Sustained Motion

Mt San Jacinto

Sitting a few hours east of LA on the edge of a large, hot desert is Mt San Jacinto, at 10,834 feet, and some of her neighboring peaks.  In this large, hot desert, Palm Springs serves as an oasis with its somehow green golf courses, posh digs and fancy cars.  If you look west out of the city the foothills of San Jacinto loom large. 

Covered in coveted snow in the wintertime and cool temperatures in the summer.  For accessibility's sake, a tram stretches from near the desert floor to about 8,000 feet.  

I'd thought about hiking this peak, one of the three tallest in Southern California, briefly since I had arrived but focused most of my time on Mt Baldy probably because it was closer and I'd already hiked on the flanks of San Jacinto while walking through the area on the Pacific Crest Trail a year prior.     

That all changed when I happened to learn of the "cactus to clouds" trail.  This trail, coupled with the San Jacinto peak trail, has some of the largest elevation gain of any hike in the country.  Well, that sealed it.

The trail starts behind the art museum in downtown Palm Springs, at 475 feet, and winds its way up to the top of the tram house and on to the peak at 10,834 feet.  There you have it, 10,000 feet of climbing in one hike.  Everybody has got to try this at least once. 

From there began the planning stage which lasted all of 36 hours and basically entailed buying some maps and...well, that's it.  Maps were necessary mostly due to the fact that the trail is not maintained for the first 11 miles or so, with no signs and no water, and is classified as "cross-country".  

In order to avoid the crazy hot Palm Springs temperatures, I decided a night hike was in order so I saddled up and left the parking lot at 1 am with almost two gallons of water, a bunch of food and some backup gear.

Snakes were in the front of my mind as I shined my headlamp around, constantly scanning the ground.  Faintly in my ear, as I climbed, I could hear some off key notes from a bar down below in the city as a karaoke singer belted out Purple Rain.  The city lights sparked bright.

Climbing up and up, the noises of the city slowly faded replaced by the sound of a cool breeze rustling the thorny branches of the low lying scrub bordering the trail.  Stars twinkled and the moon-less sky was black.

At times, through the beam of my headlamp, the trail disappeared but was easily found again upon closer examination.  There is no organization managing the trail so its a bit of a free for all with trails crossing here and there and folks cutting switchbacks in favor of a steep up hill grade rather than an easier winding one.

After a solid five hours of hiking in the dark and a thousand feet below the first valley, the eastern sky turned red and I was more than happy to have the sun nearly at the horizon.

Ah, yes.

Now, with daylight and renewed rigor, my pace quickens and reach the lip of the trail and emerge into a valley onto a well marked freeway of a path.  Only a few more thousand feet to go and I'm there.  I made a few short climbs, did some long traversing and bam, I was at the top.

Looking SSE from the top of Mt San Jacinto

Looking NE, Palm Springs is down in the valley.

From the top, I hiked another 5.5 miles back to the tram and took it down to the valley where two incredibly nice folks gave me a ride back to my car, sparing me a 6 mile walk.  It turned out to be a twelve hour hike from the desert up to the peak and back to the tram.  All in all it was a great trip.

The John Muir Trail

What can I say, the Sierra Nevada's are one of the greatest ranges anywhere and after given the opportunity to enjoy them with some friends along the John Muir Trail, I was all for it.

I'd hiked the same stretch of trail last year during my Pacific Crest Trail jaunt and was really looking forward to getting back out there, stretching my legs and covering some miles.  Not to mention enjoying the woods after spending the summer on the edge of the LA Basin with 11,599,999 other people. 

The plan was to hike the 212 mile trail in 9 to 10 days and given my joining the crew a day or so after the start, my version of the hike was going to be 200 miles, give or take.  The longest stretch without resupply was going to be about 6 days or 120 miles during which there are no road crossings or other structures on the trail, just a lonely brick hut on the top of Muir Pass built to shelter folks caught in lightning, snow or heavy rain on the more than 8 miles trail above 11,000 feet.

