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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Death Valley Marathon

I’ve never wanted to run a marathon. There’s a few reasons for this; 1) I don’t like running. 2) Running for 3+ hours seems particularly onerus to me. The Death Valley Marathon/30k has some good points that counteract my dislike of running. 1) The run takes place in Titus Canyon, a beautifully narrow, remote section of DV. 2) With the exception of one section, which was probably about 2 or 3 miles long it’s all downhill, 15+ miles of downhill. 3) It takes place in beautiful Death Valley. So, after weighing the pros and cons being and some cajoling from Gant and Jared I signed up and decided to go for it.

The three of us were to meet up in DV somewhere on Friday night, check in and run early on Saturday morning and then spend the rest of Sat/Sun/Mon exploring. Jared and Gant both got there much earlier than me and being the high performance (read as: high maintenance) racing machines that they are, both brought race support crews to handle such tasks as pampering and pandering their fatigued little feet. So, with a full night of restful relaxation under our belts, Saturday morning dawned on Death Valley.

Seemingly on cue, when there’s a solution in need of a problem Gant came up with some unnecessarily complicated, not to mention blatantly illegal plan to get trucks and people here and there. He thought that we all caravan out to the end of Titus Canyon and park two trucks, then all seven of us pile into the last truck, with only six seat belts, hence the illegal part of the plan and drive to the beginning of the race. Somehow this was going to save us some time, somewhere along the trip. I’m not sure if it did save any time anywhere, but it did almost cost Jared and I a bus ride saving us 8 miles of running (which may have been his goal?). 99% of the competitors just took the bus ride to the start and at the end of the race took the bus ride back. Us three being that other 1% as far as I can tell. Gant’s plan pulled through though and we all made it to where we needed to be by the slimmest of margins.

Gant ran the full marathon while Jared, I and the rest of the 30k’ers were bussed up to White pass about 8 miles ahead of Gant and the Marathoners. With this head start we began the race. That extra 8 miles the marathon runners had to cover didn’t look all that interesting or fun to me. To start with it’s uphill, it’s not in Titus canyon, it’s on the approach to the canyon and it just looked drab to me, so I was personally glad I didn’t have to run it. Starting on White pass we started off downhill for about a mile or so and then began the only climb up to Red pass.

That climb was a bitch. There was snow on the ground, as we were topping out above 5,000 feet and it was cold as balls out there for the first hour or so. On the climb up to Red pass Jared left me in the dirt and I ran alone until the end of the race, 15 miles later. Once downhill on the backside of Red the entire race is a downhill or downslope. The snack tables were well placed and well stocked. The canyon was breathtaking. The requirement not to wear headphones while at first seemingly an arbitrary assholish move by management turned out to be quite nice. The canyon is so narrow at points you can hear the echo of your breath and your footsteps on the canyon walls.

This was the farthest either I or Jared had ever run. Our longest training run was 14 miles and it was rough. 18 miles went much smoother than I thought it would. When the canyon abruptly ended and we were on the final 3 miles I got my second wind. Jared was no more than 100 yards in front of me and I was flying to catch him. We ran together again for a few minutes and then I took off for the finish line. I came across the line so fast that Liz didn’t even get a picture of me doing it.

2 hours and 41 minutes after starting I was done. I felt great. Jared finished 1 minute behind me. I was 37th overall and 3rd in my age group. I am happy as hell about those results. When Gant finished at a brisk 4 hour and 10 minutes we sat around and waited for the racers to clear out the way so we could go get to the trucks that we had parked earlier, at this point I’m sure that Gant’s plan was as well thought out as my decision to enlist in the Corps.

Cut to acouple of hours later and we finally got our trucks and got out of Dodge. We went to spend the night at the Mesquite springs campground.

Here are the results.

Ubehebe crater, Teakettle Junction and the Racetrack

Sunday morning came too early, a bit too cold and with some light rain. This makes three years in a row that it’s precipitated on us in some form when visiting DV, from a snow storm on Telescope peak to snow at the Racetrack. Either way, it smelled like wet sagebrush and a new day. After another lengthy and laborious decision making process we decided to go to Scotty’s castle for the tour and then decide where to go from there after the tour.

The tour at Scotty’s castle was interesting. The castle itself was amazing and the guide did a nice job of passing along his knowledge to us. The only warning I would give is that the little deli there only takes cash, which is odd since the gift shop that shares the same building takes any kind of card.

At the Castle while Jared was trying to impress some random Rangers with his marathon exploits, without bothering them with the relatively inconsequential details like the fact that he ran the 30k, not the marathon. During this whole conversation he somehow worked some strange Palmdale desert magic and got some great information on an unpublicized canyon with the greatest collection of petroglyphs in the park.

I’m not going into details here, but we did scout the approach later that day and took a picture from afar. It’s an obscure little canyon, hardly looks like much but from what it was described as I wanted to make the hike despite the pain coming from my legs. I was outvoted and we went to Ubehebe crater and the Racetrack.

So, Ubehebe was cool. Scouted out little Hebe crater for the first time. Then after everyone got a good look at the crater and saw the location of Gant’s death defyingly dramatic descent and accompanying asinine ascent, some of us were caught napping. When everyone awoke we continued on the horrible, horrible road to the Racetrack .

