The Ten Essentials

10-essentials

The Ten Essentials is a list of items deemed by many hiking authorities to be necessary for safe travel in the wilderness. They were first described in the 1930s by The Mountaineers, a hiking and mountain climbing club in Washington state. According to Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, the ten essentials are: Map – [...]

Hiking Las Ramblas at Sunrise

flagpole-at-sunrise

Done at a brisk pace (3.5 miles per hour) hiking the Las Ramblas trail makes a great early morning workout. There are some steep hills and sweeping vistas of the coastline from Dana Point to Oceanside, and Santiago Peak and the Santa Anas to the east. The trail follows dirt double track, but the junctions [...]

SoCal Hiker Goes Live (sort of)

Anza-Borrego-155-300x225

Welcome to SoCalHiker.net. I am a hiker and backpacker living in Southern California, and I’m here to share my favorite hikes and backpack trips. My focus will be primarily on local hikes, with some longer trips that may require a day of travel. I don’t profess to be an expert outdoorsman, but I do have [...]

Hiking Morgan Trail

Morgan Trail vista

The Morgan Trail to Killen Road is a beautiful out-and-back hike through oak-lined valleys, crossing a usually-dry creek bed and rewarding you at the mid-way point with terrific views over Lake Elsinore and out to Mts. San Jacinto, San Gorgonio and Baldy. I hiked this with the Hiking OC meetup to clear my head after too [...]