Friday, October 16, 2009

Mt. Hood Summit Attempt

My girlfriend booked a business trip to Portland and suggested that we spend the weekend together on the Columbia River. So, after realizing that I could get a shot at Mt. Hood, I agreed! Not to give anything away, but the photo to the right demonstrates my unique ability to attract storms at high altitude.

This was my favorite trip of the summer. I had never been to Mt. Hood (only heard stories) and wanted to experience it for myself. Of course, my plan was to summit. People tend to avoid Mt. Hood in the summer because of the danger of rock fall. So, I planned to take advantage of a cooler than average weather and an early start to make it.

Day 1: I arrived at Timberline Lodge and registered. Leaving my car in the overnight parking lot, I departed at 2:10pm for the Silcox Hut. From here I followed the ski runs up until visibility fell and I moved toward the ski lift towers. By 4:00, I topped out at the Panther Express chair lift and, finding no trail, moved upward straight along the line from the ski lift towers. Finally, at 9,153 ft., I found a good campsite. Here, I made dinner and was in my bivy sack by 6:30pm. The weather was cloudy, but other wise favorable at 38 degrees with calm winds.

Day 2: I slept so well that I took no notice of the storm that moved in overnight. I woke to find my bivy sack coated in thick ice. The cooler temps were expected but the precipitation in the form of driving ice was not! I changed into heavy weather gear (difficult in a bivy sack) and started hiking at 5:30am. The trail was clear and easy to follow (despite the low visibility) until about 10,000 ft. at which point it disappeared onto the glacier just above an area called Triangle Moraine. I put on my crampons and continued upward along the glacier. After about 200 ft of vertical, I noticed a single wand on a pile of rocks. This signal put me back on the trail towards Hogsback Ridge.

Hiking in near zero visibility and wind-driven rhime ice, I was excited to find this ridge, which I knew would lead directly to the summit. Unfortunately, at 10,700 ft, I encountered a giant bergschrund perfectly perpendicular to the Hogsback Ridge and approximately 300 yards wide. it was too wide and too deep to cross, so I traversed to climber's left until I passed the bergschrund and could turn straight up.

Here I stood on a 45 degree slope made of loose ash and small rocks, coated with mixed snow and ice, hardly the favorite situation for a climber to face. Wearing 12-point crampons and carrying an ice axe, I climbed on all fours for 300 ft. This chute is named either "Old Chute" or "Mazama Chute" (impossible to tell which one I was climbing given the lack of visibility). At 11,000 ft, the chute turned into rocks thickly coated with ice. It was too risky to continue. I abandoned the attempt and downclimbed until the bergschrund came into view.

Back on Hogsback Ridge, I rested and began the descent, which was relatively easy. The snow cushioned each step and the cooler weather prevented rockfall. I reached the parking lot by 1:00pm and found several climbers registering. The weather was improving, but I had already taken my shot. I'll save the summit for another day.

Backpacking Yosemite - Tuolumne Meadows to the Valley

This trip started as an idea for a Half-Dome day hike, and turned into a three day trip from Tuolumne Meadows to the Valley Floor via the Cathedral Lakes Trail (the Cathedral lake pictured below).Day 1: My good friends, Dave and Larry, caught the hiker's bus in the valley for the quick trip to Tuolumne Meadows and the Cathedral Lakes trailhead. We started at 10:30am with the goal of reaching the Sunrise High Sierra Camp (H.S.C.), 7.3 miles and 2,000 feet away, by the evening. With a 45# packs, we moved quickly and made the H.S.C by 5:30pm. A spring water spigot and latrines made this camp a near luxury experience.

Day 2: We were all up before dawn and had breakfast just as the sun crested the mountains and lit up the valley. We hit the trail at 8:30am for the 9.4 mile hike to the next stop, a small camp just to the north of Half Dome. The trail wound through alpine lakes which provided us with a nice place to swim during breaks. four miles into the hike, the trail turns sharply higher, leading us to Cloud's Rest peak at 9,900 ft. This peak offered amazing views of Yosemite, from Half Dome and the Valley to Tuolumne Meadows. This experience was far better than simply climbing Half Dome for a day.
The 3,000 ft. descent from Cloud's Rest was painful on the knees, but were arrived at our new camp by 6:00pm. The camp's resources were limited to a small stream, from which we filtered over ten liters of water for drinking and cooking. Building a fire was easy - a single match ignited the wood, which was done dry after a long hot summer.