Some of us climbed the grandstand , while others looked for moving rocks, and of course there was that 1% that stood around showing off medals to anyone and everyone that was looking, which I believe led us all to eventually split up. I took pictures.

Jared, Liz and I left after all that and journeyed back to a snowy Gorman. Gant and his crew stayed late into the night with raging bonfires, alcohol and hot dogs. I’m slightly jealous of them.

We are already planning a trip back to XXXXXX Canyon, in the next month or two. All in all, I loved the run and will be returning next year for it and would reccomend it to absolutely anyone, even if you don’t like running.

Album of pictures from trip

PS. I would be remiss if I did not mention the abundance of awesome that Gant produced in his Burrito Bar.

Welcome to the world, Attia.  You share your birthday with another great American.

Thank god, I can see the truck! Day 7

We all woke up pretty early and got moving with no breakfast in order to get going quickly. We had a ton of mileage and work to do today. We would be breaching 14,000 feet and be above that for miles, then we’d have to lose about 6,000 feet of elevation and hike about 11 more miles. It was going to be a long day and it started nice and early. We were all ready for this last monster of a day, Gant, Jared, Josh, Jared even managed the strength to smile.

So, this is the steepest part of the trip, the jaunt up to Kgap was tough, because we had full packs, but this one is just plain mean. It’s at a much higher elevation so your lungs are straining, it’s steeper so your muscles are begging for more oxygen and despite this it’s still the most beautiful place in California. So, by now you know the deal; stunning alpine lakes, gorgeous granite monoliths, and views to all of eternity it seemed like. So, for the last time we went up and up and up.

Eventually, we were done with the up and were sitting pretty on top of Mt Whitney. Time for the ridiculous hero poses, which I think were well deserved after a week long trip to the top, so get ready. Since I am putting this stupid story together, screw the alphabetical order, I’m going first. Josh(I miss those dark blue skies) 1(what a doosh, seriously), 2,(one handed pushup, whatsup!?) , Gant 1 I’m not sure what happened, if he forgot or if I screwed up somehow but I don’t have a picture of Gant’s historical Vitamin Water hero pose. Jared, 1, 2. Group hardcore, with Gant celebrating Brokeback Mountain’s emmy win with a W symbol. Group smiles, with all of us absorbing too much UV light into our sensitive little eyes because Gant doesn’t like to wear sunglasses for pictures.

After almost three hours on top for me, the other two had about 1.5 hours up top, we were ready to get to the truck and finish the last 11 miles or so. Down we hiked, Gant and I made a valiant attempt on Mt Muir, but were rebuffed. We’ll be back for that one with a better description of the route, or maybe someone to guide us, like Gant’s future self who we happened to run into on the trail later that day.

Again, down we hiked, past the needles, through snow and through switchback after switchback. The people that summit Whitney from the portal, which is 95% of them I’d guess, are just sick in the head. That’s a slog on a scale that only a masochist would enjoy.

We left trailcamp around 3:30 from what I remember. I didn’t break until I saw the most welcome sight mine eyes have looked upon (my big stupid red truck),which was a little after 6:00.

Thus ended the trip, Gant, Jared and Josh had successfully traversed the Sierra Nevada from West to East. Traveling 90+ miles and gaining over 20,000 feet over seven days.

After shots, contrasted to before shots:

Gant (Contrast),

Jared(Contrast),

Josh (Contrast).

More Mileage, Day 4

Day 4 dawned on us and my personal dream faded. We decided to get back to the actual trail rather than risk any more offtrail adventure by heading north over either of the two passes that were available to us. I think Gant’s expression in this picture sums up his feelings about taking on pants pass with packs (it is coincidentally in the background, on the left side of the notch behind his right shoulder), or maybe it was just indigestion, I guess we’ll never know. The pass could have been so easily renamed posthumously to Gants’ pass too, by just changing one letter on maps. Ahh well, there will be another time for pants pass I suppose, here it is with Jared wearing his hairnet for some reason.

So we packed up, (Gant, Jared) looking a little more grim after three full days of high elevation packing and not a whole lot of great deep sleep as of yet. The whole tent + sleeping bag/pad + elevation + exhaustion + dehydration + rocks/hard ground == crappy sleep in general, add in Gant’s bathroom trips twice a night and he apparently got less/worse sleep than Jared and I. Nonetheless, we had work to do and so we headed south, to join back up with the High Sierra Trail in all it’s glory. It is indeed beautiful, though in a different way than the higher elevations of the Sierra.

We hiked through the most glorious meadow that I have ever imagined as we headed south. I knew I couldn’t capture its beauty with my camera so I didn’t even try. I do believe that it is our version of Andelain, for anyone who gets that reference. I could spend years there, drinking in the mountains and breathing the grasses, truly a heaven on earth in that meadow just south of the Kaweah Gap on the High Sierra Trail.

All too soon we came to a magnificent stream crossing with a stunning backdrop of Sierra granite. We did our first laundry here, and despite the fact that Gant is the darkest of us all, he was the only one to get sunburnt here, shocking considering how white Jared is and I’m not much different.

