We had a nice hike on Mt. Hillyer this past Sunday. The weather was a bit on the warm side, and we started a little later than usual, but it was a lovely day. The last time we hiked this was on New Year’s Day and there was a cold wind chill. The ACH is still closed from the slide that happened in February. Now they’re saying it will be open at the end of October. It adds so much extra drive time to get up into the middle and high country of Angeles NF. Since it was a warmer day, the gnats were extra pesky. We had to wear our bug nets. One of the highlights of this hike in addition to the incredible boulder formations are the Coulter Pines on top of Mt. Hillyer. Their pine cones are about the size of my head! I brought along my tree identification book today and made use of it as we hiked. We put in a little over six miles today. It felt great to get back to the mountains after a few weeks away.