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The Mountain Warfare Training Challenge was a great race. That has just become one of my annual events, automatically. I loved the challenge of the run; the first two and a half miles were a mix of running and walking for the non elite athletes (most of us). The next four miles were just beautiful if you took the time to look around at the scenery up there in Bridgeport.

The obstacles in the run were fun, but could have been tougher. Though I can respect why they did make them so manageable. After running that initial incline when I got to the wall climb I really wasn’t sure that I had the strength to get over it. When Jared hit the hay bale climb he said he got dizzy at the top. Gant of course had no trouble with anything, which reminds me of a quote from a buddy of his, Sir Richard Branson who said, “If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect”.

This race has inspired me though. Gant placed 3rd in his age group, I placed 17/28 or so. Gant got this sweet little medal for finishing 3rd, unlike my greatly appreciated though slightly lame ribbon for a 3rd place finish in the Death Valley Marathon. I want that MWTC medal, I’ve dedicated myself to placing next year. My time was 1:06, looking at the top finishing times in my category I need to knock 11-13 minutes off in order to hit that podium next year.

Either way, the race was sweet.  The T-shirt alone is worth the drive, the race was just icing on the cake.  Next year I’m going to get some candles on that cake by getting me a medal. 

There is a mountain above Pyramid Lake with a structure at the very top. If you’ve ever driven on I5 south of Gorman you’ve seen it, though you might not have known what it is. It’s an old forest service fire lookout with a great view and a nice little hike to boot. The total hike is about 12 miles round trip and doable in under 6 hours.

To get to the trailhead get onto Interstate 5, heading North from Castaic or South from Gorman. Get off at Templin highway and turn to the west. Make a right at the only intersection you come to and then drive all the way to the end of Templin about 10 miles later. There is a big forest service gate and you may need an adventure pass to park here, there’s always plenty of parking. Park here, hike down the old closed highway, or bring bikes and make it that much quicker. Either way, go about 2 miles and on your left you’ll see an rusty old gate with what looks like a fire road behind it. Leave your bikes somewhere and start hiking behind this gate.

The trail is nice, and mostly easy to follow. You’ll go up and the fire road will slowly disappear and fade into a small use trail with no signs. The Day fire went through here hot and heavy so there isn’t much old brush, the signs may have disappeared at that point, or maybe they were never there. Either way, just follow the trail up to a saddle where you can see out West to Cobblestone mountain or to the East and Liebre gulch.

The trail itself is around five miles one way and obviously uphill. The only confusing part comes right after you reach the saddle. To the north will be Slide Mt. As you follow the trail to the north, the old trail will take you to the backside of the mountain. Refrain from following this, or if you do pay close attention to the trail. There is a new segment that begins here. The new trail sticks more to the saddle itself. If you make it past that point it’s easy. If you miss the new trail the old trail will eventually end and you’ll be forced to come back to this point or cut straight up hill on the backside of the mountain.

There’s a great echo point when you are on the back side of Slide, when you can see the fire lookout on your right like this. Turn to the West and let loose a ferocious roar. You’ll hear a neat echo that fades then you’ll hear it come back around at you. Try this.

Enjoy the views from the top and the hike down.

Album of pictures from trip

A few days ago, Gant, Jared and I climbed Alta peak. I’ll write about that later. The thing that struck me was while hiking we ran into not only this, but three other hikers going up the trail. Each of them were solo, while we were rolling three deep.

It just made me thankful to have friends to travel with into these places and see these things and experience these events. Those three solo hikers don’t have the same level of safety net that we did, but more importantly I don’t think they’d have quite as much fun either. Sometimes solitude is great, there’s nothing like that feeling of the immensity of the world when you are the only person for a hundred square miles. Sometimes that is exactly what you need.

But there is safety, a measure of fun and a shared sense of adventure when you have a good crew.

