Photos by lalamur

A clear description of El Cajon mountain as seen from I-8 eastbound from San Diego.

for the rock that is climbable, you need to rappel the route before attempting any climbing.

here's kris sitting on a bolder with hurd lake in the background. just behind him is a vertical drop of around 100 feet, and then only steps to the lake.

we spent more time searching for the trail than we did hiking it. the snow was a major pain this day in june.

dave and brian standing on a boulder with hurd lake and an unamed peak behind them.

the small lake in the background is hurd lake. it was a really nice sight on our way to long lake.

here's brian and kris as we fnially approached long lake. just past this gentle meadow is a gorgeous lake, long lake, surrounded by enormous peaks on all sides. the one on the left in the background is cloudripper peak. it was only one among many surrounding this lake.

this is a shot of hurd peak, from long lake. the peak is right next to the lake and is absolutely spectacular. it reaches 12237 feet.

the smaller peak on the right is chocolate peak. it reaches 11682 feet. the range on the left is unamed, but is part of cloudripper peak, wich reaches 13525 feet. just below chocolate peak, standing on the pile of rocks, is dave.

here's a section of long lake. it was still around 80 -85% iced over on this day in late june. the mountain range way off in the background is very near bishop pass, wich reaches 11972 feet.

near our camp there was an intriguing section of rocks. we ended up setting up a rappel and looking for routes on this day. this is brain clipping into his atc.

here is brian on his first rappel of the day. the drop off behind him is around 250 feet. we rappeled down about 150 feet to a huge ledge, then continued on from there.

this is brain almost to the bottom of one of our rappels. as you can see, it gets a little torn up near the bottom.

this is dave placing pro for the rappel we're about to do. behind him is close to a 180 ft dropwith a massive overhang half way down.

here is kris starting his rappel. he's checking his gear one last time before he backs over the ledge.

here goes kris, crossing over the ledge slowly and heading down the rock.

kris stopped for a pic just before he dissappeared over this ledge on his rappel.

here is dave beginning his rappel. we had to add the quickdraw to the anchor you can see here, to center it up on the route we wanted to rappel.

dave pauses on his rappel for a moment to get this snapshot.

here's a shot of the area we rappeled this day. the rock we descended is on the far left.

the parking lot just above south lake had a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains. the one on the left is hurd (12237').

couldn't resist this shot of some nice jagged rocks overlooking south lake parking lot.

while following this trail leaving south lake, less than a mile up ot we crossed into the john muir wilderness. from left to right: dave, kris, brian.

the remainder of the snow from the record breaking winter, covered the majority of our trail this day. navigating was not the funnest thing i've ever done

Cathedral and surrounding peaks.