Jodag.NET

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

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

Just a local mountain, which is/was the high point on the Old Ridge Route. Great bike ride, nothing else to see here.

Triple Digits

Triple digit temperatures. That’s what was forecast for Death Valley during the two days that we planned on being out there on May 3rd and 4th. There are three of us who have been training together (Gant, J$ and I) to get ready for the HST trip later this year and one new addition (Gant’s roomate, Charlie). We got up there a bit later than expected on Wednesday, but that was ok, since it got us to start our hike after the hottest part of the day. Our plan was to carry our backpacks out a few miles, setup a basecamp and spend the night there. Then in the morning, tag the peak fast and light with just daypacks.

The plan was going well on Tuesday, the temperatures were in the 80’s at most, nice clear, cloudless sky. Telescope peak had a nice coating of winter snow up top and Gant broke his already broken cool guy shades, Charlie was pounding water and Jared was pounding some tunes. We hit a few patches of snow, threw some snowballs and just hiked along.

About three miles in, we found ourselves at our first goal. We had gone off trail to bag a nondescript peak named Bennett. At the top of it, we decided that this was a great spot to setup camp to see the sunrise/set over the sierra crest and badwater. So we setup camp, cooked some dinner and it started to get cold. Did I mention that it was going to be so hot that I didn’t even pack pant legs that weighed less than a pound? Yep, that’s right, I was wearing shorts and it was cold. Great sunset and fun to sit around watching it in 30 degree temps.

Wednesday morning we slowly got out of the tents, it was cold and windy so we didn’t really start the day until about 9 or so. Gant apparently used some of his W. connections to get us a mini-airshow first thing in the morning. A couple of A-10’s on a refueling run and the CHP bird all swung by to say hi.

Eventually it was time to move out, bag the peak and get on outta there. So we started hiking. It was overcast and obviously snowing (this picture also shows the ridge you follow to get to the peak) on the peak, though it didn’t look too major. As we climbed higher and higher the snow got thicker on the ground and heavier from the sky, along with the temps still dropping, though it was in the 40’s, perfect short weather. Eventually we got to a point where there was no more ground without snow cover. This was basically the point where Charlie stopped.

Gant, Jared and I kept trudging uphill. The final section of Telescope is a notoriously steep climb, add in about 3 feet of snow to slop through, a few inches falling from the sky and a pair of shorts and you have a good idea of what I was feeling like. Jared took the shortcut, and after a few hours of crawling up this snow covered steepossity, we were at the top, where we each did our own thing (DG, JG, JM). This is where the adventure actually begins.

Downhill was carefree for an hour or two too long. We partied on the peak and threw snowballs for almost two hours total time. Throwing the snowballs had the double plus good effect of drenching our gloves as well as slowing down our rate of descent. This wouldn’t have been a problem if it weren’t for the storm, nay let me re-phrase that, the thunderstorm, nope not quite right yet, the snowstorm thunderstorm that was rolling our way.

We first heard random thunder from the north, much further away than would be worrisome to us, except that we were headed north and the thunder was generally heading south. By the time we got to the saddle between Telescope and Bennett lightning was visibly hitting Bennett peak. We hadn’t run into Charlie on the way down as of yet and with our camp still setup at the top of Bennett, we figured he must have went back to camp and hopefully packed his shit and ran for lowlands before the storm hit him.

Thinking that Charlie was safe, and knowing that ascending the highest point around with no cover in a thunder/snow storm would be a terribly stupid idea, we dropped off the trail, down into a low lying grove of trees and found one to hide under. During the hour that we waited out the storm the following happened:

• Temperature dropped from 46 to 36 degrees.
• Snow kept falling
• Lightning struck 1-2 seconds away from us (1/5 - 2/5 of a mile away)
• Snow kept falling
• Scorpion was found under a rock I was sitting on.
• Snow kept on falling

Lightning was striking all around us, it was cold, Gant was starting to feel sleepy in the cold and our wet gloves weren’t helping the situation, neither were my shorts to be honest. But, like all things, the core of the storm eventually passed us and we made a run for our camp. This is when we discovered that Charlie had actually sheltered in his tent, on a peak in a snowstorm. He is a lucky man not to have been hit. We made the decision to pack camp and make a quick run to low ground as the storm was flattening Charlie’s tent and we didn’t know how long it would last.

Charlie had called 911 to report us as missing as well. So, we bagged our shit up as quickly as we could. My legs were starting to feel the sting of a full day of cold, wet snow. We started downhill and by the time we got to below 9,000 feet or so the storm abated and we had time to actually look back at what we had been through. Of course by this point my CF card was full so I got no pictures (a problem to be rectified by the HST trip).

So we made it back to the truck safely after all that. I’ve not been that close to that big a storm without any safety gear, ever.

So to recap the adventures I have had while Mr. Gant has been there:

1. Broke my finger on Split
2. He almost died numerous times climbing out of Ubehebe crater
3. Me, him and Jared damn near bit it on Telescope.

Am I sure the HST trip is a good idea?

Gant and I hit Mt Gould, This is just for the record.  Next time I’m going for the traverse to Dragon peak.

Jarr and I went out to the WMRS to be guinea pigs for a couple of days and then we had a day off before the weekend was over. We decided to sleep on top of the peak on our day off, bad idea. That night the winds gusted up to 67 mph and averaged 35 or so, on the way home we were stuck in detours around the Socal wildfires for an extra three or four hours of traffic, and I got a flat.

