Since my birthday hike last September, when I discovered that the road up to Mount Gleason had been closed since the Station Fire, I've been tempted to try making the entire trek from the road closure point to the summit - a round trip of about 20 miles. I even had this weekend marked on the calendar to try it - an open weekend in my choir calendar, with a near maximum of daylight and before the real heat of the Southern California summer set in.

Fortunately, circumstances gave my better judgment a fighting chance. My friend Emma is still in town, and she'd been wanting to see the desert, so instead of making an insane marathon march, I picked her up and took her to Vasquez Rocks, world-famous setting of many TV shows and movies - most notably Captain Kirk's battle with the Gorn on Star Trek.





I went there once before, but I'd been thinking about making a return visit. The Pacific Crest Trail runs through the park, down into the southern section that most people don't visit, until it reaches a wildlife tunnel under the Antelope Valley Freeway.



After that, we started circling back toward the rocks, but at one point we took a wrong turn and wound up having to climb over a large hill to get back on track. A typical hiking incident for me, but a first for Emma. I told her she earned her official hiking merit badge after that. Eventually we made it back to the rocks everyone recognizes, and climbed up to take in the view.



By that time, the clouds that had been sprinkling on Los Angeles since the morning made it all the way to the desert, so we called it a day and headed off to a surprisingly good Mexican restaurant in the little community of Agua Dulce. And today, I'm very glad to have had a good adventure - without feeling too stiff to move afterwards!