Glenn Pass

The first day brought me up and over Kearsarge Pass as well as Glenn Pass, the former of which yielded the picture above.

Each day brought another pass, or two, as well as long hikes in tree covered valleys next to gushing streams.  The weather was close to "golden" save one episode which involved a dozen or more lighting strikes on an exposed pass with 3 inches of accumulating hail.  Yeah, that was a little more than we'd bargained for.

All in all, one heck of a trip. 
 

 
 The back side of Selden Pass.

The Sierra

Well, the time has come to head back up to those piney valleys, moonscaped alpine passes and clear blue lakes of the mild tempered Sierra.

This part of the year brings near constant sunshine, bug free evenings (love those) and fair to mild temps with some possibly frosty nights.

The agenda includes a 170 mile stretch of the John Muir Trail and for starters the pack is heavy as we're making a 6 day push with no resupply. The goal is 20 to 25 mile days with one large pass, or maybe two, to be conquered each day. Let the fun begin...

Huntington Beach

Amidst the crowds, fifty million stoplights, endless stripmalls and aggressive LA driving lies a gem. That beautiful, blue, often turbulent and humbling Pacific Ocean.

Afternoon winds turn the blue into a sea of whitecaps as far as the eye can see which, by the way, is just past the gangly ocean drilling rigs that dot the horizon like yellowy lit Christmas trees after the sun goes down.

Everybody visits, all races and creeds joined in a heap of beach towels, prop up shelters and umbrellas of every design. Barbeques slow cook todays purchase while plastic cups hide strong booze and beach cruisers piloted by bikini clad women plod along the bike path. Hole diggers dig, a pastime I'm not sure I quite understand, perhaps it has to do with mans need to cultivate, sun bathers bathe, boggie boaders boogie and well, some people just stand ankle deep in the ocean...I'm not sure what the name is for that.

At first there is a mystery, when approaching the vastness that is the ocean. For instance, I often think, man, if I kept going west, there is not another thing for thousands of miles, save a heap of floating debri here and there and maybe those people from Whale Wars scouring the ocean in search of Japanese whalers. I digress. Anyway, there is a certain comfort to know that on the edge of the concreted expanse and endless nature-less space better known as Los Angeles is an untamed, wonderous, gigantic beast of an ocean commonly called....the Pacific.

Up to Speed

The cold and blustery 14,000 foot Quandary Peak was the subject of my last post.  A plethora of things have happened since then.  So, I'm going to attempt a quick and dirty summation of events prior to today.

Colorado's ice and snow were great.  My skis carved up a few virgin slopes and my ice axe landed in a handful of different ice flows with a solid thud.  These things brought me just a little bit closer to that which is easy to lose touch with in urbanity...nature.  Pure nature. 

My destination after Colorado's winter playground was a palm tree covered, now mostly concrete, basin otherwise know as Los Angeles playfully pronounced "Los An-Gell-Ease" by the celebrity of wrestling fame, Stone Cold Steve Austin.

My travels thus far had focused mostly on land based adventures, with a focus on the mountains,and I decided it would be a grand idea to spend some time getting to know the ocean.  Since LA is relatively close to the vast mountain playground of the Sierra Nevadas the location was perfect. 

So, I pointed the ole Civic West and put the hammer down across Utah and Nevada stopping for a quick hike in the vast desert atmosphere of Death Valley.  Soon, I was on my way over a few passes and into Lone Pine at the base of Mt. Whitney.  Over the next few days, I climbed on the snowy slopes of Whitney, bouldered outside of Bishop and had a great back country ski on the flanks of Mt Basin.  

From there it was on to LA.  Rounding the southern tip of the Sierras, I crossed over Tehachapi Pass on the narrow strip of blacktop otherwise known as "The 14" and eventually descended into the LA, burning bright with the life lights of a metro area over 12 million strong. 

Since that time, I've logged hours of cycling, running, swimming and surf time with a ski descent of Whitney and a few back country ski descents of Tahoe Peaks as well as Mt Baldy right on the Angeles Crest. 

