hiking - i should log off

Hiking Mt. Shasta

July 28, 2016 By Danny

After climbing Mt Kilimanjaro in 2010, I felt a strong sense of accomplishment but also that mountaineering was not for me. More than anything else I hated the altitude but at lease with Kilimanjaro I didn’t have to do anything technical with ropes or ice axes. Fast forward 6 years and somehow I found myself doing exactly what I never expected to even try on the slopes of California’s Mt. Shasta. Two years ago I managed to join a group of intrepid colleagues on a hiking trip where I climbed Yosemite’s Half Dome. The trek was fun, and with a start-to-summit time of about 4 hours, and a round-trip time of about 7 hours’ total, this was relatively simple and straight forward. IMGP2439

Last year this same group did a 26-mile loop over four mountain passes around Colorado’s Maroon Bells. This was simply the most difficult day of hiking I’d ever completed. At the celebration dinner, following our 16-hour hike which had begun at 10pm the previous evening, Mt. Shasta’s (4321m) 14,179 foot snow-capped peak was announced as our next target. Sure, I told everyone I’d see them next year…but I also said that there was no-way Donald Trump would be the republican nominee for president…. What do I know?

As this was a technical climb we hired guides to help us through the process. To do that we had a short amount of time on some snow the day preceding the hike to learn some basic mountaineering skills such as how to actually use the ice axe. We learned to walk on the ice, fall and ultimately stop ourselves from sliding all the way down the mountain. Naturally, we felt the need to practice this by running off the hill (while holding an axe) and diving downhill as though we were superman. This was fun until one of our team cracked his ankle in a few places. He was taken to the ER and received screws in his ankle and lots of painkillers. As a reminder, this was our practice session. Our group the prior year had started off around 35 people, for what was the hardest day of hiking in my life, we were now down to only 16.
One of the reasons for the low numbers were the odds the various guide services had given to our venture.

Most guided groups climb Mt. Shasta over two days. Indeed, while we were practicing, many of these groups were setting off on their trek. They camped overnight half-way up the mountain, continuing to the summit with us the following morning. We instead chose to skip the alpine camping and start our walk at midnight. There were three guide companies in Mt. Shasta that were contacted by our group, two of those companies told us we were idiots for what we were trying to do, we went with the third. (Now you see why I like these people – like minded to the fullest!)

At 11pm on Saturday night, when most people in California were doing Saturday night California things, we were instead waking up from our naps, doing our best to clear our bowels, and gradually making our way to the Avalanche Gulch trail head for our midnight departure. (Note: All the amazing and yet, WTF am I thinking hiking adventures in my life have seem to start at night.) I had some general feelings of dread regarding my own fitness level, the altitude, the ice axe, the ice itself and naturally those screws that had been inserted into my friend’s ankle. Also in the back of my head was concern for the weather report, which featured late morning thunderstorm, but when I saw the clear, starry sky at the trail head I managed to but those fears to rest.

We started walking.

The guides kept the pace and I have to say, we had some excellent guides. They made the walk up this [to me] practically vertical slope about as easy as walking up the stairs at work. Sure it was long and arduous but many of us felt we were so well paced that, although exerting ourselves, we never felt terribly short of breath or in need of a rest. Still, several did begin to fall behind but overall our group was on target and moving uphill at a very good pace.

With several hikers having difficulty as we passed the overnight camping areas, we had to shuffle groups around a little bit. Part of the reason for this was that above this point, Helen Lake which is nothing but a flat-ish area of snow on the mountain, guides needed to be roped to their group and a single guide could have no more than 4 hikers attached to them. Continuing on we were one group of 4 and three groups of 3, I was in a group of 3.

As we continued from this point, the story starts to change substantially.

All of the things I was worried about—the ice, using the axe, my fitness, etc.—were not issues at all and I was actually starting to enjoy myself as the sun came up and I recognized what a special place I was in. The problem was that as the sun came up most of the other hikers on the mountain started to come down. Those late morning thunderstorms had shown up several hours early and the mountain appeared to be surrounded by dark clouds and piercing lightning shows. Via radio we were in touch with another group from our guiding company, who had camped on the mountain like *normal* climbers and were several thousand feet above us. Their reports were not positive and they turned back as well. For some reason we kept on hiking.

