Hiking this year for me has largely been about battling through injuries. June was mostly about slowly building up mileage and increasing elevation gain after suffering my previous setback of dealing with plantar faciitis. My last hike was an excellent backpacking trip with my friend Etienne over the weekend of July 28-29th which ended with me being pain free. We hiked from Islip Saddle to Buckhorn Campground by way of Pleasant View Ridge and the Burkhart Trail with a gorgeous evening spent on Pallett Mountain. Everything appeared to be proceeding along a reasonable schedule. I was confident I’d be ready to hike the High Sierra Trail Trail at the end of this month.

View toward Pallett Mountain from the Pleasant View Ridge use trail west of Mt. Williamson.

On July 1st, I hurt my achilles tendon while playing tennis and haven’t exercised since (except for swimming–which I started yesterday). Thankfully it wasn’t as bad as when I’ve hurt achilles in the past and needed to wear a boot for a couple months. The good news is that It feels like I’ll be able to hike again sometime around the middle of next week. However, this setback means I’ll need to put off hiking the High Sierra Trail until next year. I’ll start up again with an easy hike (probably on flatter terrain than can be found in the San Gabriel Mountains) and then hopefully progress in time to do a short backpacking trip from Onion Valley to Charlotte Lake and meet my friend Scott for the last night (of five) of the High Sierra Trip I had planned to go on with him.

View from the west bump of Mt. Williamson from August 2012. I’m currently working on putting together step by step instructions and trail photos for Pleasant View Ridge.

Right now I’m thinking about other easy trips to go on and finish out this injury filled year since hurting my IT bands coming down from Mt. Whitney last July. For sure, I plan to spend some time in the redwood forests when I drop my daughter off to college in August. It looks like there’s a plethora of options with very little elevation gain along Northern California’s Redwood Coast. Please comment if you have favorites in that area.