Parking and poles....

[pdforeme]

2 last minute (newbie to this hike) questions..

a) From the parking thread, hard to tell, but feels like parking NEAR the museum is best, and the lot itself isn't great (cuz they ticket, or its poor manners?). 3 blocks east by the Starbucks is best?

b) Are poles worth the bother on this Ascent? I only wonder i guess about the final steep sections...

thanks in advance

[Marknhj]

2 last minute (newbie to this hike) questions..

a) From the parking thread, hard to tell, but feels like parking NEAR the museum is best, and the lot itself isn't great (cuz they ticket, or its poor manners?). 3 blocks east by the Starbucks is best?

b) Are poles worth the bother on this Ascent? I only wonder i guess about the final steep sections...

thanks in advance

a) Parking in the Museum lot is fine. They don't ticket and it's right next to the trail. But there have been isolated incidents of cars broken into all over the PS area, so don't leave any valuables inside. Lock them in the trunk (if you have one) or take them with you.

b) I wouldn't want to do it without poles, but some do. It's not just the final section that's steep, the first 1000' are also, right out of the gate.

Are you going on Saturday? If so, what time? A few of us are going up Sunday at 4.30am. btw - it's very hot here right now...

[pdforeme]

Thanks. We are going Sunday also. I'm trying hard to move our time earlier (currently aiming to be moving by 5am), ...i'd love to be starting around the same time (though you all will pass us easily, even if we start at 4).

The weather readings from Pinyon flats (4000 ft) at 86 degrees or so was not encouraging.....gotta get above 4000 before 10...

[guest]

Hi,
I good place to park, in my opinion, is directly east (in front of) the north Museum lot, along the street, north of the Fashion Plaza lot.
There's no time limit, and it's got great shade, and cars go by regularly to hopefully keep the rifraf away. And, the Museum peps will be happier.
As for poles, I rarely use them (except ice), but as many use them on Skyline, as don't.
May see ya on the trail.

[Whitney Mike]

As far as the use of trekking poles, this seems to be a personal preference among hikers. For me, like my American Express card, I do not leave home without them. I have done Skyline four times, and the entire C2C adventure twice, and like many of my other extreme day hikes, I swear by the poles. I will be coming back on May 31st for my fifth Skyline trip, and hope to summit once again. On Skyline, the first three miles have an average gain of about 1,000 feet per mile, and poles help me here. After you reach Flat Rock at mile eight, the real fun begins. The next mile after Flat Rock has a gain of about 1,700 feet, and believe me, this is a section of the trail that I am thankful of my trekking poles. Whitney Mike

[Llamahiker]

Myself and 2 of my friends hiked Skyline for the first time on Monday May 5th and we weren't sure about a couple of things including the parking but after monitoring the forum since January and e-mailing Cy a couple of times for advice I was able to learn everything I needed to know to pull this off safely for the first time.
We parked in the pay lot across the street from the museum and it only cost us $8.00. I don't know if weekends cost more or the same. We got there at 3:00 am and pulled in and went all the way to the back left hand corner where there were approximately 15 other cars parked there, possibly belonging to local folks who work the night shift, I don't know, only guessing. I parked next to a really nice looking Lexus thinking they probably wouldn't mess with my old Volkswagen Jetta with a bunch of nicer looking cars there. When we got back the cars were as we left them. We emptied the cars out at home first and parked with the glove box and center console open and empty, took the stereo faceplate off and all the usual precautions. When we paid the lot attendant on the way out I asked him if there were ever any break ins or other security problems and he said no.
There was a broken window on a boarded up room down in the parking garage that got my attention when we pulled in but after seeing the other cars parked there I thought it would probably be OK and it was.