It all started off so nicely though…

Thursday October 23, 2003

4:45 AM my alarm goes off and I take a quick shower then I’m off to pick up Jarr. We start the 5 hour drive up north and run into a small section of fire right off the 15N, driving through the smoke and haze was a bit odd but neither of us thought much about it at the time. This very same fire would cost us four hours on the way home, it’s a small price compared to what some have lost to the fires though. We arrived at the Owens Valley Laboratory and awaited the arrival of Dr. Gerald Dubowitz. While we were waiting, Jarr and I shot some basketball until the Doctor arrived (about 15 minutes later).

He packs his gear into the bed of the truck and we head up Silver Canyon to the Barcroft facility. We spent about 15 minutes there at twelve thousand feet, relaxing and getting just a bit lightheaded after having no time to acclimate to the altitude, and then we continued driving to the summit hut. This whole road is beyond the locked gate where everyone usually starts their hikes to White Mountain, so this is the first time I’ve gotten to drive it. It’s very tough shit, basically slick, thick slate rock the last mile or so uphill. Fun road though, would like to go up it in one of the old Willy’s jeeps though, that would be a blast. To update the scoreboard, I’ve now; dayhiked, backpacked, driven to and dayhiked in the snow to the top of this here mountain. The only things left on my scorecard are running the route up and down and finally at some point in the future snowboarding down it.

Anyway, we got to the summit and the doctor started his tests. He ultra-sounded our hearts, recorded a bunch of data and then we were done after a couple of hours. We head back down to the Barcroft facility thankfully. The fact that we had gone from sea level to fourteen thousand feet up with absolutely no acclimation was starting to wear on us all. When we got back down to the Barcroft we ate dinner, he ran some more tests and then we kind of fell asleep after a long, long day.

Friday

Breakfast was good, Matt and Paul up at Barcroft can fire up some good grub, that’s for sure. The good doctor ran some more tests on us this morning, then Jen showed up to be a 3rd guinea pig. We all headed up to the summit hut again for some more tests, today we are going to spend just about all day up there doing tests and hanging out. Since the doctor can only test one of us at a time and there are three of us total we each had quite a bit of time to kill up top. Thankfully as part of the research in the area WMRS has installed a wireless T1 repeater up there at the summit hut so we were able to browse the web from above 14 thousand feet. I believe it’s the highest internet access point in North America, coincidentally.

So outside of internet access and eating the goodies that the doc brought up we generally just chilled out on the summit talking to the people who hiked up that day.

After all the tests were done we headed down to Barcroft again. I hiked up to the radio telescope for some sunset pictures and got back in time for some good dinner style grub. When dinner and cleanup were done I played some ping pong with Matt, Jarr played pool with Paul and then Jen, Matt, me and the doctor played some cut throat ping pong. After running around the table awhile at twelve thousand feet we got tired and after the doc ran some more tests we just relaxed.

Saturday

Early start today, we packed up all our gear and goods, got some breakfast, the doctor ran the last of his tests at the Barcroft facility and we were done. We said our goodbyes, and then Jarr and I started our hike to the peak. It was a pretty easy hike for us; we made it up there in less than three hours with our packs on. Once we got to the top it was about 2pm and we had another four hours to kill before the sun went down. I brought a football, but Jarr had a bit of a headache so instead of playing catch we just read the summit log entries. Eventually a group came up and I got to play catch with one of them for awhile.

As afternoon wore on we decided to setup our tents. The hardest part of this was finding a level soft spot that was big enough for our tents, there was about no room available and it was nearly impossible to stake down anything up there. Eventually we got them setup, and then when the sun started to set we deployed the tripods/cameras for the sunset light show.

It started getting windy as the sun went down, as is normal in desert areas. Then it started getting really windy as is usual in exposed areas at fourteen thousand feet. It was a terribly ugly wind; it howled and screamed all night long. I don’t think either of us got any decent sleep up there, the winds averaged about 35 miles an hour and gusted up to 60 or so (thanks to the weather station at the summit we know exactly how crappy it was, graphs are at the bottom of this document).

The tents took a horrific beating all night long due to the wind, and because I’m dumb I set mine up where it was rubbing on rocks all night. All that abrasion added a couple of unnecessary holes to my rain fly; hopefully some duck tape (Story of duck tape) will take care of that in a jiffy. Eventually that horribly cold, horrifically windy night ended with a sunrise. The wind didn’t end, and the cold was slow in going away but at least we were able to get out of the tents and walk around after the sun was up.

Sunday

We packed up quickly, hiked back to the truck even quicker and were done in less than two hours. About an hour into the drive, my front right tire went flat so we changed that thing out in about fifteen minutes. I needed new tires before snow season anyway, so this will ensure that I don’t delay that purchase. After this, we hit the Owens River, GOD that was COLD water. It felt good though; we both took two swings into the river and then continued the long drive back home…

… the drive went so well until we were almost home. After driving about four of the five hours we heard on the radio that the route home was closed due to the fires, since we had been out of the area all weekend and heard no news this was a shocking piece of info, over the last few days it seemed like the entire southern California landmass had ignited. That last hour of driving we had left had just doubled. Then we realized that everyone from Vegas would be using our detour route too. That last hour just turned into three extra hours of driving. What a load of crap.

