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I’m so excited that I’ve got half a mind to scream out loud. I’m excited about photography again recently. There is a photo contest coming up, specific to and located in Death Valley. I’m trying to figure out which photo(s) to enter. I’m limited to two entries this go around, so I’ve got to choose a little more carefully than the shotgun effect of the last one.

It’s exciting (expensive), frightening and wonderful all at once. Over the years I’ve fallen more and more in tune with Death Valley; it’s solitude and it’s quiet beauty. Few people go high up into the mountains and even fewer wander outside the tourist areas of DV. I like these lonely areas, I find serenity there and am reminded of Buzz Aldrin’s famous description of the moon as, “Magnificent desolation”. What a perfect description for Death Valley.

I’ve even applied (by submitting some sample photos) to a stock photography company.  I’m excited for a lot of reasons lately.

This was my second consecutive Death Valley Marathon/30k (first one here) and it was just as good the second time despite; pouring rain, mud, the use of the alternate running course and a lack of my running companions from last year.

A few days before the race the race director sends out an email warning us about the incoming storm and the fact that the park service may close Titus Canyon due to the incoming rain/snow.  That was disheartening, because Titus is a stunning place for a run.  When you’re running in Titus you are never more than one more bend in the canyon away from feeling like you’re all alone in there. The canyon walls are so narrow and it bends so often you are occasionally the only person in view in a specific section, which is a really cool way to do a marathon.

The canyon walls are remarkable for their multi-colored beauty and there are multiple layers of historic use of the canyon from the Native American petroglyph to old mining camps. So you get geology, history and great competition all in one race. The runners that make the trek all the way out to Death Valley for the run, both the marathoners and the 30k’ers are great people.  As a whole, they are the best race people I’ve interacted with consistently, from the director (who gave me a ride in his van when the bus was too crowded last year) all the way down to the runners who will occasionally cheer you on while running.

Well, like I said we got an email indicating that Titus might be closed for the run. In that case there is an alternate route that starts near Furnace Creek on West Side road, it’s a dirt road in the middle of a broad valley, Death Valley is scenic almost no matter where you are but 3 hours at a snail’s pace in a big valley can’t compare to Titus canyon. The day before the race we get an email stating that Titus was officially closed and the alternate course would be the venue this year.

Gant wasn’t going to be running this year, due to a flare up of his TG but he was willing to play role of race support crew. He performed his job with the gumption of a Grant. I’m on the verge of promoting him to full “R” status if he keeps this work up. So we rolled up from Gorman on Friday night, got to Texas spring campground a little after midnight and despite years of experience telling us not to sleep in the truck, we slept in the truck. It turned out to be a pretty damn good decision . All night long the rain was pouring down, but I slept well and as far as I can tell, Gant slept soundly as well.

Dawn broke and we made our way to the check in at Furnace Creek. We got our bibs and followed the bus caravan down to West Side Road. At this point it was still drizzling and in the low 50’s, the clouds were solid and there was a slight wind to the south. The day looked dismal and grey; there wasn’t much to see besides the clouds and other runners. People were wearing trash bags to stay dry and kinda warm and the race director was giving his speech about snow in Titus canyon and that was why it was closed. At that point most people were more interested in starting the race and trying to get warm than in listening to the speech. Minutes later we were obliged.

The alternate course is a dirt road with a slight down slope on the way out. Due to the rain the dirt road was a sloppy mess. The rain didn’t really stop, it let up at points but the cold was constant. On the way out there was a tailwind, which in addition to the slight down slope made for a pretty good time to the turnaround point, 1:16 for me.  Unfortunately that meant there was a head wind on the way back to the finish line and an incline. The nice thing about hitting the turnaround point and heading back was all the racers behind me. Seeing them go the other way and hearing the occasional cheer from them really helped me keep my motivation and pace up as the road got sloppier and the rain and wind was now coming directly into my face.

Eventually, there were no more runners going the other way. I knew there were 12-16 runners in front of me and a few somewhat close behind me. I passed a few in front of me and was passed by a few as well. My legs were dreading the final mile as it was the steepest climb and I hit it like concrete wall. My pace went from a mid to low 8 minute mile to over 11 for that last mile. I was out of juice and it was cold, wet, sloppy and steep.