Thanks to all the 'regulars" for their informative posts. I learned at lot.
We had an awesome hike. Took longer then most of the regulars but I wasn't concerned with speed or time. We stopped a lot to take pictures, peeked into canyons, checked out lizards, had a leisurely lunch and took an almost hour long nap at the flat rock and made a snowman up near the top. Just kind off goofed off the whole way. Didn't see any snakes. Temp never got above 70 degrees although it felt hotter the last mile or so before the flat-rock . Chilly at the Tram station.
I was concerned about losing the trail around the traverse and above but I found the route to be obvious enough. We did get screwed up on the museum trail like somebody else mentioned in another post today where the trail starts going back downhill and the white arrow was kind of confusing ( to me at the time anyway ) but we figured it out and only lost about 5-10 minutes.
I was glad to have my poles. I shorted them to match the grade above the crag and it helped. Above the flat-rock where the trail gets brushy I stashed 1 of them in my pack as it was kind of awkward trying to walk with both of them.
Got in some good burger and bar time at the tram station afterward.

I saw mentioned in an earlier post about trash on the trail this last weekend and just wanted to say it wasn't us. We didn't even leave a crumb much less trash. I'm anal about that with those in my party.
Saw a little bit on the museum trail and picked some of it up but not all of it and only saw some orange peels higher up.

We're riding the tram up this Monday and are going to hike to the summit and back to the tram then hope to bust off the whole C to C in October or so based on the weather. I've got about 15 lbs or so to lose before I try that. Gotta lighten my load.
I'll post some of the pictures in a few days. Pretty much the same old stuff everybody's already seen a hundred times already.

[Llamahiker]

Myself and 2 of my friends hiked Skyline for the first time on Monday May 5th and we weren't sure about a couple of things including the parking but after monitoring the forum since January and e-mailing Cy a couple of times for advice I was able to learn everything I needed to know to pull this off safely for the first time.
We parked in the pay lot across the street from the museum and it only cost us $8.00. I don't know if weekends cost more or the same. We got there at 3:00 am and pulled in and went all the way to the back left hand corner where there were approximately 15 other cars parked there, possibly belonging to local folks who work the night shift, I don't know, only guessing. I parked next to a really nice looking Lexus thinking they probably wouldn't mess with my old Volkswagen Jetta with a bunch of nicer looking cars there. When we got back the cars were as we left them. We emptied the cars out at home first and parked with the glove box and center console open and empty, took the stereo faceplate off and all the usual precautions. When we paid the lot attendant on the way out I asked him if there were ever any break ins or other security problems and he said no.
There was a broken window on a boarded up room down in the parking garage that got my attention when we pulled in but after seeing the other cars parked there I thought it would probably be OK and it was.

Thanks to all the 'regulars" for their informative posts. I learned at lot.
We had an awesome hike. Took longer then most of the regulars but I wasn't concerned with speed or time. We stopped a lot to take pictures, peeked into canyons, checked out lizards, had a leisurely lunch and took an almost hour long nap at the flat rock and made a snowman up near the top. Just kind off goofed off the whole way. Didn't see any snakes. Temp never got above 70 degrees although it felt hotter the last mile or so before the flat-rock . Chilly at the Tram station.
I was concerned about losing the trail around the traverse and above but I found the route to be obvious enough. We did get screwed up on the museum trail like somebody else mentioned in another post today where the trail starts going back downhill and the white arrow was kind of confusing ( to me at the time anyway ) but we figured it out and only lost about 5-10 minutes.
I was glad to have my poles. I shorted them to match the grade above the crag and it helped. Above the flat-rock where the trail gets brushy I stashed 1 of them in my pack as it was kind of awkward trying to walk with both of them.
Got in some good burger and bar time at the tram station afterward.

I saw mentioned in an earlier post about trash on the trail this last weekend and just wanted to say it wasn't us. We didn't even leave a crumb much less trash. I'm anal about that with those in my party.
Saw a little bit on the museum trail and picked some of it up but not all of it and only saw some orange peels higher up.

We're riding the tram up this Monday and are going to hike to the summit and back to the tram then hope to bust off the whole C to C in October or so based on the weather. I've got about 15 lbs or so to lose before I try that. Gotta lighten my load.
I'll post some of the pictures in a few days. Pretty much the same old stuff everybody's already seen a hundred times already.