White Mtn Sumt (WMRS) California

MEAN WIND SPEED

MAXIMUM WIND GUST

Thursday, October 9th, 2003

After work let out, Eric and I drove to Jarr’s house to pick him up. Jarr threw his gear in the car, he also brought some much appreciated drinks and snacks for the drive and we were off. The plan was to drive up to Grandview campground that night, sleep in or around the car and wake up early on Friday to drive another hour or so north to the Mammoth Lakes ranger station, pick up a permit and get to the trailhead for some backpacking fun. As we got to the town of Big Pine, where the turnoff for Grandview is, we were hungry and realized there is nothing to eat in Big Pine. So we decide to keep traveling up the road to the biggest town in the Owens Valley; Bishop to grab some food.

Bishop is less than ½ hour away from Big Pine so we get there pretty quickly and ate dinner in the coldest Jack in the Box in the world; the thermometer on my watch was reading low in the low 70’s inside that damn restaurant, so we ate quickly and got out of there into the (relatively) warm outdoors. At this point I think we all realized that it would be stupid to drive south again to the original plan’s campsite, since we needed to go north in the morning anyway. So, we figure we can find some desolate area to park the car in and sleep somewhere between Bishop and Mammoth Lakes. The good news is we were right. We turned off the 395 (highway we’d been on since leaving southern California) onto a little highway with a church on it and no streetlights. We found a dirt road a few miles down, located a good place to stash the car and slept soundly until morning came.

Friday

We woke up before sunrise, there were big gravel loading trucks driving up and down the dirt road that we had slept nearby which worked as a very effective alarm clock. After some oatmeal we got back on the road and were at the ranger station by 7:30am, but they didn’t open until 8 and the only ranger there was a fat little prick who wouldn’t issue a permit until they were open. So we took the time to fill up the gas tank, Eric bought a beanie from the Von’s in town before the strike started and we got back to the station right at 8am for our permit. With permit in hand, we got back on the 395 and continued north to Silver Lake and the Rush Creek Trailhead.

When we stepped off on the hike, my pack was just over forty pounds and I think the other two had about equivalent pack weights, though I’m not sure. The first three miles of the hike are intensely steep, without any letup at all; there were few flat spots though we took advantage of each and every one of them. The trailhead starts at about 7000 feet, and by the end of those three miles you are at about 10,000 feet. This works out to an average 19% uphill grade, which was a killer. Up to this point we had passed Lake Agnew, Gem Lake and through Spooky Meadow, into the Ansel Adams Wilderness where we then broke for lunch at a stream where we thought we were at the end of the tough part, HAH.

At this point, Eric and Jarr were both starting to form blisters on their feet. Eric because he hasn’t worn boots in years and Jarr because he had on some socks that didn’t agree with him apparently. Eric starts cutting up some moleskin for Jarr, I relax in my Sling-light and try to figure out why I’m out here hauling all this stupidly heavy gear up a mountain that really could care less about me. We’ve taken a lot of breaks on the way up this point, and this one is the longest of the bunch at about 20 minutes, that uphill really did drain a lot of energy from the batteries.

After lunch we continued on the path, eventually realizing that the INSANE uphill was over and now we are only dealing with terribly crazy uphill/downhill slopes for the next four miles, though once Thousand Island Lake and Banner came into view, it made it all this exertion worthwhile. Along the way we did pass the Clark Lakes, and through some gorgeous Yosemite-esque granite/tree combinations (side note, this area used to be part of Yosemite, but was wanted by the mining companies around the turn of the century, so it was removed from the park by Congress. I don’t mind it at all though, it’s nowhere near as crowded as Yosemite is, matter of fact we had only seen one other person so far today).

So, it’s getting onto about 3pm now and we’ve been hiking for a solid six hours at this point. We are at the East end of the lake; we are planning on camping at the West end, so we still have about two miles to go. Eric’s feet are hurting bad, since he didn’t put any moleskin on his blister points, Jarr’s blisters are doing better but they still hurt and I’m just kinda tired. We take a break at a nice point near the lake, Eric falls asleep on a rock, Jarr walks on a rock path out to one of the islands and after taking some pictures, I followed him out there. We soaked our feet in the cold lake water and relaxed for awhile. Realizing that we only had a few hours of sunlight left, we picked up our packs again and moved on, looking for a campsite.

Along the way we passed one that looked pretty good, it had a fire ring and was near the tree line so there would be some deadfall to burn, plus it wasn’t too close to the trail we were on. The only problem with it is that it was too far away from the base of Banner, where we’d be starting our summit attempt the next morning. So, dead tired, we continued walking towards the West end of the lake and the base of Banner. I had been told there would be quite a few really nice sites in this area, but as worn out as we were, we just didn’t have the energy to get off the trail and look for them, and we just kept on the trail and tried to find something close to it. Eventually, we did find one, it wasn’t anything special, the tents would need to be erected about 2 feet from the trail that people walked on and there was no fire ring, but it was good enough right then so we setup camp. Thankfully we had still only seen one person, a day hiker named Derek who had turned around a couple miles back.

After camp was setup and all the basic chores like gathering water and scrounging some wood were done we started on dinner. Eric couldn’t figure out how to use his can opener, so he had to open his canned food with a knife, while Jarr and I just had dehydrated meals for dinner. The sun set pretty early behind the ridge to our west, but the sky stayed bright for awhile and then the full moon rose which encouraged us to stay up and just relax before trying to fall asleep. The night didn’t get quite as cold as I would have expected for mid-October Sierra highlands, when we hit the tents at around 9 or 10 it was still in the low 40’s or high 30’s. Sitting there, staring up at Banner was quite inspiring; its glaciers glowed in the moonlight, and it’s reflection in Thousand Island Lake was as clear as a mirror. I wanted to make a mental tattoo of this image; I never want to forget how beautiful it was out there.