But it was over. The post race food was GREAT, just like last year – peanut filled pretzel bits, oranges, trail mix, water, Gatorade and of course the complimentary T-shirt. I started to cramp in the cold and quickly changed into some warm, dry clothes and relaxed in the truck while Gant tried to get an inside line on becoming a Junior Race Director.

Death Valley was indeed in the process of flooding, I’ve never seen a storm like that there, the roads were covered with water, Towne pass was a snowy sight to see and I was more than glad to be warm and dry in the truck with my chauffeur race support crew at the helm.

A few hours later I was home and Gant was on his way to a half marathon in San Diego. I found out that I took 1^st in my age group and 20^th overall with a finish time of 2:40 which I was pretty stoked about.  I am definitely looking forward to my 3^rd consecutive DVM(e) next year. I’d even run the alternate course, It’s really that worth it.  Good job to my support crew and happy hypothermia homeboy as well, excellent job as a matter of fact.  The picture collection is incomplete for various reasons, don’t ask unless you’re curious in which case go ahead.

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My adventure for October was a visceral visual event.  I saw my first rocket launch the other day.  Those of us living in southern California have our own launch pad at Vandenburg AFB.  Vandenburg is involved in most of the testing of the ballistic missile shield, launching in conjunction and generally in the direction of Kwajalein Atoll.  They launch Atlas, Titans and other rocket bodies and do it just about every month.

You can see the launches from most anywhere in Socal and there’s a great mailing list dedicated to information on launch times, dates and payloads at spacearchive.  The launch I got to watch was a Delta II, you can see a picture of the launch here.  I was standing near the top of 7,300 foot Alamo mountain to see it and it was beautiful.  The launchpad was over 50 miles away, but my perch was so high I had a clear view of the rocket quietly streaking into the night.

This lead me to think about change and how hard it is.  A rocket, weighing tens of thousands of pound and holding thousands of gallons of fuel is built for change.  It’s entire existence is built around one simple task, to go from stationary to 17,500 mph in under nine minutes.  They are built to beat gravity, to slip the surly bonds of Earth if you will.

A rocket will burn most of it’s fuel within the first three minutes of flight.  Each minute it gets a bit easier though, the gravitational pull of the Earth lessens second by second and it’s speed increases bit by bit.  Easier and easier it gets the farther it is from the point where it changed trajectory from a stationary hunk of metal to a speeding hunk of metal.

I think that’s true of any and all change, it takes a lot of effort to change the course or path of a life, but it gets easier with every step.  Once that initial decision is made and you are off to whatever change that is, it gets easier.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Sunrise on Mitchell Peak, Sierra Nevada.

We missed sunset on Mitchell peak by a couple hours, though not for lack of trying.  We weren’t going to miss sunrise.  Seeing the sun come up over the Sierra Crest was a site that everyone is entitled to.  This is your heritage here, just waiting to be seen.  This was a great place to sleep and well worth the pain of the previous day.

Since the peak is only three easy, downhill miles from the trail head we took our time getting ready and moving.  We eventually did saddle up after a great breakfast put together by one JD Grant, though Gant passed on having any.

We hiked back to the truck and I got to go through the usual high anxiety of driving and being in a car.  For some reason after a long time in the backcountry it’s a very unsettling and frightening feeling being in a motor vehicle for me.  By the time we wandered around visalia looking for the Red Lobster the feeling had passed though and I was feeling much better.

I healed up over the course of the next week and wound up losing just about 2 pounds overall.  Some points to note about this trip:

• My photography was off, since we only spent about 1.5 days above timberline and that’s where I see beauty.  It’s all beautiful, but the timberline is my muse.
• Gant had a great idea to bring a scale to the trailhead for accurate before and after weights.
• I want one of the SOG Trident knives
• I need new Tevas, maybe I’ll bite the bullet and go back to Crocs.
• Tent-less nights are far superior
• Timing the trips to coincide with the Perseids seems like a great idea as long as your partner wakes you up.

I think that’s it.

Here are the final pictures:

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24 miles from Big Brewer lake to Mitchell Peak, Sierra Nevada.

My god, what had we started?  Still about 40 pounds in the packs, and almost 25 miles with over 5,000 feet of gain overall on the agenda for today.  Gant has alot of deep seated hatred for me and subconciously wants to see me die, the only reason I can think of is the “R” envy.