On an evening cycle along the beach, I spotted a large banner on the lifeguard headquaters.  "Lifeguard Tryouts".  Ah, ocean lifeguarding.  The beach, the surf....the beach the surf.  Perfect.  Hours of training in the pool and ocean swims summed up my preparation for the tryouts and on that foggy March morning, I was more than ready for the 1000 yard ocean swim and subsequent run-swim-run.  The waves were 3 to 4 footers and the water was smooth as glass with a bone chilling temperature in the low fifties.  The gun went off and bam, 100 of us were sprinting into the ocean and duck diving the waves, churning up the water competing for a few coveted spots in the adjacent towers.

Fortunately, my training efforts weren't in vain and I qualified for the academy.  To augment the lifeguard training, I added an EMT class and got a certification in basic life support....clear.

The horizon is a mixed line hardly distinguishable between the blue sea and the hazy morning sky.  Soon, the haze burns away and the sun shines bright, warming the sand and the faces around me.

Quandary Peak

After the road side, snowy campsite north of Frisco it was time for !Erika to head back to her responsibilities in Minnesota and it was time for me to continue West, West to Los Angeles.  We parted ways and I spent the better part of the day recouping from the last few and getting ready to my second 14'er attempt.  This time with skis.

Leaving relatively early the next morning after some dark coffee I headed up to the base of Quandary Peak just out of Breckenridge, CO.  Quickly, I realized that I had no ski poles for the ascent.  This, I deemed minor and headed out climbing the peak with my backpack, some supplies and skins on my back country skis.

The morning was calm, bright and frigid.  As I climbed, each white, wispy exhalation hung around me like a frozen cloud.  The trail snaked up through the trees, across frozen meadows and through small draws normally choked by willows.  I emerged above the three line at 12,000 feet and was greeted by blasts of a cold westerly wind sometimes gusting closeto 50 mph.  There was a long, relatively exposed ridge line just in front of me the lead directly to the summit.  I slowly and steadily made my way along the ridge line greeting other climbers while ascending and fired up that my first 14,000 foot summit was moments away.  

The summit was really breezy, make that cold...and breezy.  So, my skis were quickly on my feet and I was putting my signature in the mountain with some, so-so stem turns.  Making my way down, there was a really appealing bowl just to my left, but I was warned by a few locals that this was ttypically wind loaded and safety was an issue so I followed the ridge-line down, down, down.  I've got to say the without poles, it was a more than interesting ski.

I arrived back and my car and thought, this calls for a celebration and how better to do such a thing than mix up a nice bowl of instant oats and dried milk.  Yum. 

Vail, CO

The morning was a cold one.  Our tent was pitched in a low valley adjacent to some large white snowbanks and as I opened my eyes in the morning the tent walls were covered with frozen crystals.  Climbing out of my warm sleeping bag to below zero temps was no easy task but the view of the hoar frost covered valley outside the tent made the effort worthwhile.

Back in the car, we decided to head to Vail for some ice climbing.  As we approached on I-70, our eyes were on the southern valley wall looking for threads of climbable ice and soon, we located a long pitch just east of town.  Looking up from the parking lot, a climber was visible on a large ribbon of ice that spilled from a narrow gap in the hill.  It looked about 50 feet or more in length and quite challenging.  Based on some info on the net, we had decided to check out the "spiral staircase" further east along a hard-packed trail.  After a quick snack we loaded up our rope, crampons, ice axes etc... and headed to the climb. 

This is really an amazing area to climb.  There are mixed routes (rock and ice) as well as solid ice routes of all different kinds.  Some of which are large cylinders of ice that rise 60 feet or more up to a precarious ledge.  One such climb is know as "the fang" and although it wasn't "in", it had broken off mid way down, we could imagine what it may have been like standing at the base looking up.  Further on, we located our targeted climb and although there were some folks climbing it, they were on their last go and offered up their rope so we could climb up and set up our top rope.  Kicking and hacking my way up 50 feet of ice my arms really started to burn and I found myself sweating and breathing hard against the ice.  Up and up and finally, the top.  Setting up a top rope, I repelled down and !Erika grabbed the axes and started up.  The blue skies, the elastic ice and the effort all made it a fabulous day.