Saturday

Sometime around 2am I heard footsteps outside the tent. Neither of the other two guys heard it, and I guess Jarr had a little trouble falling asleep after that, sorry Jarr. We never did see it or find any tracks from it, but the footsteps sounded pretty small anyway. We were up with sunrise though a couple hours later, cooked up some quick oatmeal and put together our summit packs with some food, warm clothes and miscellaneous other things that might come in handy and stepped off. Our first goal was North Glacier Pass, the total distance to the peak was about 4 miles and this pass led to Catherine Lake, which was about the halfway point of the hike. From there we would skirt the lake’s south side and travel up to the left of the glacier along the talus field to the saddle between Ritter and Banner, where we would find a route to the top of Banner. By all accounts, a relatively technical day-hike with a lot of rock jumping, we were looking forward to a fun day, at least I was.

We start off good and strong, Jarr and Eric both still have their blisters, but moleskin and duct-tape keep them largely in check. The route up to glacier pass is a huge talus field, there is really no right way up, but I’m sure there are a lot of wrong ways. The rocks are all stable though, so we didn’t have too much to worry about as we jumped from one to the next. This didn’t take too long, once we got to the pass; we saw Catherine Lake, which is a gorgeous alpine lake and is actually quite unnerving to look at. Within feet of the edge of the lake, it drops nearly straight down into some very, very deep and cold water. For some reason, deep water has always made me a bit uncomfortable. I can swim almost all day long, but if I can’t see the bottom of a body of water I don’t like to be near it. Whatever though, it was sunny, a little chilly, we were halfway up the mountain and doing well on time, life is good.

Here comes the tough part. After finding a way up and over to the pass we would take to the Ritter/Banner saddle we start climbing along a very steep talus slope above the glacier. The main problem here is that the talus is unstable, so when trying to take your next step you don’t know if the rock you are stepping onto is solid or if it will slide right down to the glacier. It took us almost 3 hours to travel about one mile, and if you’ve never heard that god awful low frequency rumble that an avalanche, no matter how small, produces, I hope you never do. The source of the sound is nearly impossible to locate, at least it is for me, but it’s something that raises the hairs on your neck in a very primal way. As we approached the saddle that would take us to Banner peak itself, we were still good on time. I had set a turnaround time of no later than 2pm for the summit attempt, to ensure we had plenty of daylight to get back to camp. We still had over an hour left before this deadline and less than a thousand feet of elevation to go.

We were tired though, it was mentally exhausting up to this point, fear does that to you. Jarr and Eric had a couple close calls on the way up to this point and the rock hopping had put a lot of pressure and pain on their blisters. I noticed that my pants had a small tear in them from something I don’t really remember hitting along the way and we decided that today wasn’t going to be the day we hit the summit, so we turned around.

Unfortunately, downclimbing loose talus is just about as difficult as climbing up it and we were tired from a couple long days so we took it relatively slow and safe. On the way down, Jarr and I found a hole in the glacier. We threw some rocks into there to try to figure out how deep it was and to hear the splash when the rock hit the water underneath. I figure (entirely un-scientifically) that the glacier is probably about 10 feet thick, where we were at. When we hit Catherine Lake we took nearly a half hour break just enjoying the view and the afternoon sun’s warmth at about 11,000 feet as our nerves relaxed. Along the way down we were discussing moving our camp a couple miles back towards the trailhead; this would save us time and mileage on the trip back to the car on Sunday which would put us home earlier, plus we might be able to find something with a fire ring. At some point I lost my gloves on the way back to camp, which wasn’t too smart of me. Thankfully the nights weren’t too cold out there, or my hands would not have liked me very much.

After the long hike down, we were back. It had been a terribly exhausting day and to be honest all I wanted to do is sit down and relax for a few hours, this was not to be though, because these other two clowns wanted to move camp, damn them. Jarr and I are pretty fast at tearing down a camp by now; I still have a little advantage in tent takedown time though. Because Eric’s blisters were slowing him down so much he just packed his gear and started to gimp walk out of there as soon as he was done, without waiting for Jarr and me. Once Jarr and I were packed up we followed him, I think this little hike was the toughest portion of the weekend personally, I don’t really know why as it was just a mile or two tops. By the time I caught up to Eric he had found a site, but it wasn’t as good as we were hoping for and I wasn’t about to settle for a mediocre site after busting my ass to find something newer and better. I dropped my pack and moved up the trail, no more than ten minutes of walking later I luckily stumbled into this godsend of a site. It had two fire pits, two tent areas; it was secluded and looked out over Thousand Island Lake right to Banner Peak. It was perfect; we setup camp there, grubbed on some dinner and relaxed around the fire for a couple hours before going to sleep.

