Chronicles of a San Mateo gardener with a hiking problem
It had been far too long since I was last in the Sierra. The last time I was between Tower Peak and Cirque Peak was in April, at the very same trailhead no less. At that time there was about 8 feet of snow on the ground at Annett’s Mono Village. And while I generally don’t like the RV shanty town at Twin Lakes, I always seem to find myself there as it is reasonably close to the Bay Area and so damn scenic.
So yeah, I normally hate this sorta thing. I pride myself on being flexible, which drives my partners insane. But life is nuts, especially when your recreational goals are tied to mountains & weather! I get injured, sick, wildfires break out, it snows more than it has ever snowed, work, ect. ect. So by never saying what I’m gonna do, I avoid the letdown when life happens, right? If only it worked that way.
I wanna do a long run, unsupported, somewhere remote.
It is barely even a goal really, but that’s as good as I can do. The mileage is open ended, and “somewhere remote” is about as vague as you can get. But truthfully, I’d like to do a run on the Lost Coast, through the Hamilton Lake basin, or Price Peak in Yosemite, all of which are about ~30 miles. Or maybe something else, but you get the idea.
Man, I haven’t written in a while! Whenever I think about writing things, I always get hung up on “will it be useful?” type questions. But that’s dumb! Very few people actually read this, and I get the most pleasure from this blog when I go back and read about the details of my favorite days in the mountains that I forgot years later. I also find writing clears my head and sharpens my focus. So with that spirit in mind, I’m gonna write some stuff. Maybe you’ll like it, maybe not. But as authors often say, the first step to writing something good is to start writing something, even if it is shitty.
Clyde Minaret was also the climb that immediately preceded a major ankle injury for me. I had gotten into bouldering, as a way of enjoying my local rocks more, and I made the mistake of falling too far with too little padding. I blew my ankle into smithereens and compounded the injury by refusing the visit the doctor! If I had to guess, I believe I had a grade 2-3 sprain on my right ankle and some kinda terrible bruised heel on my left. Without going into the long saga of injuries and being an IPOS (Injured Piece of Shit), I did a decent job of making lemonade and took up some hobbies that don’t require running 50ish miles per week.
Continue reading “Sam just ranting, reviewing”Going long is increasingly popular these days. Ultra-marathon finishers have increased by an order of magnitude in the last 20 years. Backpacking permits are also increasingly competitive, leading people of sufficient fitness to just rip out shorter backpacking trips in a day. Clyde Minaret was my longest day out to date (17h26min), and it reminded me of some lessons I’ve learned on these full day trips.
Naming peaks after mammary glands is a long standing tradition in the moronic & uncreative practice of naming mountains. “Grand Teton” literally means “big breasts” in French. There are at least 10 peaks in the American west that bear the name “Molly’s Nipple” (spellings vary). Mountains in California are not immune from this trend, with entries such as the Two Teats, the Nipple, and the offensively named Squaw Tit (not to be confused with mountains of the same name in Arizona, Nevada and Alberta!). When I found myself with a 5 month old and half a day to enjoy, it made a lot of sense to make the short hike to the Nipple. If only for the stupid jokes I could make about it later.
Disclaimer: I haven’t totally completed this list. I’ve got one peak left, Hood Mountain, which is currently closed due to fire damage. But the bulk of my ascents on this list were in 2020, so I wanna get some thoughts down before I forget everything.
This list really hit me at the right time, during the COVID-19 lockdowns. It was a little easier to skip a ski trip or two when I had interesting hikes a short drive away to make progress on. My wife felt a trip to the Sierra was thumbing her nose at the law a bit too much, but I did convince her to drive to Lake Berryessa or Point Reyes to tick off some peaks during the crazy part of the 2020 lockdown.
I was originally quite motivated to blast through this list in short order. I hiked Sugarloaf & Sulfur Springs mountain on a raw & rainy day on the first of December. No waterfalls on the approach of either of those peaks, the rain obscured any view we may have had from the summits of these two. Afterwards I kinda wished I had picked a better day. The peak list provides motivation (silly as it might be) to go out of your way and see a new place. Doesn’t work quite as well when you’ve already been there, even if you didn’t really see anything because it was rainy as all hell.
Continue reading “Thoughts on the Nifty Ninety list”Waterfall hunting here in the Bay Area is hard. Water that isn’t absorbed quickly by the typically dry ground flows out of the small & steep drainages in a hurry. This is probably why I like it, catching a falls in optimal conditions is a fun challenge. Plus, I recently had a kid (yay?). So I’m trying to find local things to whet my whistle, since a day trip to the mountains is harder with the little tyrant at home.
Friends of ours made some campground reservations at Mt Hood and Crater Lake on the first week of August, and asked us if we’d like to join them. My initial response was “eew, no.” This is largely because I am a curmudgeon, and I may not actually know how to have a good time. I had always thought of Oregon as a spring or winter destination. Their mountains get copious amounts of snow, and are generally made of horrible rock, thus lending themselves to great skiing and poor rock scrambling. And front country campgrounds always strike me as not a great value. Paying $40 a night to sleep in the dirt and hear your neighbor’s bad music isn’t my idea of a good time, especially when there’s a free & secluded forest road a short drive away. But we hadn’t had a proper vacation in a while due to the COVID, and we do like these friends, so I relented. In what is becoming a trend, I’m glad I ignored my reluctant initial impressions.
I have an obvious philosophy about mountain climbing: you should choose a way of climbing and a season that fits with the mountain itself. Some mountains have great rock, and should be enjoyed as rock climbs. Some are better with snow, pretty much any volcano for example. And others are small round bumps with a short approach that make for a great picnic. Climb the mountain in the style that allows you to enjoy it the most. I realize this should go without saying, but the peak bagging crowd can kinda get blinders on, rushing through a list of peaks and forsaking the rest of the experience (myself included).
When I took the hunter’s safety course back when I was a kid, one of the lessons was about trophy hunting. Looking to tack more & bigger game to the walls of your home was described as a beginner’s philosophy to hunting. Enjoying the outdoors, the people you are with, and the process of hunting, despite the results, is ultimately what would lead to the most satisfying hunting experience.
I find myself thinking of mountain climbing in the same way, falling into the game of it: focusing on bigger & harder challenges to put more impressive feats on your list of climbing “accomplishments”. I fell into that trap again when my friend Chris proposed Spanish Mountain for a trip in early June. It did *not* scratch my conquest itch. Really, I thought it was a dumb idea for a lot of reasons.
Backyard Sam 