Utah: King's Peak (-MT)

Utah's King's Peak was the first of 2 high western peaks to be attempted in early august. Work provided a good excuse to leave with no access to my original office due to reconstructions. So to raise productivity after this inconvenience what better way to do so than getting the batteries recharged with some high altitude training...

The Henry's fork trail follows a valley slowly uphill towards King's peak, mostly following the river Henry's fork, before it start reaching arctic tundra and rock hopping trails near the peak. The apprach to the trailhead is an extremely well maintained gravel road rivalling some highways in width and smoothness. after some 30 miles it reaches a small turnoff to henry's fork trail head, which also have a separate trail head for horse trips.

Once the terrain opens up one can catch glimpses on King's peak after some 3-4h of hiking. Here Kings peak is the smaller peak in sunshine to the right of the peak in center picture (the pass on the left is gunsight pass which the trail passes through).

I camped about 8 miles in along the trail at about 11 000ft elevation near dollar lake.  Dollar lake offer some nice secluded fishing and wonderful campsites without crowding even on this relatively poplar trail.

Dollar lake also offers some animal company mostly in the form of Uintas ground squirrels (see below), but there are also tame sheep grazing the plains and sometimes horses which people can use to travel some of the longer trails.

The next morning the thunderstorms during the night in combination with some light-headedness due to elevation made me have a very slow morning and I didn't leave camp until just before 8am. Once the hike started it soon started the uphill climb towards Gunsight pass which is where I took the photo below looking down the valley which the trail ascends.

After reaching Gunsight pass one can save quite some distance by contouring around the 13 000 ft sub peak at about 12 000 ft elevation rather than following the trail down the valley after Gunsight pass and then back up towards Anderson pass again. After that last pass the hiking turns form rock hopping to scrambling and mostly class 2. If one goes off route to the west edge of the ridge the exposure gets very intimidating quite quickly. After some effort though I safely reached the top together with about 10 others also reaching within about the same half hour.

The route down is somewhat slow especially if inclement weather rolls in which is common around midday. I had 2 hail and rain mixes hitting me on the way down, but the high thin air dried out stones quite quickly making the hiking much easier once again.

One of the main features of the valley is a very diverse mix of rocks and stones. Many looking striped just like tigers. Below is a stone which resembled wood somehow which a very intriguing break and erosion line separating it from other rocks.

Some samples of the giant tiger boulders are also shown here, the scale of them are from about 5 ft diameter (1.5m) to about 15 ft (5m) diameter below. They were all dislodged from about 1000-1500 ft higher up on the valley walls.

After making it down from the top I reached camp about 3 pm after some short cuts on the way down. So I decided to pack up camp and hike all the way out for a day of close to 20 miles of hiking and scrambling. A fresh shower and soft bed was also badly appreciated after a thunder riddled night at high elevation in the tent.

Stats:
State:  Utah
High point: King's Peak
Elevation: 13 528 ft (4 123 m)
Date: Aug 1st, 2012
Total elevation to date: 221 764 ft (67 594 m)
Access:
Difficulty rating (of 10): 4
Potential Difficulties: routefinding, inclement weather

ME: Katahdin

Maine's Katahdin is a nice 5000+ft mountain which is relatively isolated with over 4 000ft prominence. Katahdin also marks the northern end of the Appalachian trail. I chose to hike up the Abol slide trail, although there are many different options for reaching the peak which is Baxter peak, including among them hiking on knife's edge which I avoided in a decision that would prove to be quite lucky.

The trial started with some minor nuisances of mosquitoes and mild rain, which lasted the first hour or two of hiking after starting around 730 in the morning. The rist mile or so is fairly slow inclination change in forest along small streams, actually the trail itself was a minor stream in sections.

Once the trail turns upwards there is a rockslide to follow for about 3000 elevation ft in not much more than a mile. The slide have a mix of gravel and larger rocks, which is quite straightforward to hike and scramble on and which doesn't move too much even in the wed slippery conditions.

Parts of the trail involve some semi-tricky class 2 scrambling, had it been dry it would probably have been mostly pleasant, but the wet made for a challenge especially on the way down later... As the elevation increased the clouds started sweeping in around the trail and the top of the mountain, but for a while there was some very nice views of the surrounding lakes and nature.