Sunday

We set are alarms and woke up at about 5:45am, packed up camp and hiked back to the car. We slogged out to this point after seven hours of hiking on Friday, on Sunday, even as tired as we were we made it back to the car in just over four hours. At the trailhead we cleaned ourselves up a bit, and started the long drive back to Orange County. We didn’t stop at the rope swing off the 168 because there were a bunch of cars already there and it looked a bit crowded, we decided it would be too much of a hassle. That sucked, that rope swing is one of my favorite things to do after a weekend, the Owens River water is refreshingly chilly, but not so cold that you don’t want to jump in. It washes off some of the dirt, stink, grime and oil from a trip and wakes me up for the drive home. What a shame it was crowded.

Epilogue

Overall though, it was a good trip. None of us had seen this section of the Sierra, and we were all amazed with how beautiful it was. There was no one to be seen, except a group of three Marines from Bridgeport rappelling down Banner, a couple other campers around the lake on Saturday and the day-hiker on Friday. We got close to the peak, and found a perfect campsite for the next trip out there, who’s interested?

Album of most of the pics from this trip

Friday September 19, 2003

Jarr, Lan and I are leaving Orange County for Inyo County and the White Mountains; it’s about 8:30 pm when we get on the road. The drive up was largely uneventful, except for the blown up 18 wheeler on the side of the road outside of Adelanto. We arrived at Sierra View around 2:00 am, Lan and Jarr both used the last bathroom – I use that term loosely, that we would see for the next two days. Standing around in the cold, dark, lonely night I realized I don’t really like standing around alone on dark and cold nights in the middle of nowhere. As soon as they came back, we continued driving in Jarr’s Saturn on the relatively well maintained dirt road leading to the locked Barcroft gate and arrived right around 3am, woke up quite a few of the people who had arrived before us and were sleeping comfortably with our headlights and we decided to sleep in the car – it was about 40 degrees outside.

Saturday

So, three hours later it’s 6am and we are awake but tired. I notice that Jarr is sleeping outside now, and sometime during the night Lan had tried sleeping outside as well but retreated into the car again at some point. Since we didn’t have a really tight schedule for the day it didn’t matter really what time we left the car, we fell back asleep for another two hours. Upon awaking for the second time that morning, we fire up breakfast and make some final adjustments on our packs, looked up the steep incline that was the start of the hike and began.

The plan was pretty simple; hike out about 5 miles on Saturday, setup camp somewhere, sleep for the night and awake on Sunday for a nice early and easy summit bid then hike back to the car with much lighter packs. This trip would allow Jarr some time to check out his new gear – tent, sleeping bag, pack. The slow pace of the hike would hopefully allow Lan a little more time to acclimate to the higher altitudes – the hike starts at just above 11,000 feet and ends at 14,246 feet and I just wanted to get out and backpack; it had been a pretty weenie summer for me.

So, we begin with much courage and joy in our hearts, it was just about 10am and the sky was as completely clean of clouds. In the Owens valley, about 7,000 feet below us the temperatures would reach into the 90’s during the day. At our elevation the temperature wouldn’t climb above 70, though it felt warmer than that because of the effort involved in carrying 40+ pound packs for miles in that high and dry environment. About 3 miles into the hike we reached the telescope on the ridge above the Barcroft station. Here we took a nice little break and talked with one of the egghead astronomers who was setting the observatory up for winter use. He said that Barcroft would be manned all winter long, which is an interesting piece of info for me this winter; I’d like to do a true winter ascent of the peak, and possibly sneak in the first snowboard descent of White Mountain as well. If there is someone at the station this winter that slightly increases the safety factor of a trip like that, since the Sierra View gate is usually closed and locked in November, it would be roundabout a fifty mile round trip to the peak and back. We’ll see where that plan goes…if you are reading this and interested, let me know.

… back to our story. After the telescope, we hiked another mile or so and plopped down for a lunch break just before the second big uphill stretch of land. At this point we had been traveling for 3 and a half hours and had covered just less than four miles. We fired up the stove, and boiled water for our Mountain House dehydrated meals and ate as we saw the first batches of people coming down from the peak for the day. After eating, with warm, full bellies and a friendly sun above I fell asleep in my chair, Lan dozed off on his Therm-A-Rest and Jarr walked around the area. After about a half hour of this, we got back on the trail and slowly hiked up the long, very long, incline that leads to the saddle before the peak.

This is where Lan really started to lag behind. He started feeling a headache, and his feet were just starting to hurt here. He has new boots, very nice Asolo 95’s, like Jarr, but neither of them has much experience hauling heavy loads on foot, so their feet were just sore I think. We ran into a few more people coming down off the peak, those early birds that we had woken up with our arrival at the gate earlier in the morning. Thankfully they didn’t really know we were the ones who had blazed into camp with headlights on and exhaust growling out of that 4 cylinder mice eating monster of a Saturn. As we finally trudged to the top of this ridge, we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the Silver state, Nevada. From our height of almost 13,000 feet we were looking down on damn near the entire state. No mountains high enough to block our views for long, no lush green areas or snow capped peaks like looking to the Sierra Nevada range to our west. It’s really quite desolate, and beautiful in its own way though.

So, as Lan caught up to us it was just about 4pm and we had a couple more hours of sunlight left. We were looking into the final summit uphill, and a small valley (saddle) in between where we were and where the final push starts. God that’s a steep uphill, steep, short and ugly to be honest, I don’t know who or why people would want to go up there. Figuring we could make it through the saddle and possibly make it to a campsite I had in mind about half the way up on the mountain we moved on. Lan’s feet were really hurting though and his headache wasn’t going away so the pace wasn’t too spectacular. As we got to the bottom of the saddle and started going up it was clear that we wouldn’t make it to the higher campsite I had in mind so we started searching around for a spot suitably flat, rock free and hopefully a nice view where we could setup camp. What we wound up with was a rocky, slightly slanted campsite with a great view instead. After clearing out the sharpest of the rocks we setup tents and made dinner, again Mountain House meals.

