Was planning on heading into the Sespe Condor Sanctuary (on the one legal trail) this past weekend, but the weather report said it was going to be in the 90's. Blech.. not the spring out and back backpacking trip we were planning.

Did some quick research for some higher elevation trails and decided to take my kids to Cooper Canyon Trail Camp (along the PCT) in the Angeles National Forest. A little over 2 mile hike to a campsite at 6000 ft. I called up the ranger station and asked about trail conditions. She said there was water in the creek and there won't be any snow since it hasn't snowed in weeks. Sounds good... off we went Saturday morning.

Got to the campground with the trailhead and it was shut down for the season and completely snowed.... hmmmm.... Well, maybe the snow clears up on the trail? About a mile or so in of slipping and sliding, my 7 y.o. son fell and hurt his finger and was pretty inconsolable. We stopped for lunch and my buddy went ahead to scout trail conditions. He said one more big snow field and looks to clear up. We crept through that and we're off. About a half mile or so farther a guy who passed us on the way in was coming out and said, "it's a bit harry up there." I stopped with the kids and my buddy went off without his pack to check it out. He came back a bit later and said, "we're not getting through... there are four college kids up there clinging to iced in cliffs." Well, we were not passing that with a 4 y.o., a 7 y.o. and two heavy packs.

We burned through most of our backpacking treats coercing them to hike back out and then roasted some hotdogs in the shutdown campground before driving home. We were a bit disappointed, but it was a nice day hike with resistance training!