San Gorgonio via Vivian Creek

Last Saturday Cary and I set out to climb San Gorgonio, the highest peak in So Cal at 11,499 feet.  Cary and I rolled up at the trailhead parking lot around 11:30pm  on Friday night.  The plan was to sleep in the bed of his truck and get an early start on our climb the next morning.  Unfortunately, we got little sleep that night.  Around 12:30 a few cars rolled up into the parking lot.  The people proceeded to do an ample amount of drugs and blast bass thumping techno crap.  They played the same song over and over again and then proceeded to wave glow sticks around.  Apparently they took a wrong turn and mistakenly thought the empty trialhead parking lot was a rave.  I thought for sure cops or rangers would show up, nope, nothing.  Around 3am we moved to another parking lot, which turns out to be the parking lot we should have been at in the first place.  We got 1.5 hours of sleep in before waking up at 4:30am to start our climb.  

At 5:15 we hit the trail, it was light enough were we didn't need our headlamps on.  The first 1.2 miles had 1,100 feet of elevation gain.  Luckily I was still half asleep!  Cary and I pushed on and met up with a fellow hiker.  It turns out that he attempted to climb Rainier last year with RMI, the same guiding company we are using.  Have gave them high praise which was a relief to both Cary and myself.  As we carried on up the long switch backs we hit a few patches of snow but nothing serious.  The light hiking boots I was wearing were more than sufficient.  After gaining 4,000 feet I started to feel the altitude.  After climbing some other high peaks I am familiar with the woozy feeling.  At 10,000 feet we could almost see the summit.  Seeing the summit usually makes me feel better, but it wasn't working this time.  So I ripped open a bag of peanut butter m&m's and finished the bag in 2 giant handfuls.  The m&m's helped me feel better as we pushed on to the summit.  Finally after 6.5 hours, 8 miles and 5,500 feet of elevation gain we reached the summit.  We signed the registry and took some photos before eating some pizza.  Cary and I love eating pizza for lunch.  One of us will buy a frozen pizza and cook it the night before our hike.  My favorite is Dejorno..........No Cary it is not delivery!

After 40 minutes on top we headed back down.  Going down was extremely boring.  8 miles of long drawn out switch backs.  And it was pretty warm.  We made it back to the trail head around 4:30.  I am glad I climbed Gorgonio but I don't think I am going to do it again for awhile.  I'm sure it would be  a blast in the snow though. 

Stats:

Elevation Start: 6,000 ft

Summit: 11,500ft (gain: 5,500 feet)

Start time: 5:15

Summit: 11:40

Return: 4:30

Miles: 16 round trip

Food I consumed:

1 pack of poptarts

1 pack of skittles

a little trail mix

half a bbq pizza

1 babyruth bar

1 pack of peanut butter m&m's

1 luna bar

1 power/energy bar

5 liters of water

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