Day 3: We left at 8:00am to reach Half Dome before the crowds, but soon realized that we were about 4 hours too late. The cables to the top of Half Dome were packed solid with hikers of all levels of ability. Some people found that going up the cables was far easier than descending. These folks froze in place, creating a massive traffic jam. It took us 45 minutes to climb the cables. The views were great, as they always are from here, but I was happy to descend and be off the cables. (Below: Larry and Dave descend the cables).
We packed up camp and headed back to the Valley floor and the car. This was out longest hiking day with over 11.5 miles of trail. We dropped 5,000 ft in elevation, which also helped make this the most difficult day. But, we arrived at the car before nightfall and in good spirits. Looking back on this experience, I would highly recommend the Cloud's Rest peak to any and all hikers. It was one of the best experiences I've had in Yosemite.

Skiing Mt. Shasta


Mt Shasta offers some of the greatest vertical in the Sierras. From Red Banks at 12,000ft, the mountain slopes down to Bunny Flats over five thousand feet below. Most of this ski run has a higher elevation than any of the peaks of Lake Tahoe ski resorts. This is why skiing Mt. Shasta has been a dream of mine for some time.

I drove up from San Francisco with a good friend of mine (despite the fact that he's a snowboarder) to make a two day attempt at the summit and descend on skis/snowboard. We planned to camp at Lake Helen and make for the summit in the early hours of the following day. It's the standard climbing profile for this mountain.

On the drive up north, the weather was perfect. Temps in the central valley were in the 90's and the skis were clear. The forecast showed a storm about three days out; but, with our schedule, we would complete the trip just as the storm arrived. Arriving at Shasta City, we chose a hotel and went to sleep early.

The next morning, we woke to find heavy clouds surrounding the mountain. Unfortunately, the weather system had a schedule of its own. We set a fast pace from Bunny Flats in hopes of beating the storm. Throughout the day, the situation steadily worsened. I changed from shorts into heavy weather gear. As we approached Lake Helen, the heaviest part of the storm hit with high winds and complete whiteout. Despite the fact that my pack weighed 60#, the wind tossed me around like a rag doll. We were both unable to advance in the storm.

We made an emergency bivy at 9,500 ft on a relatively level section. I shivered in my sleeping bag as I tried to warm up my hands, which had become numb. The wind thrashed at the tent. Ironically, this was almost an exact reply of an attempt my brother and I made in March of 2002.

After two hours, the storm calmed down a bit and we decided to retreat back to the car. Although I was looking forward to skiing down, I quickly found that skiing with a 60# pack was extremely difficult. It took all my strength just to stay stable. I drew from my childhood ski lessons and descended by alternating my skis between pizza pies and french fries. I took the photo at right as we descended at a moment when the weather broke. It didn't last long though.

After an hour of had skiing, I made it back to the car completely exhausted. We did not plan to hike and ski down in the same day. But doing so made for a 13 hour hike/ski in heavy packs and inclement weather.

We enjoyed a good nights' sleep and went back the next day, where, under clear blue skies, we hiked to Lake Helen, and enjoyed a fun ski run in the shadow of Mt. Shasta.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Nine Peak Traverse

The Nine Peak Traverse rivals the Cactus-2-Clouds hike in its intensity, making up for less elevation gain with a 26 mile trail that traverses nine peaks above 10,000 ft (hence the name). Two of these peaks top out above 11,000 ft. The trail is located in the San Bernardino mountains to the east-northeast of Los Angeles. I joined a team of folks with the goal of making this hike in a single day. We estimated that it would take us 18 hour to complete the trail.

We spent the night before at a town called Angelus Oaks in cabins located a mile or so from the trailhead, which is the traditional start to the hike. The elevation here is 5,700 ft. and staying the night certainly helps a bit with acclimatization. Given the expected duration of the hike, we set the ridiculously early wake up time for 1:30am. This gave us a trailhead start time of 2:45am. I started strong given the early wakeup and outpaced the group for the first few hours.

Just over four hours later, I reached the first peak, San Bernadino (10,649 ft.), just in time to catch the sun's first rays on that peak. It took me 30 minutes later to reach the second peak in the sequence, San Bernadino East (10,691 ft.). Here I rested and waited for the remainder of the group to catch up.

