Group shot at the Vivian Creek trailhead at 6,300 feet, the start of the hike. Sooz, John, Jamie, Terry, Rob, Ron, Juliet and me Joe. Kathy, Ken and Gary also came along on this hike, they got a later start and met us at High Creek, our camp site for the night.

Ron crossing Mill Creek a the start of the hike.

Just past Mill Creek we start the climb on the Vivian Creek Trail. This is my second time on this trail and it's steep as I remembered it.

Terry and Rob were doing this as a day hike, the rest of us were backpacking it.

Terry, Jamie and John at the Vivian Campground. We took a short break here to regroup. It was nice to hike with Terry again, it's been about a year since I last hiked with him.

Sooz leads the way across a log bridge over Vivian Creek.

We started to get into some icy snow past Halfway Camp at about 8,500 feet.

Jamie and Terry took the low route around a snowy section of trail. It was a good idea, I slipped and fell on the section they went around.

Looking down the canyon that High Creek flows through (don't know it's name).

Almost to High Creek Camp, it's in the canyon up ahead.

When I got to High Creek Camp at 9,200 feet, Sooz and Terry were already there. Even with a full pack, Sooz was out hiking the rest of us this day.

Sooz and Kathy at Sooz's camp site. Kathy showed up about 10 minutes after I did. She took a shortcut on the trail and got to camp before most of the folks who started before her.

After setting up camp, Sooz, Kathy, Gary, Jamie, John and myself headed off for Dobbs Peak. We started the hike by climbing up the slope next to our camp, this shot is looking down on our camp as we start up the slope.

The group making their way up the slope. Camp can still be seen below. We were climbing straight up the slope, the whole route was XC.

One last look at camp before we get into the trees and lose sight of it.

Sooz was still moving at high speed, and lead us most of the way to the summit of Dobbs.

John and Jamie. This shot shows how steep the slope is.

Sooz found a letter to Santa that was attached to a balloon. I thought she was kidding when she told me what she found.

The letter was from Christina and she wanted a lot of stuff. It started with "What I want is a new bike becuse my bike is not good". We all got a good laugh out of it. Hope she got what she wanted.

As we neared the ridge, San Jacinto Peak showed it's snowy summit.

Jamie boot sking on the ridge. We finally reached the ridge that leads to Dobbs Peak.

Kathy and Gary sking down. We were making the first tracks up here.

We decided to traverse part of the slope to Dobbs instead of hiking the ridge. This was a much harder route than if we hiked the ridge line. We used the ridge on the way down.

Looking down into Mill Creek Canyon from the south slope of Dobbs Peak.

Once we made it up onto the ridge, it was easy going to the summit. That's Dobbs up ahead.

A view of San Jacinto Peak 24 miles to the southeast, we got lucky and had a super clear day.

Group shot on Dobbs Peak at 10,459 feet with San Jacinto peak in the background.

Sooz with her favorite mountain.

Zoomed in on San Jacinto Peak as we start the hike back to our camp site.

I was slow with the camera and missed Gary, but got Sooz sking down, you can see her tracks. Gary is behind the tree.

We took a different and much easier route back to camp. Here we are about to reach the canyon just above our camp.

Hanging out in camp after dinner.

Group shot the next morning minus Ron who took the photo (thanks). Also missing are Jamie & John who got an early start out.

Ken, Juliet, Ron and Gary stayed to climb San Gorgonio, while Sooz, Kathy and myself hiked out.

A view down the canyon from the trail a short ways from camp.

The upper part of the trail gave us great views.

Kathy was going to take us down the shortcut she used on the way up.

Kathy leading the way down the shortcut.

The shortcut was steep. but save us about a mile of hiking.

Back at the log bridge over Vivian Creek. The trip is almost over. This was another fun weekend. Doing the XC route to Dobbs Peak was great. It was nice meeting John and getting to hike with Terry again. Thanks Ron for getting this trip together, looking forward to hiking with you and Juliet again.

THE END