I’m thankful for my family, who allow me the time to explore. I’m thankful for my friends who explore with me and I’m thankful for BSG being back on this Saturday, though I’m working, so I’m also thankful for my DVR.

Alta Peak

There were the usual three of us; Gant, Jared and I. We planned on driving up to Alta peak in Sequoia Kings Canyon and camping at the trail head, day hiking it and returning home the next night. The plan was basic and we kept to it, which is hard to believe but true. Alta turned out to have as fantastic a view as I’d heard so it was well worth the effort.

When we got to Visalia we grabbed dinner at some fancy place that Gant was going to pay for as a birthday meal for me. I ordered some regular food while the twins ordered some fancy feast. Well, go figure the kitchen or the server screwed up the fancy order and the two of them wound up getting something they neither wanted, nor liked. After nearly coming to tears the server got them their correct order and didn’t charge them at all for their meals which was nice of her. While we were eating dinnner, Gant and I were trying to plan out some details for the upcoming Death Valley marathon, but somehow Jared got lost in the conversation and thought we were talking about the Alta trip. This caused him much consternation and confusion and hopefully he will pay closer attention in the future.

We arrived somewhat late in Seki and started rather ingloriously by placing a tent where tents were not allowed. But, no matter. Jared brought his doorless tent, everyone but Gant brought a cot and we slept the night away, without any interference from wildlife or anything else. Jared made breakfast, not for everyone but for himself and we started off. The mileage was to be right around 7 miles, one way so we were figuring a pretty long day ahead of us. The morning was quite frosty, as evidenced by Gant’s wearing of more clothes than he usually does (There is a similarity between those two, you can’t deny that).

So, we hiked. The first significant landmark was Panther Gap, which was quite nice. We stopped here and had an extended brunch, while Jared told us about wanting to start a combination Frisbee/Volleyball team. From the Gap looking into California’s central valley it was covered with clouds from end to end as far as we could tell. Which made it easy to identify it’s southern end, bordered by Pinos and Frazier. That was pretty cool, basically seeing Gorman from Seki, over a hundred miles away.

Gant made some stunning observations about Jared’s clothing line, which seems to have been modeled far too closely after mine. Slightly frightening when you consider his resemblance to Private Pyle and Pyle’s subsequent mental breakdown.

So, after Panther gap, we continued on. Miles and miles and miles. Beautiful country of course, the western end of Sequoia Kings is quite lush in the lowlands. We were in the same general vicinity of day one of the High Sierra Trail. We crossed some of the same watersheds, though at higher elevations and saw the Mighty Black Kaweah, Eagle Scout peak as well as Lawson peak for those that read that HST story. Still was quite beautiful, even from as far away as we were.

Eventually, we pounded out the seven miles, passing into the Alpine zone and right by Tharp’s rock. We had gained the summit. Time to touch the tip top of it; Gant, Jared, Josh. The views were spectacular. From Pinos/Frazier in the south, to Whitney all the way out west across a sea of summits and to the north where solemn Banner and Ritter lie. Looking across the tablelands into the Great Western Divide kept our eyes captivated as we tried to identify just a few of the hundreds of peaks visible. Alta peak has a stupendous amount of Sierra Nevada real estate in view, within easy reach of most people. The route is only 15 miles round trip, the elevation isn’t too high, it’s only a few hours of driving from most of the major population centers in California but it’s so infrequently visited by any of the 37 million mouth breathers that share my state. Those people know not what they are missing.

The summit log did have a line in it that I think I’ll always remember. When you sign a summit log, you generally put the date, a small sentence or two, where you are from and your name. This log entry’s location was stated as, “Balls deep in yo mamma’s ass”.

Album of pictures from trip

The triathlon was great for a bunch of reasons. One of the things that I keep going back to though is the families I got to interact with. Jared’s entire family; Liz, Jared’s brother, brother’s wife, dad, and mom were all there to cheer him on. Gant’s entire family was there as well; dad, mom, brother and brother’s wife to cheer on the two Gant brothers in the tri.

