Hiking San Gorgonio and Halloween
Hiking San Gorgonio via Vivian Creek with Frances, Patrick, Delia, and Bill... then Cheston and Angie's birthday/Halloween party that evening.
First a few random pictures and dinner at Nagao Sushi in Brentwood...
Then hiking San Gorgonio. 16.6 miles and 5600' feet... ouch. Frances forgot her hiking boots the night before, so she and Patrick drove back to get them (Patrick's car had a leaking tire, too) and switch cars. As a result they didn't get much sleep that night.
That, combined with a Ranger Station that didn't open til 8:00am, proved costly. Frances and Patrick gave up pretty early due to fatigue and altitude. The lower portions weren't too bad, but it wasn't anything spectacular. Cross a rocky dry riverbed, then a steep 1000' gain over a mile sucked, but the rest was okay...
Somewhere past Halfway Camp, we started hitting massive switchbacks and then the altitude began to kick in. We were worried about daylight but felt pretty on schedule til 10,000' feet or so...
Delia petered out around 10,200'... Bill and I pushed on to 11,000' or so. We were a mile or so from the top when I lost Bill and pushed on to the peak, just making it at our 2:30pm turn-around time. The last series of switchbacks are exposed, dry, and combined with the altitude, steep enough to make it pretty grueling. The view from the top is very nice, but the real reason to do San Gorgonio is because it's the tallest peak in Southern California. You get much better views for much less effort at San Jacinto or even at Baldy...
Then Cheston and Angie's Halloween party. Picked up Cheston's cousin Connie and took her to the party, since having family around when you're drunk and passed out is always more fun? I think?
As usual, TONS of people came. Even Cecile, Alicia's roommate and a fellow UCLA grad, showed up. She didn't realize it was a mostly UCLA party, with a leavening of coworkers from Raytheon and other places (she works with Cheston @ Raytheon). The pinata was always fun, although the neighbors didn't appreciate it and called the cops...
Cheston's costume was a surprise to most: he was a transformer. It looked amazing, although by the end of the night as he shed foam costume pieces to more easily move around, he was pretty much just half-costumed.
We had two bumblebees, Wonderwoman, Bonnie and Clyde (no one could tell), the Phantom from Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Geek, a Rubik's cube, Strawberry shortcake, and a whole bunch of others there. People actually looked like they had put a lot of work into their costumes this year. =) There was supposed to be a costume contest, but people were evidently too drunk to actually run it...