Later on, we headed further east toward Frisco and found a cozy spot to pitch the tent near a steep switchback on a county road and dozed off as snowflakes began to blanket the landscape.  

Mt. Princeton, CO

Our goal for the first day of 2009 was to head up Mt Princeton from the valley that held our hotel as well as the town of Buena Vista.  We packed up, got a respectable start and somehow were able to once again squeeze an aging guitar and bicycle tire into the backseat of my car atop all our gear and food.  After some coffee, grape-nuts and oatmeal, with a tinge of dried milk, we headed up to the trail-head in high spirits armed with snowshoes and a will to climb through the haze of New Years Day.  

Somewhere north of 8000 feet, vertically speaking, we parked the car, grabbed our packs and set of up with drift covered trail.  The sun was bright, the sky blue, the snow white, the wind howling.  

Winding now, we plodded up the covered trail intermittently exposed to wind gusts that had us leaning, slightly wavering but maintaining momentum.  Steady now.  We made sure to stay hydrated to help us combat the altitude, and tried to "munch" on frozen power bars which is a calorie burner in and of itself.

We eventually approached and passed the weather station, following a track, sinking slightly into the snow pack with each footfall.  We gained elevation, now near 10,000 feet, and the wind increased.  Rounding an exposed bend, hard packed snow required crampons or an ice axe, neither of which we thought we'd need and thus didn't bring.  So, we scrambled up through some low brush and rocks to where the trail continued and, minus or packs, decided to "scope out the rest of the route".

At this point, we were just below the treeline and were able to clearly see a good chunk of the further ascent.  The route skirted around a smaller peak, requiring some of trail travel, crossed a saddle and then shot up to the summit.  Given the time, the current conditions and some nasty looking clouds approaching, we decided to call it and head back down.  The descent was quick and before we knew it, we were unstrapping our snow shoes, climbing in the car and heading back to the valley below. 

Deciding to head north back to the I-70 corridor, we hightailed it through Buena Vista and on toward Leadville.  Eventually, we found a nice trail-head parking lot in a fog covered valley, pitched the tent among the snow banks and fell fast asleep. 

Winter Park Squared

The sun peaked over Colorado's Front Range and greeted !Erika and I as my tiny car chugged ever so slowly up the grade toward the backcountry spot that we'd hit the day before.  This time we choose a north facing slope hoping for better snow, put on the skins and made our way up and up. 

A light layer of powdery snow remained from the previous storm and we were fired up to don the skiis and descend.  After climbing for an hour or so, to the top of a wind swept ridge, we clicked on the skiis and made handfuls of stem turns back down to where we began and started the process over.  Twas a beautiful day. 

The second strategic initiative for the day included a drive south to Buena Vista which was to serve as a staging ground for Mt. Princeton, one of Colorado's beautimus fourteneers.  After getting all the gear ready for the New Years day climb.  We decided to celebrate the New Year with a few beers and some time in the hot tub under the stars.  During our celebration a pesky wind surged across the valley, picked up the hot tub cover and smashed into the back of my head...didn't see that one coming.  And I'll say, if it wasn't for the reflexes of !Erika in deflecting the projectile it might have been ugly.

Winter Park

After an early breakfast of oats and grapenuts, complete with powdered milk, we headed south to the outskirts of Denver to catch Int. 70 and head into the snow.

Crosswinds of incredible strength rocked the car as we drove and made me a sko-sh uneasy about my bike proped up erect on the top of the car, a regular wind catcher, but all turned out swell.

Into a sea of white peaks we drove, picked up some skis for !Erika and headed to a backcountry spot to climb some slopes and shoosh back down. After a few runs we were spent and daylight had faded drawing us reluctantly back to our car from the skiing.

The darkness brought one of the coldest nights yet and at a trailhead around 10,000 feet we pitched our tent in a snowy parking lot next to a noisy mine. Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T