Eagle Peak is peak #86 on the Sierra Club’s 100 Peaks list for San Diego County. The elevation at the summit, according to USGS topo maps, is 3226 feet (~980 meters). It’s a quite prominent peak when hiking to Cedar Creek Falls from the San Diego Country Estates trailhead near Ramona (photos: 1, 2, 3), but the easiest approach is from the east.
Sunny Santa Ysabel Saturday
Our friends Denise and Ping visited from Orange County. We took them for a hike at Santa Ysabel Open Space Preserve East near Julian. April and May are the perfect time to hike the higher elevations of San Diego’s back country – while Spring is almost over down at the coast and the foothills, it is in full swing up here, and on this particular day, it didn’t care much for rapture and judgment day either. 😉
Iron Mountain
Photos from another partly-sunny-with-haze and partly-cloudy hike, thanks to the marine layer. This time I tackled one of San Diego’s most popular peaks in north county, Iron Mountain. On the 100 Peaks list, this is peak number 88.
Color Noise Reduction eats details in Lightroom
For a while now I notice that Lightroom’s Color Noise Reduction, at the default setting of “25”, unnecessarily eats some details, especially at lower ISO setting. For the D700 (which has, thanks to its low pixel pitch, incredibly low noise overall), I changed the default to something like “3” for that reason. I adjust it manually only for higher ISO and when doing extreme black/white edits (where it does make a huge difference). The defaults for my Fuji S5pro were still at “25” because I just didn’t remember to adjust them, and because I’m not using the S5pro too much anymore.
Garnet Peak
Garnet Peak is #59 on the Sierra Club’s list of 100 peaks in San Diego County. The hike is rather short, and the only challenge is the sheer drop down into the desert on its eastern side, if you’re easily feeling vertigo. It is probably one of the most impressive drops in the Laguna Mountains and well worth going there.
Mount Woodson West Approach
Ten photos from a hike to Mount Woodson. I took the west approach, beginning the hike at Lake Poway. This is a longer, but much nicer route than the east approach from Highway 67. Once past the recreational areas of Lake Poway, it’s a pretty good ascend and the trail is really beautiful higher up, winding through low-growing chaparral, which is still recovering from the massive 2007 wildfire in the area. On the 100 Peaks list, this is peak number 48.
Kwaay Paay Peak
Kwaay Paay Peak is #92 on the San Diego Sierra Club’s 100 Peak list. It lies within Mission Trails Regional Park and can be reached with a relatively easy hike (it’s a good uphill workout;-).
Edelweisslahnerkopf, Reiter Alpe (9 photos)
I hiked to Neue Traunsteiner Hütte on Reiter Alpe, a table-like massif in the alps. The border between Germany and Austria dissects the mountain range in two, running about diagonally through it. Borders don’t really matter up there, though. Mountains are mountains. 🙂