The sun dropped behind White Mountain and the temperatures quickly dropped. While the sun was shining down on us, the temps were in the 60’s, no more than half an hour after it had fell behind the mountain the temps dropped down to the 40’s and kept dropping. At this point, Lan and Jarr wisely decided to go to sleep, neither of them seemed interested in playing catch with the Nerf football I brought and there wasn’t too much else to do. Asleep they went. I waited around, I kind of wanted to see the stars come out that night – it was clear, cold and we were miles from any ambient lights so the night sky should put on quite the show. But as the sun really set and it began to get a little colder, darker and lonelier I remembered that I didn’t really like being cold, dark and lonely so I went to my tent to fall asleep too.

Sunday

For some odd reason, we were all awake around 2am and had a little conversation about nothing. Then we all fell quiet, and struggled to sleep on the slanted, slippery slope we were on. A Therm-A-rest and sleeping bag really are quite slick, we all noticed ourselves slipping down to the bottom of our tents at various points through the night. I don’t think any of us managed to get any good sleep for the second night in a row, though I would say I was personally more comfortable in my tent than I was in Jarr’s car. At about 5:40 or so, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep and it was pointless to try. Looking outside I saw the eastern horizon smudged with sun, I had about 40 minutes before it was due to come up and it was cold as ass out there. I decided to get dressed in my tent, slowly. After about 15 minutes, I was ready to leave the relative warmth and watch the sunrise. As I was sitting out there waiting for the sun to come up and bring me some warmth, I realized that I need thicker pants – I’ll try to take care of that before the next trip.

So Jarr gets up about twenty minutes later as the sky gets brighter not a bit warmer yet, just brighter. Looking forward to a very long day – hitting the peak, packing camp, hiking back to the car and hopefully getting back to OC at a reasonable time we fired up the stove to cook some breakfast and Jarr woke Lan up. I came to the realization that I need to pressurize my stove a bit more at elevation. I was used to priming it, then giving it an additional 5 or so pumps and letting it take care of the rest. After attempting to boil the water and failing after about 10 minutes I gave it 10 more pumps and the water was boiling in less than 5 minutes. I’ll make a note of that on the fuel canister before the next trip so I can’t possibly forget again.

It was just after 7am; we were fed and had our camelbaks packed for the 1 and a quarter mile hike to the peak, we set off. Lan said he was feeling better than he was last night, Jarr seemed to be doing well and I felt good too. Our daypacks were unbelievably light compared to the loads we were hauling yesterday so everything was looking good for the day. Within fifteen minutes of stepping off, Lan realized he wouldn’t be able to make it to the summit within a reasonable amount of time. I’m glad he was able to recognize this early; it probably saved a lot of time and potential trouble later in the day. He went back to camp to pack his stuff and start heading back to the car. Since he was moving quite a bit slower than Jarr and I, I figured that we would catch up to him pretty quickly after we hit the summit. I’m sure that with a little more training, hydration and possibly time Lan will be able to make the summit next time though.

At this point, Jarr and I started hauling ass up the final mile of the trail. The sun was starting to warm us up and we made very good time to the peak, just about an hour to get up there. We spent about half an hour up top, enjoying the view, reading some of the older summit log entries and just relaxing. One of these days, I’m going to go up there with enough time to just sit down and read every single one of them. Jarr added his entry, I added mine, and we took some pictures and looked for Lan. From the summit we could see our campsite and by the time we started down the hill Lan was packed up and on his way back, hiking up the saddle’s southwest side. Jarr and I ran, fast all the way down the hill to our camp. It took a bit less than twenty minutes to get down that hill after slogging up it for about an hour.

Now we have to go about 6 miles back to the car. We got to camp just after 9am and started to pack it all up. We were on our way back, packs just a little bit lighter than they were on the trip out here by 9:45. We called Lan on the radio and figured out where he was, started walking and caught up to him just over an hour later on the uphill heading back to the telescope. From this point back to the car is just over 3 miles and for the most part we stayed together for this final hour of hiking. On the way back we ran into the biggest rabbit we’ve ever seen, this thing must have weighed in at 30lbs or so, it was just massive.

Driving home we of course stopped at the rope swing by the bridge over the Owens river and jumped in to wash off the stink and sweat of the last day and a half. We rolled back into OC at around 6:00pm and that was that. Good trip overall, I think Jarr learned a little about his gear and how to use it more effectively, and hopefully Lan learned the need for conditioning. I learned being dark, cold and lonely is not cool.

Friday April 25th, 2003

Scott and I are planning on meeting at the really good beef jerky stand in Olancha, on the 395 at one thirty or so. Neither of us have cell phones, and Scott had never been to the area before so the plan was a bit sketchy to begin with. Despite this, both of us got to the jerky stand just fine, a bit late, but we got there safely. This was the first time we’d seen each other in over a year or so, Scott doesn’t change though, he just seems to be jovial, no matter what. We stood around and BS’d for a while in the parking lot we decided it was too windy there and we needed to get a move on to the campsite. More on the wind later.

