I had two partial days to kill before heading back down to San Diego, and decided to hit a handful of HPS peaks off the 2 in the San Gabriel Mountains. Phil Stinis joined, arriving with me to the trailhead for Mt. Williamson just after noon (originally we had planned to hike Mt. Hilyer, but we were denied access due to a Chevy commercial being shot in the area. Oh well…). We started up the PCT on Williamson, traversed over to Pallett, then on to Goodykoontz. This made a relatively quick loop, and we were grilling burgers and watching a movie in the truck before long, with plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for our hike the following day.

Tuesday, we crawled out of the truck at 7:30 am, not crazy early, but neither of us had any intention in getting up earlier with temps below 40F. We ate a quick breakfast and brewed a pot of coffee before making the drive over to Dawson Saddle. From Dawson, our hike went like this:

Dawson Saddle (8:30am) à Throop Mountain à Mt Hawkins à Middle Hawkins à Hawkins (again) àCopter à Hawkins (yet again) àBurnham à Dawson Saddle (2:40pm).

We celebrated with a beer afterwards, and grabbed some greasy food on our way home…