Both sets of families were really close, really friendly and were great to watch them interact with eachother. It was a sober reminder of what I will never have. I’ll never have my mom, dad, sister and brother (wherever he is) as one cohesive unit, supportive and tight like that. The other thing that it made me remember is that sometimes people really don’t appreciate how much they have, because they’ve never been without it.

What I’ve been trying to figure out is what I have that I’ve been taking for granted. I’ve got my health, my family, a house to live in and good friends.

I’d like Jacob and Attia to grow up like Dan and Jared, where the family is so solid and stable that it’s taken for granted.

I’m just going to ride my mountain bike…

The Carp tri was finally here. All the training and planning and organizing had finally come to a head. We were in Carpinteria, waiting for the whistle to blow to start the party. I was anxious to get in the water, get that initial shock of cold over and start the race so the knot in my stomach would go away. I’m sure Jared and the two Gants felt the same way. That’s not how this story starts though.

A few months back, I don’t even remember how exactly it came up anymore but Gant was planning on running a couple of triathlons. Knowing that I need goals to work towards and this was to be a kind of long term commitment to train up for I was pretty excited. Jared was a lifeguard, so I could drain him for swimming tips and tricks and plenty of practice as well. So, the three of us started getting ready.

Doing an initial inventory of what we had compared to what we needed was unpleasant. Since it was going to be an ocean swim, most people would be wearing a wetsuit. I didn’t have one. Jared has one, but it’s old and ratted out. Gant has one, and even had a spare that fit me, though he failed to mention that until one week before the triathlon. The tri was also going to involve a 26 mile bike ride, on the road. I have a mountain bike; have only ridden a road bike like once or twice in my life. Jared has a mountain bike and has never ridden a road bike. Gant has a road bike (though no spare).

At first I planned on swimming once or twice tops before the race, and concentrating on my strengths, which I thought would be the bike primarily and the run secondarily. Jared and I drove out to Carp to meet with Gant and go for an ocean swim. Gant wore his wetsuit, Jared and I had boardshorts. The Pacific Ocean near Carp is a big ball of cold as far as I’m concerned. That swim sucked. The cold and lack of recent swims conspired to keep me from catching my breath at all while in the water. Gant and Jared both had worried looks on their faces as they hovered around me on the swim. One of the main things that kept me afloat was my fear of mouth to mouth resuscitation from either of those two.

That swim scared me. I was slow and sucky and the water was cold. I went home and ordered a wetstuit online from a place called wetsuitrental.com. A few days later Jared did too. We also started scouring craigslist for road bikes that were affordable-ish. Unfortunately there wasn’t much. There were some old beaters for a hundred or so and some big baller bikes for a thousand and more but not much in the mid range. I asked everyone I knew, Jared asked people he knew and we hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst by mountain biking everywhere from here to White Mountain.

Weeks went by with no sign of anyone with a decent road bike to borrow or a moderately good deal for sale. We continued to swim, Jared and Jackie both showed me a bunch of little things I was doing wrong, or inefficiently and I showed both of them my appreciation with a quick display of my middle finger.

Jared’s brother actually wound up tracking down two nice bikes to borrow two weeks before the race. So, we were set, wetsuits were soon to be shipped to us and we had road bikes for the race. Life looked good.

Those last couple of weeks went fast. We rode the road and realized how different road vs. mountain bikes are. To me personally, the road bike seems to use more of my quad; the upper and middle section of it, whereas the mountain bike seems to work my lower quad more. So, each road ride was quite difficult as my mid and upper quad seemed underdeveloped. That in addition to the fact that road bikes are geared much higher, so don’t seem to climb nearly as well and are a much rougher ride, due to the lack of a big padded seat and suspension.