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One member of my trio was beginning to struggle and was very vocal about this in a stunningly constructive way, perhaps because he is a former Marine. He shared that he was feeling the affects of altitude sickness, the items he was doing to help deal with his, and that he wanted to continue but that it was a situation we needed to keep in communication about. This was important as none of us were unable to travel alone and if he needed to go down, we all did, so we slowed our speed an slightly increased the frequency of our breaks. The support of the team in this regard was rather spectacular.

Later, using the Marine as something of a model, I expressed my same concerns with regard to the weather. By this point we had become 4 hikers, rather than 3, as another trio had a member need to descend and one of their hikers was able to join us. I told the group honestly that I was getting quite scared by the increasing display of lightning, the blizzard forming around us, the presence of the wind, etc. Mostly though, it was the lightning combined with “my children need to have a daddy”. Our guide, a former Army Ranger, discussed this with us and we took a vote in which two of us expressed that we felt it might be time to head downhill. Somehow being led by an Army Ranger, who stated clearly that he had full confidence in his ability to get us safely down the mountain, and anchored by a US Marine who was feeling much better and aching to get to that summit, convinced myself and the other doubter that we should press on, so that’s what we did.

We got to the top of the red line, but not to the summit. 🙁

The hiking at this point was also more difficult. The snow had turned to ice and was more slippery. We were often having our boots break through the ice and fall into a knee-deep hole. The wind was sometimes knocking us over. We couldn’t see very far in front of us for the blizzard that was taking hold around us. We were well above 12,000 feet in altitude and thinness of the air was beginning to affect us as well. Oh, and the slope of the mountain was probably 45 degrees.

You may recall from earlier in this story that one group of four and three groups of three had set-off from the camping area. One trio, left a hiker with my group and headed downhill. Another trio was well ahead of us making a run at the summit. That left my group and the original group of four together as we climbed to 13,000 feet in altitude. At that point, the other guide, determined that the weather had deteriorated enough that should we continue, and things get a little worse, that we might not be able to safely descend the mountain. We were turning around.

The first bit of downhill hiking was very difficult and I was again afraid for all the reasons I was afraid before weather was an issue—slippery ice, the axe, slope, fitness, etc. Thankfully this did not last long. We made it just below a region of the mountain that was rocky and glissaded about as far as we could. If you’ve never glissaded before, imagine going downhill in a sled but without a sled. You just sit in the snow and make pretend the mountain is a giant, cold, slide. It was fun.

The only part that stunk about the descent was when we finished, and turned and looked back at the summit, and saw nothing but blue sky.

Hiking the Four Pass Loop in Colorado

December 20, 2015 By Jillian

It was probably an hour or so after midnight. My feet had already gone through a freezing cold stream and were quite wet inside my waterproof boots. I needed to stop and pee about every 5 minutes. My head was pounding, as it does when I exert myself at high altitude. I had more than 12 hours to go before I was finished. Did I mention that it just after midnight?

Something about being in those situations always makes me wonder why I get myself into those situations in the first place, then I remember…finishing is awesome!

All in, the hike would be 28 miles long, going over four passes all over 12,500 feet just outside of Aspen, Colorado for a total elevation gain of over 7,500 feet. We left town at 10pm for the short drive to trailhead, doing the majority of the hike in darkness to avoid afternoon thunderstorms as we finished. Most tried to sleep beforehand but I failed in that endeavor.

As we started to approach the first of the four passes, West Maroon Pass, I found myself in a small group of 3, and then 4, hikers. As we began to ascend the steepest parts, far above tree-line, I began to notice how spread out the group was with some hikers over 30 minutes ahead of us, just a few hours into the hike, and others over an hour behind us. At this stage I was dealing with the worst of the altitude sickness I was likely to feel but it didn’t help much. Had I not ‘fallen-in’ with these members of the group, by luck, I might have turned back after attaining that first pass.

The group I was hiking with was over 30 strong with nearly twenty setting out with us at the start of the night. (The other third of the group was starting a little later and going counter-clockwise to our clockwise hike.) This group, a bunch of executive types from the financial services industry, has pretty much committed itself to doing something outlandish like this every year. This year was the fourth such hike for the group, my second, with last year’s hike a trip up Yosemite’s Half Dome.

