Aug 14, 2008

Great Western Divide, ending and epilogue

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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:

Aug 13, 2008

Great Western Divide, Mitchell Peak, Day 5

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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:

Next Day