But either way we were on our way.  A bold, audacious plan to conquer Mitchell Peak from Big Brewer lake, such an approach has likely never been done, just because it’s dumb.  So we began.  We tried to avoid as much of the foliage as possible while crossing the talus, unsuccessful for the most part, but within two hours had cleared the four miles of crap to get back to the trail to Avalanche pass.  We turned down towards Roaring River and started booking.

We made some great time, I don’t think we ran into anyone all day.  Scratch that, we did run into a short bus looking group near the river, but they paid us no heed.  We saw a massive tree down across the trail that hadn’t been there three days ago when we crossed through.  So between that and the rock slides the night prior we got quite the experience overall.

We bathed, rested, ate and watered up at Roaring River, and we needed it for the day we had on tap.  When we started moving again we had our headphones on and were just cruising miles.  After about mile 16 I just had my groove going, the pain from hiking felt like penance to me.  We started hiking just before 8am, stopped for an extended dinner break around 5pm and then kept on hiking until 9:30pm when we hit that peak and dropped our packs for good.

Mitchell peak was indeed a worthy goal.  I had blisters on blisters on my feet and I haven’t been that physically or mentally exhausted in… I really don’t know how long.  We were ecstatic to be on the peak and what a view it was at night.  The peak is only three miles from the trail head and there is an the foundation for the old fire lookout tower left up there that makes for a perfect porch for sleeping.

We needed some time to relax after over thirteen hours of hiking, so we just enjoyed the view as we tried to warm up.  I was drenched in sweat and it was getting chilly at over 10,000 feet.  Out of calories and cold is a tough combo, but the elation of sucseeding was enough for me.  We slept without a tent again and were about to enjoy one of the most stunning sunrises I’ve ever seen.

Pictures from today:

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Next Day

Up from Big Brewer lake to Mt. Brewer, Sierra Nevada.

Gant woke up with a wet sleeping bag.  I’m not saying that he may or may not need depends, but my bag was dry and I really don’t know what else it could be.  Once we sorted all that out though, we got packed up and headed to Mt. Brewer, that fabulously pyramid shaped mountain with a view like no other.

We decided to go up the north slope, hit the peak and then down the south slope to maximize the amount of new ground we would each cover.  We started up at around 9am skirting the north shore of Big Brewer lake.  This is a place that a photographer could make a living, what a beautiful lake and ring of mountains.

From the lake we used North guard as our guide, heading towards the low point between NG and Brewer.  Then we turned south and headed up the long, steep, slightly unstable talus field.  Towards the top I got a bit off course and turned easy to moderate class 3 into some difficult class 3 to easy class 4.  The fact that my biceps, lats and back were sore the next day indicates to me I was lifting more of my body weight than I usually would on class 3 climbing.

One section near the top sketched me out entirely as I was headed to the Eastern summit and came up on a dead end that dropped a thousand feet below the rock I was on.  I slowly and stately retreated to find another course to the top and let my heart recover.

When I did reach the summit, at about 12:30 and five minutes behind Gant I found a nice low seat to relax in for awhile before taking in the tremendous views.  Being off both the main Sierra Crest and Great Western Divide, Mt. Brewer has a nearly unimpeded view in every direction.  Hundreds of peaks, less than a handful could we name.  Looking back, we didn’t spend enough time on the summit just enjoying the accomplishment.  I could have and should have stayed there for much longer soaking in that magnificence.

We signed the summit register, took our hero shots on the summit, took in some calories and went on our way.  We descended on the south side and quickly came to a veritable string of alpine lakes, ringed with the remains of last winter’s snow.  We restocked our water supply and across a vast gulf of distance saw another party of three with full packs on moving to the East.  For some reason those three were really motivating to see.

Gant stayed in the lead as we dropped back down back to camp.  We decided not to go for South Guard like was a possible plan on the way up, but instead went straight back to camp.

Once back at camp we had some decisions to make.  Since day 1 started so late, we lost mileage and time.  So, we were looking at two days of travel time back to the trailhead, which only left us one day of peak time.  There were no easy and desirable peaks within one day, with the exception of Mt. Francis Farquhar, which was going to be about a 15 mile round trip (without full packs) and some significant elevation gain/loss.  Running the numbers in Topo! I come up with a little under 5000 feet of gain/loss on the day.