With a quick refresh at the top, having just climbed about 3,000 feet in elevation, the four of us began our descent into a small valley before starting our second ascent. This next leg would be just an hour or so long, our shortest leg of the entire hike. Timing was important, we knew that if it took us more than 7 hours to reach that second pass, affectionately named Frigid Air Pass, we’d need to turn back because it we wouldn’t be able to finish the entire loop in time. On the way to that second pass, we encountered another hiker who had been in front of us but who had slowed down. That hiker, Kevin, joined myself, Eric, Steven and Jessica. We’d be together for the rest of the hike. We made it to Frigid Air in less than 6 hours, so we were on track.

Our next descent was a big one and took us almost to the altitude we started at, but not quite. As we approached tree-line we were greeted by a trail runner, a member of our group, who had been well behind us with his father who ultimately turned back, and was now on a course to finish hours ahead of us. The way he continued running (walking already seemed difficult for us) with a sandwich in his mouth was something of an inspiration to our small band of hikers and kept us all ho-humming along. We made our descent, thought some moving shadows (the effect of our head-lamps on some logs) were actually bears, ate some breakfast and enjoyed a cloudy sunrise. There was a beautiful waterfall and incredible fauna and mountain scenery all around us and it was finally bright enough to actually stop and smell the wildflowers!

This was the time to speed up and make up some time but instead we found ourselves slowing down and feeling the affects of fatigue. A river crossing gave us a lot of down-time, forcing us to change socks and actually sit down for more than a minute. We decided it was probably our half-way point, right around 7am, and the rest was needed as our next uphill segment, named Segment Soul Crusher by our leader, was set to be a doozy. Thankfully, as we moved on and got ready for that climb we were followed by some Elk, or perhaps deer, on the other side of the valley and up the hill. Other than porcupines those would be our only major wildlife encountered. (NOTE: After turning back at the first pass several other members of the group encountered campers dealing with a momma bear and her two cubs. Although it sounded like a unique experience, I was glad to not have shared it!)

We quickly found that Segment Soul Crush was aptly named. It was some of the steepest hiking I’ve ever done and it seemed to go on forever. Thankfully, unlike the final hike up Mt. Kilimanjaro, the trail was pretty solid and not made of scree, a big plus. Still though it went on and on and even had a tantalizingly cruel false summit but we kept walking, mostly in silence. Our biggest break came when we encountered members of our group going the other direction, right about when we should have encountered them, meaning we were all moving in a timely fashion. On the false summit, my group stopped to rest and me, feeling bad as they kept stopping to wait for me, kept on moving. My mental state was one of needing to move forward, constantly, but at my own slow pace. Everyone else was moving a little quicker and enjoying breaks to let me catch up. By me setting off ahead just a few minutes we all moved much quicker.

Approaching the third pass, Trail Rider Pass, we were well above tree-line and the wind was howling at us again. I encountered three women who were running the same route I was hiking, but in the other direction, and they were joking that they decided to ignore the weather forecast for the day and look at Florida’s forecast instead. When I told them I was actually in from Florida they were blown away that my sea-level lungs were still pumping…they were in from Denver for the day. We took eachother’s photos, the rest of my group of 5 quickly caught up, and we were off again. Now though, we were looking at the clock as it was already past 9am and we were expecting some serious thunder around noon. We picked up the pace as we headed down.

It was a shame, this next segment was the most beautiful we encountered in the sunlight and were unable to spend much time enjoying it. First there was the insanely beautiful Snowmass Lake, inviting for a swim much as Odysseus and his men were called by the sirens of old. Our bodies all ached and 20 minutes of that frigid water would have made my body blissfully numb for the final climb up Buckskin pass.

Alas it was not meant to be. We had another 500 feet or so to descend before beginning our final ascent, another 2750 feet uphill. This time we were under the cover of trees for much of that hike and able to enjoy the scenery and shade as the sun became stronger. It was ironic, the sun was finally out in force, the first time all hike, and yet we knew it would not last long. The sunlight though did allow us to witness what must be the grandest dam built by beaver’s I’ve ever seen. I think it was easily twice the size of my first dorm room!

