9.2 miles of hiking • 2000' elevation gain •
I decided to reject Sundays cloud forecast and head East into the Badger with a good friend. Views were great. The lower oak savannah, that is the first mile of the trail is pretty much done blooming except for yarrow and blue ceanothus. Once you are on the north slopes of Ball Point the bloom really picks up with a bumper crop of white ceanothus, and even a few Balsams still in bloom. Instead of doing a loop down Little Badger we kept going up. Helispot 122 and the Rock garden were amazing. We went about another mile and headed home. We ran into a couple folks who had gone all the way up to Lookout Mountain along the Divide trail. They reported no major blowdown, quite a bit of snow on the back of Lookout, but none on the top. Wonderful day!
