Metamorphic rock from the Mesozoic. This exposed batholith near the summit of Josephine is Mendenhall gniess with anorthosite dikes.
27 MARCH 2022 W6/CT-25
I initially planned on activating Throop Peak and headed out of Topanga at about 4am. It was pretty foggy in the San Fernando Valley and as I turned to go up Highway 2 I saw a sign that said Highway 2 was closed to Wrightwood. Time to punt. I wasn’t sure where the road was closed but I didn’t want to drive all that way (with gas at $5.50 a gallon) and find out it was closed at Waterman. It had been so dry in Southern California throughout our usually wettest months of January, February and March that it never occurred to me that 2 would be closed. I should’ve known because a big storm was due to hit in a day or so. (In fact 1.41′ of rain fell the next day)
I like the idea of a healthy hike so I decided on the 4 mile trip up Josephine Peak. The junction of Angeles Crest and Angeles Forest Highways was above the fog and a nice waning crescent moon lit my way up the initial part of the hike. Temperature was perfectly cool unlike my last trip up this mountain when the mercury soared into the triple digits. There was also a waning crescent moon in the sky on that late summer hike. I noted how much lower that same crescent moon was in the sky for this early spring hike.
The hike is almost 4 miles up 1,800′ of elevation gain. It took me about 2 hours.
I has the summit to myself for a little while to set up the station but soon hikers began to arrive. This was a very busy Sunday on the mountain. I handed out a record number of my SOTA cards and received quite a few visits to this site as a result. Thank you all hikers for putting up with the various antenna wires and guys and my radio chatter.
KG6MZS 