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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pictures from today:

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Next Day

I worked harder yesterday than I have since the last time I wore cammies. Which coincidentally, I wore again yesterday and amazingly enough fit into after 10 years. I’m going to be purposefully vague in my wording and descriptions as I’d rather not have this page be easily googled.

It all started at 3:40am (a familiar time to anyone who has worn cammies) when my alarm went off. I got dressed and went to meet my team for the day. I got paired with 7 SWAT guys from the local county and was going to be the safest man on the planet for today, since I had a full team of over armed and over armored bodyguards. Sure they weren’t supposed to be my personal bodyguards but I was safe either way. So, we loaded into a helicopter and went to our ’site’. We disembarked and the helo left to handle more teams and sites. SWAT cleared the scene and then we got to work.

This was the hard part, my god I haven’t worked this kind of purely physical job in 10 years. We had to cut (I personally cut almost 600) plants, then hike them over to the pickup point and stack them. Then the bird would come over and lift them when we had a full load. We worked up about 7 full loads I think, so each one of those loads involved the helo hovering above us for a few minutes as the load was secured and lifted. If you’ve never been under a hovering helo; its loud, its windy and its dirty. Not to mention painful, with all the dirt being propelled at bb gun speed impacting every bit of bare skin on your body. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome feeling, but you need a shower after just one helo lift, let alone 7.

I was solo and heading up to Mt. Agassiz through Bishop pass.  Beautiful area, but a failure on the peak.  I was tired from the drive and lack of sleep so didn’t have the gas to get up the mountain.  My truck died it’s final death on the way home.

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).

Raggedy men, Day 6.

We didn’t leave our tents until about 9. We didn’t leave our campsite until around 11. This is horrendously late for those not used to backpacking. We didn’t have nearly enough water for everyone to get to the first creek. We were already fighting some mild dehydration problems and not having enough water for the first couple hours of hiking was going to hurt. As a group we were pretty well worn out and down. We decided to bypass the optional trip we had setup to get into the Wallace lake basin and just go for broke, to try to get to the truck by day 7. If that was to have a chance of happening, we had to take our blistered, bruised and battered feet another ten or eleven miles to Guitar Lake today.

At least we were back in the granite majesty of the Sierra range. If you’ve never been to the Sierra Nevada, I urge you to at least go to the town of Big Pine and drive west on the street between the only two gas stations. That road turns into glacier lodge road and get you into the area of the Palisades, if that doesn’t turn your heart into a soft, supple mess then you truly deserve the city that you live in.

By this time my camera batteries are low, my feet are too tired to take me anywhere but the trail and my eyes aren’t seeing the shots anymore, so my pictures get fewer and fewer, but the area is no less than magnificent still. Creeks, meadows and the backside of the highest mountain in the continental US.

Well, you should have no doubt that despite our diminished physical capacity, due to sleep deprivation, elevation and nutritional degradation we made the mileage and hit Guitar lake by sundown. It was an ungodly cold camp there on the shore of that little lake.

Day 6 was over.