So, after this stunning meadow and creek we continued on. We had alot of miles to cover to get to Moraine lake by nightfall, a good portion of it uphill again. So, on we went, clean(er) clothes and all, though within the hour they stank again. Really at this point it was turning into a mileage slog, trying to get miles down and done to get to a spot to camp. Nothing challenging or technical; just mileage, mileage, mileage. The lower elevations turned into a deep forest and some nice cliffs overlooking the forest. Then it turned into a deep, old, lonely forest with not much of a trail to follow, just a few footsteps in the dirt ahead of you to follow.

Eventually we got to Moraine lake and setup camp and our first fire since night one, which was nice.

So ended Day 4, about 12 miles after it began.

A most beautiful failure, Day 3

Day 3 was supposed to be the first of a few days off trail. It was kind of a rest day, with only a small amount of mileage and not much elevation gain. There would be time to attempt a peak or just relax and give the feet some time off with the schedule that we had for that day. We didn’t start early or fast. We woke up and listened to Jared talk about how he could climb the Kaweah range with just one hand.

After that inspiring speech from Jared we got started. We were headed north to try to get a closer look at our options to get to where we wanted to go. Basically there were two choices; either pants pass (hard) or lion rock/lion lake pass (longer but easier). So we left the trail, which was headed south to the chagoopa plateau and tried our luck to the north to the land of glory and adventure.

The first obstacle to cross was a large talus field. Next was a large snowfield. Once we got to the top there, it was time for a break. As we looked around, we all came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to drop our packs somewhere and make an attempt on Lawson peak for some reason. I’d never even heard of Lawson before that morning when I noticed it on the map and saw it on the horizon. It’s nothing special, but it looked doable, so we had a new plan for the day. It’s the far left peak in this picture, the center right one is Black Kaweah again.

So, yeah, lets go bag a peak. Either way, it was going to be nice to take 50 pounds off my back and just hike for a while, instead of hauling the weight around. So, we crossed the outlet of lake 10,725, which is just mind-numbingly spectacular both to the north and the south.

We dropped our packs in some random meadowy area and started moving up to Lawson. We should have paid more attention to where we left our packs; but that wouldn’t be a problem until much later in the day. Up we went, cruising without the crushing weight of those packs it was really nice. The route started off pretty easy being just a big boulder hop. It got a bit tricky; we had some sections of easy, but unexpected class 3 climbing, above yet another gorgeous alpine lake. This continued up for quite a bit as we were off trail trying to take a shortcut from what I remember (Later in the day, on the descent I took this overview picture of the route we took. The red line is the general path Jared and I took, Gant was a bit lower and then angled up more steeply at the end).

Looking back to the West, produced the usual spectacular views that after three days you don’t grow accustomed to but you do come to expect. Eventually after all this climbing and straining we stopped in various places and ate some food. Gant did so in the shadow of Black Kaweah(*nice pic, but large). It kind of looks like a Condor, wings spread and warming itself in the afternoon sun from here. Jared seemed more interested in posing for the camera, since he’d already talked trash on the BK and was starting to feel hypoxic.

Feeling refreshed after a lunchbreak, we rushed up what was left of our ascent, but unfortunately I didn’t read the map as well as I could have and… well, to put it bluntly, I lead us up to the wrong peak, which I have named false Lawson. It was Jared’s new personal high point, as in he’d never been to that elevation before and wasn’t feeling any ill effects, so that was a great thing, he was just slightly new to the hypoxic feeling which is the fun part of elevation. For those that’ haven’t experienced it, it’s like a mild buzz. Gant wasn’t that thrilled and I was quite down as well, you can see the real Lawson over my head there.

Since we were already running out of daylight, we began our descent as the moon rose over Pyramid Pinnacle 1 2. Jared was trying to explain to us how to get back, but Gant and I had more faith in the map. What we were trying to do was decide what to do for the rest of the trip, since we had essentially lost a day with this attempt on Lawson that took much longer than expected. We decided to think it about it more, as the shadows were getting long and the air was growing chilly.

We had decided earlier in the day to take the longer, more circuitous route back, because none of us wanted to climb down what we had climbed up in the light, let alone now that the sun was down. This longer route went well for the most part, except when we came to one lake’s outlet and couldn’t find any way across it. It was too cold and dark to cross in the running water, we needed some sort of bridge or path, but there was none. So, we built a rock bridge. This took the three of us about fifteen minutes, picking up big rocks, throwing them into the cold running water, splashing the others when possible with the rocks and then eventually getting across and moving on to where we thought we had left our packs. By now we needed to turn on our headlamps and don all of our layers of clothing, 11,000 feet is cold at night.

This was a terrifically long day, time wise, mileage wise, elevation gain/loss, the disappointment of expending all that effort and getting to the wrong peak. I was beat and we couldn’t find our packs. I was done mentally and physically and this day just kept on going. It was around 9:40 pm when Jared finally started whistling and flashing his strobe light like he was at a gay German disco. We setup our tents and I passed out solid.

Thus ended day three, so far every day had been more beautiful than the last.