We were planning to leave Scott’s car in the backpacker’s parking lot in Lone Pine for the weekend. We turned on our radios to talk shit to each other on the drive to LP, which took about half an hour. Once we drop off his car we start heading to Death Valley. Along the way we stopped off at the Death Valley visitor center, where this “big-boned” girl tried picking up on Scott, unsuccessfully, it was fun to watch though.We tried asking them about directions and conditions but really didn’t get too much useful information, so we got back in the truck and kept moving.

When we arrived in Death Valley and got our first sure view of Telescope Peak, it looked quite packed with snow near the top. We had been hoping that by late April most if not all the snow would have been gone, but we had no such luck. We also noticed the VERY WINDY conditions had followed us up to this point, but we hoped that this was just because we were in the valley itself and it would clear up the higher we got, we’d find out otherwise later in the day. We continued driving on through Death Valley, there’s quite a bit of dead beauty out there and it’s very quiet; well except for the wind that is. It is really howling too.

We got to the dirt road that leads up to Mahogany Flats campground and passed these really odd looking cones on the left side of the road. We stop to check them out and find out that they are old charcoal kilns that the miners in the area would use. After a hundred or more years of non-use you can still smell the burning wood in there, very cool place, well maintained and interesting to check out. After checking these out for awhile we figure that we’ve screwed around enough, it’s getting on to about 4 pm and we still need to get up the road a bit further to the campsite. That wind is still going, very loud and very chilling.

Setting up camp at Mahogany Flats was easy enough, it’s an OK campground – pretty small, I think there were less than ten spots, first come first served and the sites are a bit too close together, but overall it’s all right. The wind has not letup yet though, and we are bundled up like mad, even though the sun is still up and this is DEATH VALLEY for god’s sake, why are we wearing sweatshirts, jackets and gloves?? At this point we just hunker down, eat some dinner and try to hide from the wind. Around nine we got in the tent and broke out the Uno cards. We don’t really need to go into who won and who lost, I’ll just leave it with this, Scott needs practice.

Saturday

We really didn’t sleep too well, what with the hurricane force winds outside and all, but Saturday morning came around regardless. I cooked up some damn fine oatmeal for breakfast; we packed our shit up and stepped off for Telescope Peak. From our campsite we have about 7 miles to go and around three or four thousand feet of elevation gain to go. The wind had thankfully died down, but it was still chilly so we are both wearing our jackets for the first hour or so. During that first hour we only covered about a mile, so yeah, we aren’t setting any land speed records at the moment. Around the one mile point we turn a corner and can see the peak for the first time today. From this close we see it’s definitely snow packed, but at least the wind is gone.

Another mile or so into the hike we find ourselves at a crossroads. The path to the left looks like it goes in a straight line to the peak, while the path to the right looks like it takes a more roundabout way to get there. The problem with the path on the left is that there is a moderately sized hill named Bennett Peak in between us and Telescope peak itself, but it doesn’t look too bad from this side so we decide to go up and over it and get to TP all that much sooner. At this point Scott is doing ok, he’s moving slowly but he’s doing all right overall. I just don’t think he had a lot of gas in his tank that day because he started to run out soon after we hit the top of Bennett.

Near the top we had a good long break, ate some GORP and relaxed in the sun. At this point we had already gone over a few hundred feet of snow crossings, and as we got closer to the peak we saw more and more snow, so we knew we had a LONG way to go. So we start heading down Bennett and were moving along quite well until we hit the actual final uphill section of the peak. Here is where the going got tough and each step made it even tougher because the further we got, the higher we got, the higher we got, the more snow there was, the more snow there was, the harder it was to take steps. We struggled and fought against the snow but it always won. Every step took about 4 times as much effort as a normal step at sea level on a sidewalk.

As we got higher and higher the snow got to about knee deep, and almost every step we took our feet would plunge down all the way through to the ground because the snow was softening up in the afternoon. This meant that with each step we would have to extricate ourselves from this foot or two of snow and replant that foot in more snow that we would have to step out of in a second, each step getting our socks, feet and shoes a bit wetter and heavier as well, all in all it was very slow going. Along the way we threw more than a small number of snowballs, mainly at each other though most of them with terrible aim because we were getting tired.

Nearing two in the afternoon, we see the peak… or at least what we are pretty sure is the peak. Scott’s a bit behind me so I am the first to realize the heartbreaking news. This isn’t the real peak, yet. Telescope is shaped slightly like a table top and we were at the northern end of it, the real peak is on the southern end. It’s only a quarter mile or so between the two points on the peak and it’s pretty clean of snow since there’s usually quite a bit of sun and wind at the top. It was just hearbraking that you have your heart set on seeing the peak and relaxing for awhile at the top but then realizing you’re not there yet. Either way, we get to the real peak, finally, andwhat an amazing view. We read some of the old summit logs, looked out at nearly all of California, from Shasta in the north to the San Bernardino Mountains in the south. It is pretty spectacular to say the least. After a while on the peak and some more GORP we turn around and start what we think will be the easy part, going back to camp for some steaks.

