12.04 Angeles National Forest. Mount Lukens, a 'wow' of a hike
Past the half-way mark, the sights like this one, were most impressive. A little fire damage fore For most of the ascent, 'ghost' like mountains looked down upon us until we approached the summit Overpowering, intimidating but wonderful Our editor discovered the mountain, actually that happened a long time ago; we mean to say while in San Diego she identified it from a book. The problem, she pointed out, is that to reach the summit we would have to gain 3,300 feet. In an unusual explanation for her, she said it should take 2.5 hours to reach the top—a gain of 1,320 feet per hour. We were thinking at the time: ‘What’s the rush? We’ll take another few hours, if need be’. Ha! The valley was far below, the edges exhilarating, the mountain across the way, massive Blue flower 'power' at the higher altitude, red lower down To put things in perspective, we should mention that anytime we can circumvent, avoid or ignore the Los Angeles area, we will do so....