panamintsjune07

June was a big month for my little Brother Jon. He celebrated His 18th birthday on the 5th and graduated from High School on the 7th. I figured he could use a break and asked Him to join me for a quite weekend in the Panamint Mountains.

We had discussed a overnight hike up to Telescope Peak, so Friday after I got off work we plotted a course to intercept the Panamint Mountains. We arrived at the Mahogany Flats campground sometime well after Midnight. Jon crashed out in the back of the FJ and I setup a cot on the first flat peace of ground I found.

We hit the trail at first light and made decent progress up the trail, until I started thinking, "Why do all this hard work when we could be driving around with the AC blowing" I also knew a perfect place for us to spend the night in style and comfort.

After a few minutes, I talked Jon into cutting our hike short. We decided to hike up to the repeater station on Roger's peak and take the service road back down.

We then drove back out into Panamint Valley where we spent the day driving side canyons and spending some time with Rocky in Ballarat. As the evening wound down, we found ourselves heading up South Park Canyon where we spent the night.

We had an extra day to stay and do some more exploring, but we decided that we would head home Sunday afternoon. We loaded up our gear back into the Cruiser and noticed that I had a flat tire. After a quick swap with the spare tire, we found ourselves back on the trail and headed back out into the valley. After a quick stop at Panamint Springs Resort for lunch, we were homeward bound.