That final ascent was rough, mostly because we were all practically sleepwalking at this point. Still, we knew we needed to keep walking and it took all the energy we had to see it through. Those of us who had felt stronger earlier in the day were now feeling much weaker and it took the 5 of us as a team to really push one another up that final hill. Thankfully, once we left the shelter of the trees we could see the pass the entire time. The little shadows of people up there only helped to make it feel closer and eased the mental stress quite a bit. One hiker, John, who had passed us an hour or two earlier was now hurting and we caught up to him and finished as a group of six.
At the top, we rejoiced for about three minutes before starting what felt like the world’s slowest sprint down that final hill. Our group splintered on the way back to the parking lot with two of our members getting there and to shelter before the thunder started. The rest of us finished quite water-logged and cold. Still we finished and were safely below the tree-line when the thunder began. Others in our group were not so lucky, one shedding his hiking poles (a.k.a lightning rods) as he ran down the hill. In the end, everyone survived and enjoyed a raucous dinner together before departing town the next day.

4 Bachelor Party ideas for Las Vegas and Beyond

August 7, 2013 By Danny

Typically, most bachelor parties here in the USA involve a lot of booze and often a trip to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. In a few weeks, I’ll be heading out on a bachelor party myself and although some of the other guys wanted to take a traditional Vegas trip and stay at a place like the www.arialasvegas.com, the bride to be was dead set against that option. Several still took the time to research Vegas flights and things to do in Sin City but it was to no avail. Las Vegas can be a great place, but it is only one of the options we have here today.

A Backwoods Adventure.

Nothing quite says manliness and male bonding like a camping trip. Somehow the challenge us urban and suburbanites face when lighting a campfire always makes stories for the ages. Add to that a few rounds of brew and no real stressors and you can have yourself a nice relaxing trip…but that’s not what bachelor parties are all about. Instead, try to take a mountain biking or a white water rafting trip. The nice thing about rafting is that by choosing a rafting company, such as the one we used on my bachelor party, no one needs to have any real skills or gear.

Be A Kid.

With this upcoming bachelor party we chose instead to do something that would be simple and fun. We’re visiting Cedar Point in Ohio where we will ride roller coasters until we’re blue in the face. To add a little bit of manliness to the weekend we’ll also be hitting a baseball game and grilling out for dinner. The really exciting thing is that none of the crew has been to this park before; most have never been to Ohio for that matter.

Travel Abroad

In sticking with the theme of doing something new, why not take that same airplane and turn it in another direction. Recently I went to a Bachelor Party that took place in Puerto Rico, no passport needed and relatively inexpensive airfare still left us in a new country with plenty of options for things to do. Although if you have more money at your disposal, you could follow the British Stag Party tradition and visit Prague instead!

Right to Roam – Hiking in the United Kingdom

April 15, 2013 By Jillian

After backpacking around the world, we’ve settled into a more normal travel routine, taking shorter vacations here and there to relax and recharge. That’s not to say the adventure is gone- in fact we’re probably pickier and more selective about the places we visit now given that we have only a short time to get there and explore. Our focus now is to go to places where we can do the activities we love like hiking and camping instead of focusing on places where we can check off a list of must-sees.

High on the list of activity focused vacations is the United Kingdom. Although I spent several weeks there on a teen tour and a few pamper days in England in college during my study abroad semester, my time in the United Kingdom so far really only hit the highlights of each country and a week or so running about London. With all of the big “must see” tourist destinations out of the way, I’m planning to spend my next trip there focused on activities we love like hiking the hills or even better Scotland’s highlands. Why hiking in the United Kingdom? Well, walking, as it is called in the United Kingdom is apparently the most popular outdoor recreation activity in Great Britain, at least according to the Ramblers Association. Government laws protect the right to roam in Scotland in places that walking has been unhindered for more than 20 years and in England and Wales the public has right of way on many routes through private land. That’s pretty cool, especially coming from America where the freedom to roam is often curtailed by signs warning about trespassing.

In England and Wales many of these “right to roam” routes are signposted and you even have the right to camp along the footpaths if you wish. Although there’s a substantial network of these trails, most of the long-distance paths are far from civilization, allowing you to really get away from it all – something that doesn’t generally come to mind when I think of the United Kingdom. The terrain may not be mountainous by most people’s standards, but the fact that you can get up and just start down a footpath and see where it takes you is very inviting.

Apparently challenge walks, or long-distance timed walks are also popular in the United Kingdom. We completed a 100K/24 hour hike a few years ago along the C&O canal in D.C. which was fun, exhausting and definitely the kind of hike that needed to end in massage treatments. Danny did another one in February along the same route that was just 50 miles (just!) and I could see us doing another long-distance hike again. With names like the Lake Wake Walk and the Three Peaks Walk, I think we’re in!