Scott starts off strong; we are heading downhill, it’s a pretty steep downhill and still very heavily packed with snow so we have to watch our steps, but we make good time. After this downhill section we start walking on relatively flat land, and Scott starts to slow down dramatically. We decide to go around Bennett peak on the way back, it was draining to go up and over it on the way out there and I figured that Scott would do better on the flatlands. Unfortunately, what neither of us knew was that the path going around the peak was solidly packed with snow, which is much tougher to deal with than an uphill, this day will just not end. Scott’s condition is starting to scare me the further we get; he’s sort of listless, a little non-responsive and generally looking pretty fucked up. I am afraid he’s going into a low level of shock from the exhaustion he’s experienced today. So I slow down my pace even more, and hope for the best. We have less than two miles to go at this point, and plenty of sun left so we don’t have to hurry.

Those last two downhill miles almost took two hours though. Scott’s not doing all that well, I don’t feel all that super either, that snow was exhausting. But we get back at camp, thank God. We take off our soaking wet boots and socks, start up a fire and sit down. Neither of us brought charcoal so we let the fire die down to embers and Scott grills up the steaks, we eat, have some Smirnoff and relax some more. Scott’s looking a lot better; he just needed to get off his feet and rest up a bit. As it gets dark we hit the tent and fall asleep. I know I slept well that night.

Sunday

We wake up; slowly pack camp after breakfast and head into Lone Pine. We had breakfast at the Sierra Café, it was quite good. At that point we said goodbye, and headed home. He has a seven hour drive ahead of him; I’ve only got four hours of driving. I’ll be asleep before he gets home, that’s a good feeling.

I hope this experience hasn’t scared him off of some good camping trips or any backpacking, because this trip was insanely tough. Overall though it was a very good trip; it was good to see Scott, awesome to see almost all of California from a single point and fun to hit him with snowballs along the way.

Photos from trip, and a couple from an older shooting trip

Movie from trip

I seriously didn’t believe he’d make it to the top of the mountain, it was a miserable day – the temperatures never climbed out of the 30’s, and it snowed on us the entire hike out to the peak. This whole thing started off as a challenge, but wound up as something of an adventure. I don’t remember much about the trip at all, except for cold, snow and continual amazement that GJ is making it another step. Here’s the story

Friday October 25th, 2002

We all set off for White Mountain after GJ and I got off work on Friday. Sita, Kari, GJ and I leave Orange County and it starts raining when we hit the 91 East, this freeway sucks in the best of conditions, add in rain and it’s a nightmare. Plus the fact that the ton of gear we brought - snowboards, just in case we see something ride-able, my bike for a little high altitude biking on Sunday, and camping gear for four people is all in the bed, exposed to the rain. Bleh, not a good start. Despite all this, we get up there all right a few hours later.

As usual, it’s late at night when we arrive. It’s bitterly cold, the ground is hard from being frozen solid and the air feels like sandpaper as you breathe. We setup camp and relax around the fire for a bit, when we realize that it’s doing nothing but getting colder and we need to get an early start in the morning, so we hit the rack.

Saturday

We wake up and get moving pretty early. I don’t remember exact times, but we were at the trailhead around 9am. Kari and Sita are going to wait in the truck at the trailhead, I think they both have some homework to do or books to read, I don’t really remember. After some last minute adjustments to our gear GJ and I start the hike. GJ starts off weak, really weak, but that first uphill is a killer so I figure that he’ll do better after we get past it. About a mile in I realize he’s still not doing too well, so I let him use my (actually Sita’s) trekking poles and he starts doing quite a bit better, trekking poles rock. We trudge on in fresh white snow for the entire seven mile hike to the peak, while the snow continues to fall on us. We go the entire way and only see the peak once near the end because it’s obscured by the clouds. The one time we did see it, GJ almost quit because it looked so damn far away, I guess it was a good thing that we couldn’t see it for most of the hike
There we are, hiking, it’s snowing and it’s cold. The temperatures were in the 30’s and dropping with every foot of elevation we gain. GJ is wearing some ghetto ass windbreaker and a few sweatshirts, and I’ve got on an old Gore-Tex jacket that doesn’t fit all that well. Neither of us were really prepared for this level of cold, but body heat from hiking keeps us warm which motivates us not to take too many breaks and to keep them short when we do.

Back at the truck Kari and Sita decide to hike out to the telescope, which is about 3 miles away, where they’d be able to talk to us for the entire trip on our radios. Sita gets AMS though, in a big way. So about two miles out they get to the Barcroft station and have to turn around to get back to the truck and lower elevation. Kari drives Sita back to the campsite at 8,400 feet and then drives back to the gate to pick us up later in the day. Good job driving for someone who I don’t think has ever driven a 4x before - in the snow, on a washed out dirt road, I think it was even in the dark.
So, GJ and I made the peak and he busts out a pushup, like a champ. We chill up there, couldn’t see a damn thing anywhere around us because of the clouds and snow that was still falling. It’s colder than piss up there. I know I’ve got it logged somewhere, but I can’t find the exact temperatures we were experiencing up top though I know it was in the 20’s, max. After a short break we start heading back to the gate; I’m in shock that he made it to the top, however the top is only the halfway point we have another seven miles to go back.

When we got back to the truck, we drove back to camp and listened to game six of the world series in Spanish. It was the only station that was covering the world series that we could get out there, so it had to do. GJ pretends to know a little so he kinda translated but the game was crap. It was the game the Giants blew a 5 or 6 run lead in the late innings to lose the game, and they’d lose game seven the following day. Pure crap, it didn’t help that Kari is something of an Angels fan, or she just hates the Giants and was cheering for the Angels. I should have made her walk back to camp at that point.
I’m honestly still surprised that GJ made it. He wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t pretty, but damn he did it.