"VDC has been haunting my dreams over the last several years. It once was a long, but easy hike from Botchers Gap, but fires and erosion have closed access roads and trail maintenance within the Ventana Wilderness. In the few short years since the closure the vegetation has devoured much of the trail, and per the sparse trip reports available, all trails which lead to the summit are either lost or impassible. This led us to attempt the idea of approaching from the drain. This was a grueling task which had us first climb over Post Summit, Cabezo Prieto and Kandlbinder before we could climb the class 4 chute up to the summit of VDC. There is a lightly flagged use trail from the summit of Cabezo Prieto to our camp where we were able to access water by descending into the headwaters of the Little Sur River. The next day we climbed 1400 ft to Kandlbinder, dropped ~1700 ft into the drain and then climbed ~1900 ft to the summit of VDC. The only way back to camp had us retracing our steps, which meant climbing back down into the Drain before climbing Kandlbinder once more. We climbed to the Ventana first, then followed the brushy ridge south towards Kandlbinder, then dropped back down to ca..." — seancasserly • Apr 10, 2021

"Parked at the hoist, followed long ridge to turner creek trail, continued to skinner ridge trail, from devils peak, followed the ridge to Mount Carmel. Very little bushwhacking and poison oak. Only two ticks. 13 miles, 4K ft of gain. " — seancasserly • Feb 1, 2020

"Camped on summit of Junipero Serra Bushwhacked to Bear, and then Pinyon The fire break is severely overgrown and there is no water on the route Started from summit of JS at 7am, returned to camp at 9PM, back to car at 1:30am" — seancasserly • Apr 28, 2019

"Cone Peak Road was closed temporarily due to weather which added an unexpected 10.6 miles to our hike. Started at 11am. Found the faint unmaintained trail at the end of the first main switchback to Twin Peak. There were several people camping on top of Cone Peak. Got back to the car at 6:15. One hour of hiking in the dark." — seancasserly • Dec 8, 2018

"Cone Peak Road was closed temporarily due to weather which added an unexpected 10.6 miles to our hike. Started at 11am. Found the faint unmaintained trail at the end of the first main switchback to Twin Peak. There were several people camping on top of Cone Peak. Got back to the car at 6:15. One hour of hiking in the dark." — seancasserly • Dec 8, 2018