Ice

Hiking Track Map

15 miles

Highway 178 near Walker Pass

We repeated a hike from October, a great training hike not too far from home on the PCT. This one leaves from Walker Pass and summits Mt. Jenkins. I wasn't planning to blog a repeat hike but the conditions we found make it worthy of a post. It was simply a winter wonderland! A winter storm had passed through the day before - cold and very windy with minimal fallen snow. The trail walking was easy and we made it to the summit without any problems.  I don't know a thing about ice formations but I suspect from the formations we saw that just about every condition possible was represented - hoar frost, rime ice, advection frost, you name it. We've hiked in lots of wintry conditions but some of these formations were like nothing ever encountered.  Simply stunning!  

From a birding standpoint it was a slow day with a few small flocks of juncos, one calling Canyon Wren, a couple of Oak Titmice struggling to make a living in the cold, a few vocal Mountain Chickadees high up on the mountain slope, and a few other odds and ends. The standout bird of the day was the Northern Pygmy-Owl that Susan spotted sunning itself in the afternoon at the top of a pine just off the trail.  What a treat!  

Bird Lists:

Freeman Canyon
PCT West Side
Indian Wells Canyon