Instead, for some inexplicable reason we chose to hike 24 miles, with packs on and about 5600 feet of gain/loss for the day.  I’m not sure how to explain that decision, but that’s what we came up with.  Hike 24 miles or so and sleep on the summit of Mitchell Peak if possible.

While Gant’s wet sleeping bag incident was still under investigation, we put up the tent to test his theory of swamp gas causing the issue or something.  We setup the tent and went to sleep with a long day on the agenda coming up.

Overnight we heard rock slides, two very distinct, very loud batches of them.  Very unnerving, though I fell back asleep quickly afterward.

Pictures from today:

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Next Day

Up from one of Shorty’s Cabins to Big Brewer lake, Sierra Nevada.

On the morning of day three we found Shorty’s cabin.  It turns out that we slept no more than 50 yards from Shorty’s cabin.  We looked around, found an old hobnail boot that was literally no bigger than my hand.  Found an old teakettle and some nails.  His cabin was remarkably intact and quite hard to find, even knowing where it was supposed to be and sleeping almost on top of it.

We started hiking, we had a long day of off trail excursions and needed as much time as we could get.  We needed to find some cairns that the Ranger had said to look for.  We were going to follow a ridge line up above the Brewer creek drainage in an attempt to stay out of the deep foliage that we would have to whack through at the bottom.

When we started finding the cairns guiding our path we went straight uphill.  This was a steep ascent, thankfully though there was only about a mile of really steep stuff.  When we cleared the treeline at around 10,000 feet we kept going up a talus slope.  Then we started contouring around to the south side of the ridge we were on.  At this point we were above the Brewer creek drainage.  We kept going about another mile and the side slope got too steep to deal with safely so we started to descend a bit.

Unfortunately we were getting down from the talus without any foliage into a section of talus with deep foliage.  Talus sucks, foliage sucks.  Add the two together and it’s a crappy way to cover mileage, but we had no better choices so we descended further.

Through the foliage and over the talus until we got to some nice granite slabs and started moving.  We hit them and crossed over some randomly beautiful meadows for another mile or so until we were on the shore of Big Brewer lake.  This is when we got a bit of bad news as at the lake was also where an older group of three were camped, thankfully it was a big lake.  We dubbed them the Franks and one of them, upon returning from a failed attempt on Mt Brewer berated anyone who used cairns to find their way in the wilderness, unless the cairns were on a trail.  So that crotchety old fool was probably suffering from some hypoxia based on how little sense his arguments made, but neither Gant nor I took his bait and they retreated to their campsite never to be interacted with again.

We made camp and again slept under the stars, sans tent.  The perseids were at their peak tonight and we were both excited.  Gant even broke out some of his astronomy gear and gave an impromptu interpretive program for me.  So at around 3 or so AM Gant awoke and watched the celestial show, but for some reason failed to awaken me.  I just want to say thanks for that.  A great meteor shower, once a year and we are elbow deep in the Sierra at almost 11,000 feet with a beautifully clear sky and he didn’t wake me up.

Thanks partner.

Here are the pics from today:

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Next

Through Sugarloaf to one of Shorty’s Cabin, Sierra Nevada.

Sunday dawned on us and we still had no firm plan on where exactly we were going or how to get there.  We knew we had some mileage to cover so we started early.

By the time we got to the first creek crossing we ran into a couple vegan Red Sox fans.  As part of a standard trail introduction you find out where people are from.  Whey they asked us, I told them where I was from and that Gant was from Ventura.  Well, shortly after leaving the company of the vegans Gant vehemently corrected me, stating that he wasn’t from Ventura, he was from, “Thantaa Bhharrrbaaaawwwwaaa”.  While extolling the virtues of his newly adopted home town he held his pinkie high in the air as a true high roller would.  So, my official apologies to Gant, I meant no offense.

We continued on.  We were losing elevation dropping into Sugarloaf valley and it was getting hotter.  Gant was working his sleeveless shirts, trying to preemptively scare away any bears with the size of his guns.  It seemed to work as we interacted with no bears, but he did take a sunburn for his efforts.  Based on his bravery I hereby award Mr. Gant the Brewer trip award for bravery.

