to Newcomb's saddle. From here the short is to backtrack. Or for a longer, much more gain loop, down from here on the Gabrielino trail to West Fork and back to Mt Wilson on one of the other farther West trails.
Echo Mountain	2
Santa Monica (general)	2	link
Big Tujunga Narrows	1	link (the whole book referenced for that trail is very interesting for local canyoneering: Canyoneering website)
Malibu Creek State Park	1	Climbing there too!
Santa Anita Canyon	1	link
Topanga State Park	1	Will Rogers park and Temescal Gateway park
Balley Canyon in Sierra Madre	1
Switzer Falls Bear Canyon	1	link
Mt. Zion	1
Mill Ck. summit on Angeles Forest Highway	1	PCT to Mt. Pacifico

Backpacking

As with hiking, there is an overabundance of information on the web. It is possible to backpack in the San Gabriels, but the Sierras are probably a better bet. Send comments.

Mountain and Road Biking

I won't list anything here since Caltech has a good cycling club: Caltech Velo. They maintain an excellently detailed site on local rides in the Pasadena area; they also have listservs for mountain and road bikers.

Running

Some of the Caltech cross-country runners had a website (in 2006) that listed some local runs (with a Google API that showed you the run location), but that part of the site seems to be missing (in 2007). The site is at running.caltech.edu and is also the home to information on the 24-hour relay race "KELROF". There are some good runs on the Sam Merril Trail (to Echo Mtn and beyond), up the Mt. Wilson Trail, in the Arroyo Seco (and around the Rose Bowl), in the trails behind JPL, and on the trails leaving from Cheney Trail Drive. For running near Caltech, the windy streets of San Marino are a good bet, as is Lacy Park.

Canyoneering

For local canyoneering in the San Gabriels, Christopher Brennen's online book is highly recommended. Dr. Brennen is the Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Caltech.

For non-local (e.g. Utah) canyoneering, here is a web resources: Tom's Utah Canyoneering Guide. Here's the American Canyoneering Associationa website.

Caving

Anyone interested in learning about caving should check out the Southern Cal Grotto of the National Speleological Society. Conveniently, the group meets on campus, first Tuesday of every month at 7:30 in Beckman Institute Auditorium. Some of the best cavers in the US are in that group.

Backcountry skiing

see the skiing page.

Ski areas

see the skiing page.

Ice climbing

As mentioned in the Mountaineering section, Mt. Mendel has two ice gullies (and a small ice field and glacier), though they are often out of season and are usually mixed climbs. Climbs such as V-Notch are very classic; see the list taken from Moynier and Fiddler below. The California Mountaineering Club has compiled a list of their "Classic Climbs", divided into technical, scrambling and snow/ice routes. Their ice routes include Mt. Darwin (N. Glacier), Polemonium Peak (V-notch), Mt. Mendel (Mendel Couloir), Mt. Gilbert (NW Couloir), and Split Mountain (NE Couloir).

In the past, the club has climbed the couloirs of North Peak, at Horsetail Icefall (June Lake), and around Lee Vining Canyon (all these locations are in close proximity). There is more information, and updates on conditions, at the Sierra Mountain Guides' online ice report. At the bottom of the page, they have conditions and directions (and sometimes topos) on June Lake, Lee Vining Canyon, Lundy Canyon, Paker Canyon, South Lake, Lake Tahoe area, Yosemite area and Sequoia Nat'l Park area. The proving grounds (near Rush Creek), Horsetail Falls and Lee Vining Canyon are all within about 30 miles of Mammoth, so expect about a 325 mile (and 5 to 6 hour) drive.

Lee Vining offers pretty good ice until April, with a large wall (~3 pitch), medium wall and small wall (you can top-rope it with a long rope -- there are a few bolts in places too), and a 45 min approach. To get there, take 395 past the Mammoth turnoff and past June Lake. Take 120 West towards Yosemite (the turnoff is before the town of Lee Vining). In the winter, the road is closed; just before the closure, there is a left turn. Take the left turn, and you immediately face a T-intersection. Go right, and drive a few miles. There is camping along here, though the campgrounds are closed in winater. Keep going as it turns to a dirt road, and drive to the end of the road at Poole Power Plant. Park in the turnoff before the parking lot. Walk through the parking lot to the West end, and hike West for 1/2 mile before taking a left turn into the obvious canyon.

The best -- and only -- guidebook devoted to ice climbing the Sierras is by SP Parker (of Sierra Mountain Center guiding service -- they ran our avalanche courses), called "Eastern Sierra Ice". We have a copy in our library. You can also download a PDF of the book from rockfax.com for about $10 or $15. (update: rockfax site no longer hosts the PDF)

For alpine ice, try the aforementioned Mt. Mendel or North Peak, or try one of these routes:

• one of the Couloirs (e.g. St. Jean's Couloir) on the Northeast face of Split Mountain (14,058')
• the V-Notch Couloir of Polemonium Peak (14,000'+)
• the nearby U-Notch Couloir on North Palisade (14,242')
• the Northeast Couloir on Thunderbolt Peak (14,000'+)
• the North Couloir on Mt. Thompson (13,440')
• the North Glacier on Mt. Darwin (13,830')
• the North Face of Mt. Emerson (13,225')
• the Northeast Couloir of Mt. Humphreys (13,986')
• the North Couloir of Feather Peak (13,242')
• the North Couloir of Red Slate Mountain (13,163')
• the Dana Couloir on Mt. Dana (13,053')

[these suggestions are taken from Moynier and Fiddler's Climbing California's High Sierra, 2nd ed.]. The impression I have is that most of these climbs have very short seasons during which they are truly ice; it is also likely on a few of these climbs that crossing the bergshrund is the technical crux.

Rock Climbing Areas

Mountains

Other activities [i.e. hiking, canyoneering, caving, skiing, ice climbing]

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