With the group back together, we set off at a quick pace, hitting Anderson Peak (10,664 ft.), Shields Peak (10,516 ft.), and Alto Diablo Peak (10,439 ft.) in short order before descending slightly to a col called Dollar Lake Saddle. . In the below picture, I am holding up five fingers to indicate my successful climb of the fifth peak, Alto Diablo. Dollar Lake Saddle is so name because of a nearby glacier lake, which provides a strategic water source for those needing water. But, we were good on water and drank lots here at theSaddle while stuffing ourselves with calories.

The trail from Dollar Lake Saddle is not readily apparent, so we benefited from a GPS unit carried by one of the members of our group. We followed the track driectly up the side of Charlton Peak (10,808 ft.), which is steep with loose footing, reaching the summit at 12:39pm. We proceeded directly to its sister peak, Little Charlton Peak (10,696 ft.) before turning south to regain the main trail. We never did find the trails to & from these two peaks.

Although I was happy to reach the main trail, which is much more smooth than the cross country treking we were doing, I began feeling fatigued for the first time on the trail. This was a bad omen since the final two peaks are the highest points on the trail.

By 1:45pm, we reached the point in the trail where the eighth peak, Jepson Peak (11,205 ft.) was directly north. We turned that direction and climbed on all fours up a rocky slope. Apparently, the actual trail leads in from the east. Of course, we had no way of knowing this, but we did have GPS and GPS told us that Jepson was North. This was an exhausting climb for me. I lagged the group on the way to the peak, but still managed to reach it by 2:09pm. My summit picture is to the right. Behind me is the ninth and final peak, Mt. San Gorgonio, which at 11,493 ft. is the highest one of the bunch. If it looks like a long way from Jepson, you are correct. It would take nearly an hour to reach that final summit, and then begin the nearly five hour descent back to the car we had parked at the end of the trail.

At 3:00pm, my exertions paid off with the successful summit of the final peak. The view was amazing. Aided by the near perfect weather, we could see all the way to the ocean, out to San Clemente Island (East), southwest to Orange County, southeast to Palm Springs, and north to Big Bear Lake.
It's easy to think back now and be happy, but the entire group was exhausted. Additionally, one of our team showed signs of altitude sickness. So, we did not spend more than a few minutes on the summit. The hike down did indeed take us five hours and we arrived at the car just before 8:00pm.

When we arrived back at Angelus Oaks, I rented a cabin instead of driving back home. My body was hypothermic, not from the cold, but from lack of available food in my blood system. Having gone without food for the past few hours, combined with 18 straight hours of hiking, cleaned all available carbs from my blood, forcing me to rely upon body fat conversion, which is too inefficient to support the level of activity in which I was engaged. I'm mentioning to underscore the urgency for me to reach a stable place - in this case, a cabin witha dry bed. I shivered uncontrollably for the first 30 minutes in bed, before falling into an uneast sleep. At 4:00am I was woken by a huge storm that brought the seasons' first snow to the region. We beat the storm by 8 hours; an earlier arrival could have been fatal to our group. The storm was a stark reminder of the importance of weather to the success of any hike.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Cactus-to-Clouds


The Cactus-to-Clouds hike is an intense day hike encompassing 23 miles of trail with over 10,000 vertical feet of climbing. It begins in Palm Springs at sea level and climbs steeply to an 8,000 ft. plateau called Long Valley. The trail then winds through Long Valley before turning sharply upwards to the peak of San Jacinto at 10,804 ft. The tram at 8,400 ft. saves hikers from the need to descend back down the 8,000 ft. to Palm Springs.

I started this long day with a 3:30am wake up, which got me to the trailhead at 4:00am. The temperature was already 80 degrees; I needed to be far above the desert floor before the searing heat that dawn would bring. The trail is hard to follow in daylight; in the pre-dawn darkness it's nearly impossible for a first timer to follow the correct route in a web of trails. By dawn, however, I had already covered 2,000 vertical feet.

I reached Long Valley by 11:15am, seven hours into the hike, and none too soon. There is no water on this first part and I had already finished off the 4.5 liters I started the day with. The Long Valley ranger station has abundant tap water, which I quickly drank and then used to refill my bottles. It was here that I first noticed how drained I felt. Plus, dressed in only a tee-shirt and shorts, I felt somewhat cold. Still, I decided to continue on to see if new activity would help revive me.