Photo Credit: Photo1 courtesy of flickr user Russell J. Smith, Photo 2 courtesy of flickr user Paul Stevenson, both via a creative commons license.

A Really Really Really Really Long Walk

April 12, 2013 By Danny

I once walked 100 kilometers in one day. We started at 3am, the four of us. It was an organized event so we weren’t alone but when I walked up to the finish line at midnight I had been alone for hours.

Somehow, I thought it would be a good idea to do that long walk again….in winter!

What started out as a simple dare quickly grew into a quest for myself and three other friends. (This was a different group from my first foray in long distance walking.) I had been hoping to rejoin the 100km walk again later this month but scheduling kept that from happening. In the process I heard about a 50 mile trek to commemorate the first time this walk was done, by Robert F. Kennedy, mentioned to my friends, and there was no turning back.

The group who started the 50mi Kennedy Walk — At the start there were 34 walkers. Only 12 would walk the entire distance.

Because this was was shorter, the start time was a leisurely 4am. In preparing for the walk, all I could think about was the immense pain and suffering I felt toward the end of the 62mi when I’d done it the first time. Yes, this was was shorter, but it was winter time so really no real benefit from the decreased distance. I’d walk a little less but have to deal with temperature control, freezing water and maybe even snow on the trail.

We got to the trailhead a bit late but still managed to start with the group. It was dark. It was cold. I wanted to walk faster than the rest of my group. We all wanted to sleep. The sun came up. We ate food. My water froze. I unfroze my Camelback’s hose so I could drink. It froze again. Fun, right?

The Towpath connects Washington, DC to Cumberland, MD — A lot of the path looked just like this. It was a beautiful day….in February!

The walk itself took place along the C&O Canal. The Canal was built alongside the Potomac River to ferry goods up and down river between Washington, DC and Cumberland, MD; a distance of about 185mi. The walk I did before, the 100km, started in DC itself and went all the way to Harper’s Ferry, WV. The “shorter” walk I did the second time started further upstream in Great Falls, following the same canal and towpath all the way to Harper’s Ferry.

Chester and Lionel on the trail, with a bow tie! — You can see Chester’s bow tie…I tied it!

Eventually we all hit our stride and began to enjoy our day despite the cold. This is probably a good point to introduce the rest of my cohorts. There was Chester and his lovely bride Catherine. Chester and I knew each other from GWU where we played Rugby with the fourth member of our trip, Lionel. Lionel and Catherine, who for various reasons didn’t want to walk the whole way, each took turns shuttling the car while Chester and I walked the full distance. We were all dared to start the day wearing oxford shirts and bow ties (my bowtie fell off before our first pit stop) to help us commemorate RFK but Chester was the only one ~~stupid~~ strong enough to make the whole trip in a pair of Cole Haan dress shoes.

The walk itself is easy. Technically, it is uphill, but 600 feet in elevation spread over 50 miles doesn’t really count for much elevation. It’s that very flatness that causes the pain in the hip flexors and ankles, from doing the same thing over and over again for hours. With the sun up, we warmed up quite a bit and I didn’t have any more problems with water freezing. We walked some more and some more. We talked politics and business and philosophy, as friends do, and then we talked about how much we hurt and what we wanted to eat. A friend visited us a few hours before sunset and brought us hot chocolate and magic bars. Amazing. We kept walking. Walking some more. Did I mention this was a very long walk? We saw some kind of strange albino deer. The sun set. The temperature dropped a lot. We still had miles to go. We kept walking.

In the end we didn’t finish too long after sunset, arriving at Harper’s Ferry right about 7pm. Although 7pm sounds like a nice time to finish something, we’d been walking for 15 hours straight and were simply exhausted. For me though, I was shocked at how much easier a 50 mile walk was compared to a 62 mile walk, and thankful that we’d not encountered any snow. When I’d finished this walk the first time, doing the full 100km, I could barely move. Although I was plenty sore this time around things like stairs and hills didn’t look quite so scary. We even went out for dinner and each enjoyed a nice pint of beer.

Then we got to the B&B we’d booked for the night, and Chester removed those Cole Haans… The shoes survived surprisingly well but the feet were another story.