Maybe LA isn't so bad. . .

I've never been a huge fan of Los Angeles. Don't get me wrong, I love the weather, the beach is fun and we've met some awesome people here. But, the traffic is annoying, there are way too many (liberal) people and I really miss being able to go out and do things in the mountains nearby.
I've been searching for hikes I can do to help me train for Mt. Whitney. Surprisingly, there are a ton of hikes in this area--even at high elevations! I have found some good blogs and forums from others hiking in this area. Yesterday, I did my favorite hike yet.
We drove just over an hour to get to the trailhead of Timber Mountain which is near Mt. Baldy (near Rancho Cucamonga). The hike was 10 miles roundtrip with a 3400 ft elevation gain ending at 8300 ft. Kirk and I started out on the trail around 10:30 yesterday morning. After about a mile we could see snow and after about 3 miles we were walking through it, following other people's footprints as a trail. We reached Icehouse Saddle--the takeoff point for several trails--and found the trail up to Timber Mountain. After 3/4 mile we saw this sign:

So we walked through snow, following a single pair of footprints to the top of the mountain. The views from the top were really pretty. We could see several other snow-covered mountains around. The snowy peak behind us is Mount Baldy. Notice the t-shirts and sunglasses with snow all around!

The snow at the top was pretty deep too, but frozen enough to walk on top of.

As we were heading down we realized that the snow was a lot easier to slide through than hike through so we decided to cut down the mountain "skiing" on our hiking boots. We tried to get video, but they didn't work out. Here is a picture of me about to ski down a hill.

We also saw some small groves of sequoia trees along the trail. I think that these trees are awesome. Here is one of the largest we saw. The middle is burned out. We were also trying out the timer function on our camera which worked prett well!

All in all, it was a fun hike with perfect weather! I will definitely be heading back up to this area again, probably after some more snow melts, and do some of the other hikes. I am very excited that there is such a beautiful place close by!