By 1:15pm, I had traversed Long Valley and reached Saddle Junction at 9,700 ft. This left me only 1,000 ft. below the summit, accessible by a short 2.5 mile hike from that point. However, I was completely drained at this point. My hiking pace slowed and I began to experience hypothermia in that I lost sensation in my hands. So, I made the wise decision to turn around and head for the tram, arriving at 3:00pm.

In total, I hiked 17 miles, reaching an altitude of 9,700 ft. from sea level, in 11 hours. My condition improved with each foot of vertical I gave up riding in the tram. My performance on this hike represents my most important hiking accomplishment to date.

More information on Cactus-to-Clouds can be found at http://www.geocities.com/cactus2clouds/skyline.html

Mt. San Jacinto

This hike was organized by the Orange County Hiking & Backpacking Group (OCHBG) as a volunteer mission to resupply the emergency shelter located just below the peak on Mt. San Jacinto. One of the OCHBG members spend three days trapped in the shelter during the previous January after sustaining a leg injury near the peak. So many of the supplies had been pilfered that she was left with one can of beans.

San Jacinto is one of the highest peaks in Southern California. At 10,834 feet, it towers over the town of Palm Springs located at sea level. The summit trails begins at an unusual starting point: the top of the aerial tramway, which ferries tourists and hikers alike to 8,420 feet. From here, the trail winds through the Round Valley Plateau for 3.1 miles before climbing sharply to the summit over a 2.5 mile distance.

The difficulty of the climb is due to the rapid ascent one makes from the valley floor on the tram. On this specific hike, we also hauled heavy packs stuffed with emergency supplies.

I performed well, putting my calf injury behind me with every step. Even the high altitude and pack weight of 62 pounds did not affect my leg.

I should mention that this mountain range affords some of the best views in all of Southern California. To the west, it is possible to view the whole of the LA basin and even Santa Catalina off the coast. To the north, lies San Gorgonio at 11,493 feet, sitting atop the San Bernardino mountain range. Palm Springs spreads out across the desert floor to the east. Further south, one can see the Salton Sea.

This hike gave me the idea to attempt the Cactus-to-Clouds hike. As the name suggests, the trail starts in Palm Springs at sea level, climbs the eastern slope of San Jacinto, and connects to the summit trail near Round Valley. The 10,000 vertical feet, sixteen mile climb, is one of the most difficult day hikes in the US. I resolve to give it a go next weekend.

Friday, June 19, 2009

My First Big Test

My first big test of my physical therapy progress came on August 23rd, 2008, when I joined a group of climbers for treks up Mt. Rainier and Mt. St Helens in Washington State. For the Mt. Rainier hike, we started at 5,800 ft and hiked up to Camp Muir at 10,000ft. Most of the hike was on the glacier, but the slope was not steep enough to require crampons. The weather was on our side: not a cloud in the sky save for the mountain's lenticular clouds. In fact, it was so nice that I hiked in shorts and tee-shirt, but with glacier glasses, sunshade hat and lots of suncream. I traveled slowly to minimise the impact on my calf muscle. Still, I was up and down in 9 hours and still felt fine.

Two days later, the team and I gathered at the trailhead to the Mt. St. Helens crater rim trail. The weather was not as nice with dense fog between 6,000ft and 8,000ft. The hike started through thick rainforest, soon emerging to a giant boulder field where the trail disappeared into a jumbled of oversized building blocks. We clambered over these blocks for the next two hours. It was like climbing the gym's stairmaster, except that the "stairs" were 2-3 ft high. Finally, we punched through the fog and reached the ash slope, which was being swept clean by high winds. I immediately changed from shorts and tee-shirt into full Gortex to avoid hypothermia. For the next three hours, we climbed up the ash field, which was like hiking up a sand dune. We seemed to lose a half-step for each full one we took. Finally, I reached the rim about five hours into the hike.

Watching the interior of St. Helens is an impressive sight. Over the last three years, internal pressures built a lava dome 1,500 ft high. I could see steam rising from hundreds of vents on the dome and hear rocks falling from pressure ridges. It was such a dascinating sight that it was hard for me to leave. I was the first to arrive at the rim, but the last one to leave. I made it down in four hours.

So, I accomplished two major hikes in two days, essentially back-to-back. My left calf exhibited some slight swelling, which calmed down the next day.

I'm back in business.