If I ever do leave SoCal, I think I'm going to miss the town of Idyllwild on Mt. San Jacinto the most. More than even Joshua Tree, San Jacinto has some of the most rewarding rock I have ever experienced, all combined with perhaps the most pure alpine experience in Southern California.

And why not? With the sole exception of Yosemite, Idyllwild has a richer history of climbing than anywhere in America. Royal Robbins, Yvonne Chuinard, Tom Frost, Tobin Sorrenson, John Long and countless others all made history on these walls. The men who defined the sport, introduced us to what was possible, and then later, the men who refined it. Popularized it. And introduced us to what at first seemed impossible.

It's hard to believe that this location, complete with 1000 foot granite walls and 2000 year old sequoia trees is only 100 miles from my home.

Climbing at Suicide and Tahquitz Rocks remains one of the greatest pleasures in my life, despite the gut-busting, seemingly vertical, 45 minute approach trails to the rock.

But maybe that's why. Tahquitz and Suicide take effort. But after you have finished with that hike and are sweating and aching from the weight of the pack, and after you have scaled the rock, trusted yourself completely, palmed the rock face, stepped boldly out onto desperate, microscopic crystals and reached up and pulled over a prehistoric stone roof some 200 feet off the ground, and after your hands are bleeding from jamming cracks on dramatic buttresses of gleaming white granite, and after you are sitting on top of the wall, looking out over the forest of lodgepole and sequoia and ponderosa, staring at an impossibly blue sky for Southern California, and after you are smiling and exhausted and dirty, you remember why you started doing this in the first place and why you can't imagine ever stopping. It's in those moments that you feel most complete. Most confident. And most at peace with yourself and your place amongst all things.

Maybe in the end it's all just a climb. The rocks were here before we were and will be here long after we are all gone. Life is going to be difficult and dirty and dangerous, but maybe if you can trust yourself, step boldly, and look past the aching joints and the bleeding knuckles, you will realize the reward isn't the summit, but the climb.

As always, if I haven't bored you yet with pop-philosophy, rocks and trees and more portraits of my do-rag and seeming inability to smile in a photograph, you can find the rest the pictures here .