Once you reach the top of the slide the trickiest part is over, but a completely other set of challenges might present themselves, inmy case it was a very very reduced view as can be seen in the pictures below. That in combination with extremely heavy wind gusts on hte edge of the tabletop on the mountain. 

The Abol trail intersected with the appalachian tral and that leads to the Baxter peak in about 1 mile distance but with a very mild inclination of only a couple of hundred feet in tundralike nature.

After about 3 hours of hiking I reached the top which is marked with a sign, and a plaque. On the sign one can see the quite intimidating distance marked as over 2000 miles to the southern terminus of the Appalachian trail. After a couple of oreos and other snacks I was about ready to head down and leave the clouds...

First a look at one of the other trails leaving up to the top, the infamous knifes edge. In the wet conditions with very strong temporary gusts I would not be surprised to see that trail being closed for the day for safety reasons.

Katahdin marks 40 states climbed which means I am officially "over the hill" so now it's just "downhill"f from here to complete the rest...

Stats:
State: Maine
High point: Katahdin
Elevation 5268 ft (1 605.7 m)
Date: June 24th, 2012
Total elevation to date: 208 236 ft (63 470 m)
Access: hike
Difficulty rating (of 10): 6
Potential Difficulties: slippery, high winds, mosquitoes

Oregon: Mount Hood

Oregon's Mount Hood, showed itself from a truly amazing side the last 2 days.It's not the highest volcano in the range and you can in fact see Mt Rainier from it which towers over an additional 3000ft. Nevertheless it's a very nice climb early in the season before too much ice and snow starts melting making conditions hazardous.

I had signed up for a summit program with Timberline Mountain guides, in total we were 9 guys of varying background and spread across the country. there were also 2 guides for the first day but 3 for the actual climb. The first day involved briefing and a couple of hours of snow-climbing school, including self-arrests, crampon techniques and roped travel. a lot of fun and a very toasty day felling like 70's in the sun.

The video shows Mt Hood from approximately the Timberline Lodge (~ 6000 ft - 1800 m). quite a part of the main trail going up the mountain can be seen. For a  more detailed description of part of our route the picture below shows that in red.

The "day" started at 1230am with assembly and by 1am we had left in a snowcat carrying us up to the top of the ski lifts. We hiked a short stretch to get our warmth back, truth be told though the temperature was quite agreeable, it had been colder last morning, but the bottom temperatures was supposed to come along at 5-6 in the morning. Layering worked fine, and although I feared wind making it worse and thus directly started with my hard shell jacket on, that was not an issue during any of the climb. Like I mentioned above we were truly blessed with weather. There wasn't much one could make out in the darkness until the moon had risen high enough to shed some light on the mountain side.

The route went nicely smooth up about 2000 ft up to the Hogsback, we were among the first people on the mountain that night. On the Hogsback one of the group climbers had to call it quits unfortunately, me and Andy set of a bit earlier with one of the guides to make it back to the last climber as soon as possible for starting the descent. the last 800 ft got gradually more steep, and roping up and using ice axes became necessary, and eventually climbing on all for for a shorter stretch, with about 40 or so percent inclination. once up though the old chute there is only a few hundred yards to the actual summit where the sun was starting to rise. The "captain morgan" look came to good use on the wind free summit. Which was reached about 4.50am.

Quickly more and more light started shining, in the picture below taken just before we started the decent one can see the Columbia river snaking along to the north east.

The picture below was taken just before descending as the first team down the old chute for the day, the people can be seen collecting on the summit watching the sunrise. I never really had any problem with the altitude which I've had a couple of times previously, but this was one very enjoyable hike.

Going down one could see the lemming train of people slowly ascending the mountain. Here is any posing who was leading us down as the bottom=most guy of the rope. The Hogsback can be seen as stretching  diagonally upwards towards the right corner having a lot of people sitting along it.

Close to the hogsback one can find a couple of evidences that it is a volcano one is climbing on. In fact already after 10-20 minutes of climbing the familiar sulfur stench similar to the HS of rotten eggs started smelling, and the picture below show one of the vents where this type of gas emminates from.

Having the sun behind the mountain for a short while showed the truly remarkable silhouette of  Mt Hood as it cast it shadow initial almost all the way to the pacific. In the Photo below it had started retreating and become more well-defined.