Well on and on we went, finally arriving at the Roaring River Ranger station where we met Ranger Cindy Wood.  We chatted with her for a bit and scored a sweet map with some back country info written in by years and years of Roaring River Ranger staff.  We even got a bit of inside Ranger information that would have made Jared proud, she gave us some scoop on one of Shorty Lovelace’s obscure cabins.  Shorty was a short man who wintered in the Sierra Nevada and trapped for a living.  He died in 1963 and was a true man’s man, even rivaling the mighty Gant say some.

Now we had firm plans for the next day or two, since it was only day 2 of the trip so we were doing well.  We were going to try to find Shorty’s cabin and sleep near that for the night and then make the final approach to Big Brewer lake the next day.  So our first problem would be finding the cabin in question.

We had already covered about 14 miles when we left the trail and the easy travel that it represented.  We were tired and the feet were sore.  We were trying to find a veritable needle in a haystack.  We searched for almost two hours with our packs on and my feet were pounding.  We gave up shortly thereafter and setup another camp.  I had some Enertia trail food switchback spaghetti and I can honestly say it was the best meal I have ever had in the back country.

Another night closer to the Perseid meteor shower with quite a warm up display and a fair number of satellites passing by overhead.

Pictures from today:

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Next day

Great Western Divide, Sierra Nevada.

All rain that falls to the east of the Great Western Divide drains into the great basin, to the west it all drains into the Pacific Ocean.  After a plethora of permutations and permit changes the GWD was our end goal for the trip.  By our, I mean Daniel Gant and I and by trip I mean one week with packs on backs.

Gant worked until midnight or so on Friday night and then woke up at the crack of 9am or so on Saturday, which placed him at my house at almost 10:30 which placed us at Grant Grove, Sequoia Kings Canyon at around 2 or 3.  We picked up our permit, picked up some souvenirs from the shop and made our merry way to the Marvin Pass trail head.  We stepped off at almost 5:30pm.  Yeah, that’s right we roll like that, a 5:30pm step off time.

The trail head and the area are deeply wooded and meadow-y.  It’s also the same area that William H. Brewer used in 1864 to reach the summit of his namesake, Mt. Brewer, which was where we were going to be after a couple hard fought days.

Today though, with the late start and limited daylight we only made it about 3 or 4 miles before we found a great little site to setup camp.  We both decided early on that we were going to minimize the use of the tent on this trip.  The weather was forecast to be pretty nice and the Perseid meteor shower was ramping up over the next couple days.

We stashed the bear canisters in a tree and counted over a dozen satellites flying overhead.

Pictures from today:

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Next day

Getting everything packed up and prepared for the next big backpacking trip on the Circle of Solitude I’ve come up with the following stats;

4 major trip planing/permit changes, hopefully no more.  We started with the Sierra High Route and then changed it to the circle of Solitude and now we are planning something more Great Western Divide oriented.  This includes the following; enter through Horse corral and head to Deadman Canyon.  Head south in DMC to Copper Mine pass up and over to Cloud Canyon.  Climb Triple divide and then head north in Cloud canyon tagging beautiful peaks on the way north through CC.

13 Pounds of Food (including the Bear Vault 400 Bear canister).

4.5 Pounds of Camera crap (20d, 24-105 L Lens, Gorilla pod, 3 batteries).

178 Pounds that I weigh ( I really didn’t train as hard as I could/should have for this bad boy of a trip)

47 Pounds of total pack weight. (26 percent of my body weight, just 1 measly percent over what I would consider optimal)

2 Gigs of music, from the Star Wars Gangsta Rap to Philip Glass’ piano solo and everything in between.

3-4 hours of sleep for Gant the night before the trip, which is quite par for his course.

60+ miles planned

10+ potential peaks; Triple Divide, Lion Rock, Mt Brewer, South Guard, Peak 12,345, Peak 12,640 Peak 3904m, Midway Mountain, Table Mountain, North Guard, Mt. Francis Farquhar.  Not that we plan on hitting all ten, but options are always nice.  I’ll be happy with the big three; Triple Divide, Brewer and Francis Farquhar.

24 hours from now I’ll be knee deep in some Sierra beauty and won’t return for an entire week, tired and refreshed.