Gant was still complaining that he wasn’t working out enough and his 14 mile run one day really left him tired. He also tried saying that him and his brother were just going to chill on the tri, and generally cruise. I know what that means from Gant. When Gant says that it means he’s going to pass you, but when he passes you he’ll stop to chat. That actually does a couple things;

1) It makes you doubt yourself because he’s just chilling and he’s passing you.

2) It shows you how he’s going to carry on conversation without breaking a sweat while you’re at your max output (this picture is of Gant and I on a Special Olympics torch run in Ventura county. Yes, he’s on the phone, yes I’m sweating).

3) It then shows you how he can just wrap up the conversation, (generally because you can’t reply to him because you’re out of breath) and then speed off like you’re a paraplegic on a NASCAR track.

4) His brother is the same.

Early morning on race day came; we were all in Carp ready and waiting for the starting whistle. It blew and we started. Jared and I started in the same age group, and Gant and his brother started in the same group six minutes behind us.

Of course, Team Gant wound up passing both of us in short order, even with one of them getting a flat tire on the bike portion of the race. Yeah, they are that fast.

The swim went remarkably well for me. 34 minutes to do 1500 meters, well better than I expected. The run went worse though, so my total time was 3 hours, 8 minutes. Which was pretty good for me, my goal was to get under 3 hours. So I have something to strive for at the next one. Jared was about four minutes behind me and the Gants were about 12 minutes in front of me. It was fun, quite a bit of fun actually.

Here are the results overall.

Here’s about the only picture I’ve got. Hopefully more later, though none from me. All the pictures were taken by Jared’s and Gant’s families whom were all present to cheer them on.

Here’s one of the two Gant brothers, taken by their dad, just before Project Triathlon Domination began.

No CF card present

So, Jared, Gant and I had a plan to go up to White mountain and do some high elevation training prior to the Triathlon at the end of the month. Gant couldn’t make it for various reasons unfortunately. So it was just Jared and I this time.

We got up to WM relatively quickly, about 4 hours from my house and went up to about 11,000 feet to Patriarch grove. Going from 3,000 feet at home to over 11,000 feet within hours is a tough transition. But we needed to acclimate for the next day, so we had to do it. At Patriarch we went for a small warmup hike and then ran 3 miles. Lungs just can’t process enough oxygen at that elevation to maintain much cardiovascular activity, and 3 miles was about my limit at that point.

I tried to take a picture, and got the dreaded, “No CF card present” message. I forgot to bring any storage for my camera, absolute moron. So, we went down to Bishop, through the Silver Canyon shortcut, which is a notoriously tough road. I’ve been up it once and never wanted to go that way again. Now we are going down it to get to town before everything closes. I wound up with one flat and high blood pressure by the time we got to town. The only flash cards I could find were 256 megs, which hold about 25 pictures on my camera and cost 20 bucks. GREAT.

After this we went down to Grandview campground, which is at around 8,300 feet to setup camp. Grandview is one of my favorite places to camp. It’s a large, underpopulated campground, each of the campsites have quite a bit of privacy, there’s absolutely no light pollution, and it’s pretty high in elevation so there’s less atmosphere to look through at the stars. It’s a beautiful place to go to look at the sky. This place generally has a few amatuer astronomers scattered about because of how great a place it is. By amatuer I mean guys with telescopes that are bigger than Andre the Giant. They need ladders to climb up and look into the eyepieces. Amatuer might not be the right word for these guys, I’ve never seen telescopes this big and every time I go up there, there’s always one or two setup.

So, we setup camp, lit a little fire and had some kielbasa. Since car camping has no weight issues, we both brought inflatable mattresses, Jared’s was a queen sized one, mine was a twin. Lord I wish I could bring that thing backpacking. In the morning we suited up and got to the trailhead with our mountain bikes. We started at 11,000 feet again and had about 7 or 8 miles of riding ahead of us to get to the top of the mountain at 14,000 feet.

