San G. with young children, how to shorten summit day?

[zippetydude]

Hi Norris! No suggestions on where to camp - but a thought about your trip.

I have a little 7 year old, and she's a tough little athlete - training with me for a triathlon no less! Even so, I took her up with me up to the picnic tables on Skyline a couple weeks ago, and she was miserable. Her little legs hurt, and the idea of getting to the "top" was totally lost on her. She wanted to get to the bottom, where we could go get an icee.

I've taken her on longer hikes in the Sierras, and will use a kid backpack to carry her on parts that are just too hard for her, or when we've been going for a long time and she's simply worn out. I figure that about evens out the effort - it sure helps me to understand how tired her little legs are when I'm carrying her and my legs are now the ones that are hurting.

If you have such a backpack, I'd highly recommend it. If you don't, I have one you can borrow for free anytime. Just PM me and we'll set it up.

Incidentally, getting to the top doesn't seem to mean anything to kids. As a fun option, the smaller kids might be much happier if you have an adult who is willing to forego the summit trip and stay with the kids at camp while the older kids take on the peak.

They can always hang a rope from a tree and swing around like monkeys... or maybe bury a time capsule and create a very precise treasure map so they can come back and find it on another trip. (This is a great way to lure them back up for another visit!) Of course, anything to do with water (like playing at Dry Lake) will be way more fun to little people than getting to the peak. Also, if you don't have to worry about the little people making it all the way up, then you have a wider choice of campsites, as you can choose to camp lower and leave a little more distance for the party going to the summit. Just a thought.

Hope you guys have fun, and I really applaud your introducing the kids to the wilderness - especially since you seem to be in tune to what they need. Don't forget the TR!

z

[Norris]

Thanks Zip! I'm trying to be super careful to avoid turning any of the kids off to hiking / climbing, while at the same time trying to create an opportunity to boost self-esteem. Last year's Jacinto climb worked out perfectly, all the boys and Dads had a great time and reached the summit. I am probably being a bit on the conservative side, but I have vivid memories of an recent trip to the Sierra during which someone came down with severe HAPE at an elevation under 11,000. And children are not any less susceptible than adults. In fact, some studies suggest the opposite, although its not established: http://www.erj.ersjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/3/664[/url]

[Norris]

[quote="halhiker"]This may not be of interest but what about a day hike via Fish Creek? My 10 year old made San Jacinto with no difficulty from the Tram when he was 9 and San G from Fish Creek is even more gentle, albeit longer than that trail.
...
I've done Fish Creek a number of times and the last time made it to the summit in less than three hours--we were doing Fish Creek to Angeles Oaks in one day.
[quote]

I did San G. via Fish Creek yesterday to check out the route. It is definitely an easy grade, much less elevation gain than Vivian Creek, but it's almost exactly 20 miles from the Fish creek trailhead to the summit and back (with shortcut). So I've got to factor in a camp somewhere, if I try to drag a bunch of 10 year olds that kind of distance in a day the trip will almost certainly fail. Fish creek saddle seems like the best choice.

[Norris]

Forgot to mention, I did a variation of Hikin Jim's suggested short cut yesterday. For some reason, the route / waypoints I thought I downloaded into my GPS were not showing up, and the area where I figured I should leave the trail looked brushier than expected, and I wasn't sure I was in the right place. So instead of going up the ridge I continued west a bit farther on the trail, till it comes to the obvious draw / drainage which divides the two summits, then went up that. Very easy and straight forward. There were quite a few people doing this variation yesterday, because a large snow field was covering the entire slope just beyond it, so following the trail would have required a long traverse of a snow field.

[Hikin_Jim]

Forgot to mention, I did a variation of Hikin Jim's suggested short cut yesterday. For some reason, the route / waypoints I thought I downloaded into my GPS were not showing up, and the area where I figured I should leave the trail looked brushier than expected, and I wasn't sure I was in the right place. So instead of going up the ridge I continued west a bit farther on the trail, till it comes to the obvious draw / drainage which divides the two summits, then went up that. Very easy and straight forward. There were quite a few people doing this variation yesterday, because a large snow field was covering the entire slope just beyond it, so following the trail would have required a long traverse of a snow field.

What ever works!

Yeah, a short cut is definitely in order on an SG trip. Is it really 20 miles even with the short cut? I was thinking it was shorter than that, but that was just an "educated guess" based on how long it took me to complete the route.

I haven't tried the drainage; I may have to try that some time. Was it basically just class 1 (no use of hands)?

As far as the ridge route, when you top out on the switchbacks and swing west, that's the approx. point at which you leave the trail. As I recall stayinf on the east side of the ridge initially gets you around the worst of the vegetation.

[Norris]

According to my GPS, it was 20 miles. Re the shortcut, I didn't take a shot of it from the trail looking up, but here is one looking down from most of the way up:
[img]
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/photo ... 1149446740
[/img]

[Zé]

Side question: Is it possible to hike up Gorgonio directly from Mine Shaft saddle? Looks steep, but would cut off a bunch of miles...

[Hikin_Jim]

According to my GPS, it was 20 miles. Re the shortcut, I didn't take a shot of it from the trail looking up, but here is one looking down from most of the way up:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/photo.php?pid=30222681&id=1149446740

Cool pic. I guess a lot of people were using that route. By the way, you can't post a link to a page with the pic on it. You have to link directly to the photo itself not to the page the photo is on.
Example:

Side question: Is it possible to hike up Gorgonio directly from Mine Shaft saddle? Looks steep, but would cut off a bunch of miles...

I know people (I think Taco for example) who have done it in winter. I haven't heard of it being done in the summer, but I don't see why not. It would be ugly steep.

[Norris]

Hiking Jim, thanks for the clarification re posting pictures. I'll try again with a picture of an snow couloir (probably will be gone by the weekend!) on the ENE face. Right after Mine shaft saddle, from the trail, you have several opportunities to access some snow climbs to the summit, although the time has pretty much passed for that this year.

[Norris]

Side question: Is it possible to hike up Gorgonio directly from Mine Shaft saddle? Looks steep, but would cut off a bunch of miles...

Here's a picture of another couloir accessible from the trail very shortly after Mine Shaft saddle.