As usual this is a very tough ride. I did it a few years ago, and it’s not any easier now. We both made it with bikes to the top, both completely exhausted. We took some pictures and bailed before Jared felt too naseaus. I saw for the second time ever on White a large herd of big horned sheep.

I also returned to the Bristlecone pines for some more pictures before leaving the next day.

Album

What’s that picture got to do with anything?

Well, that picture really has nothing to do with training up for a triathlon, but Gant is the one who initiated this triathlon nonsense and that picture pretty much defines hardcore for me so I used it. Gant’s idea about running a tri spawned with his brother as far as I can tell, but now that Gant’s got his panties all bunched up about it, I think he’s just as excited.

I’m excited, just afraid of deep water in some ways. I don’t like not knowing what’s underneath me. So flying and open ocean swimming are in the same category, except for a few differences; sharks being one of them.

This will be the Carpinteria triahtlon, olympic distance. 1.5k open ocean swim, 40k bike ride and 10k run. As long as I get out of the water without being dragged out by lifeguards, I shouldn’t have a problem with any of it. Just that swim kind of sketches me out. We’ll see, either way, it’s been a good excuse to get into some really good shape.

That looks like Jesus.

Well, Gant couldn’t make this one due to a yeast infection I think? I’m not sure, this was a few months ago and my memory isn’t what it used to be. If anyone remembers more accurately why he couldn’t make it, let me know and I’ll be sure to update this ASAP!

So, Jared and I were going to tag a little peak known as University, by going up the Robinson lake trail and then up to University pass and onto University peak. This didn’t prove to be possible and due to a lack of research, we didn’t take advantage of another option that may have lead us to the peak. This was to be a little two day trip, nothing too crazy. So, we drove up after work one day and then slept in the car at the trailhead. Apparently neither of us have learned not to sleep in the car if you want a restful night’s sleep. I am going to go ahead and say it, I hit a fox on the way to the trailhead. Terribly cute little guy just doing the funky chicken on the side of the road after I hit him, I felt bad.

Anyway, we got up early and hit the old dusty trail, though in this case the trail turned out to be quite wet. Up we went a couple thousand feet to Robinson lake, a nice little Sierra jewel to see in a big bowl of mountains. We broke here for a bit and tried to plot out our path as this is where the trail ended. We decided to follow the drainage directly up the bowl to a large patch of snow and skirt that.

Once beyond the snow we would have a clear shot at University pass, which after an abysmally dry snow year should be passable this early in the season without any additional equipment. Unfortunately, it wasn’t passable. There was still a substantial amount of snow there. We looked north, to where University peak itself should be, and tried to see if there was a route straight up the finger we were looking at to the peak but weren’t sure. Jared had some photocopies of Secor’s penultimate guide to the Sierra to reference, but apparently the page we were missing describes the route that we were looking at and it was doable, if only we had gone for it.

So, we decided to head on back. On the way, on the southern ridge there is a very prominent rock. It looks, I swear just like a large statue of Jesus from the side. Wearing a robe and a belt and all. I didn’t take a picture of it, because these are the kinds of things you need to see for yourself. If anyone is interested, I’ll gladly return to University and show you where it is, as long as you climb the peak with me.

Album

I’ve got poison oak again for the first time since 2004. This time, after hearing about Jared’s troubles with the oak and the drugs (steroids) doctors prescribed for it I went to the doctor for some meds. If you’re unaware, I despise poison oak with a passion of a thousand suns. Between the oak and sunburns I can’t decide which I’d rather die from but they are basically my worst nightmares.

Anyway, yeah steroids are neat. I can feel a surge of sustained energy about 1/2 an hour after taking them. It’s something of a rush. I might have to hold on to a few of them in case I do the old Baker To Vegas run this year. So that’s about it. I just wanted to put in a little note about the oak so I remember it in the future. Much like I remember the 2004 oak episode.

That’s about it. Welcome to 2007, if I can keep this trend up I won’t get any more oak until 2010.