A couple of the guides posing close to the top of the ski lifts where we started, unfortunately on the way down that only meant about halfway down. A good motivator for finishing the last stretch though was that we had been making good time and were there at 7.20 already and that meant we could enjoy the Lodge's breakfast buffet if nothing unexpected happened.

the final stretch doing down to the lodge can be seen below. We followed the snowcat's tracks which is what most of those ascending from the lodge had done on the way up also. A majority of the group had brought snowboards and skied down once we reached the top of the ski run.

Finally down at 8.30am (7h total hiking time), and could freshen up some, return renal boots and gear and then chat with the others in the group before having a very nice "Breakfast Buffet", We had been up close to 10h already so the concept of breakfast was not entirely straight forward. But nonetheless amazingly satisfying...

Stats:
State: Oregon
High point: Mount Hood
Elevation: 11 239 ft (3425.6 m)
Date: May 5th, 2012
Total elevation to date: 202 968 ft (61 865 m)
Access: ice/snow hike, snowcat
Difficulty rating (of 10): 4
Potential Difficulties: Too warm (falling ice, slushy snow), too cold (ice blankets which are near impossible to climb), inclement weather, sharp tools...

(NY-) Vermont: Mt Mansfield

Vermont was showings its uglier side when arriving at Stowe. We decided to take the gondola up rather than the auto toll road. Views were not too impressive once you entered the clouds, but some nice views of the valley could be found. 

Up at the top of the Gondola there is a 'DDD' rated trail (class 2-3) called the liff trail leading up to the chin of the man that is the outline of Mt Mansfield.

The trail which was soaked by mild rain and the humidity of being in the clouds offered some challenging sections over cliffs and sometimes between and also under boulders obstructing the way such as seen below, and trust me when I say that going on top of them was not an option due to the size of the boulders.

Eventually though the trial leads to the ridge and it's a decently easy trial on exposed slab the last part, only made harder by the wetness which made it somewhat slippery.

Views on the top was quite nonexistent, which can also be seen in my very wet and disappointed face below.

Going back down to the Gondola was the real challenge though, although a multitude of trails lead to the top, only the Cliff trail leads back to the gondola. And the rock moves that proved easy on the ascent were now extremely wet and slippery on the way down, resulting in some shaky legs and slip-ups.
Below is an example of exposed slab with a 30% inclination looking down from above which proved to be a formidable challenge to get a secure footing on.

It got much worse on the parts where there was 15 ft (5 m) drops between the cliffs/boulders which you were supposed to taverse on the top off. The somewhat hidden bushes in the pictures below are actually surprisingly tall sticking up from some of the cracks and holes between rocks.

I made it down with only some minor bruises and was glad to take the gondola down to some warmer weather and dry clothes.
I was so focused on putting on some dry clothes that I completely forgot my sunglasses on the roof of the Prius, which Tricia heard something moving when we dove off, amazingly there were still on the root 100 yards later when we stopped after I realized my mistake.
18 high points left of which 8 are above 10000 feet (6 in continental US) and some of them will prove to be quite formidable and rewarding challenges hopefully.


Stats:
State: Vermont
High point: Mount Mansfield
Elevation: 4 393 ft (1 339 m)
Date: August 7th, 2011
Total elevation to date: 159 405 ft (48 587 m)
Access: hike, class 2 about 1.5h round trip Difficulty rating (of 10): 7
Potential Difficulties: weather! (slippery rock trail)

(NM-AZ-) Nevada: Boundary peak (-CA)

Third state on this road trip was Nevada and Boundary peak. There exists some confusion regarding Nevada's highest mountain/point. The highest freestanding mountain is Mt Wheeler, named the same as the peak in New Mexico. But the highest point is Boundary peak,, named from being close to the boundary of California, and connected to the higher Montgomery peak, so while boundary peak is a isolated topographic high point there is a higher point not much more than a mile away, although that peak is in the state of California.

Enough trivia... I decided to camp at the trail head on about 9000 ft elevation, reason being it is in the middle of nowhere and required a 15mile very slow trip on a gravel road, which at parts was not really worth the title "road". The rental car took a minor beating, but I was mostly happy not to slide off the sides of the roads which whould have ended in a stuck car in the middle of nowhere (or worse). The trail head marks the newly created wilderness area, and it's residents which range from flies and cows to bear (rare sightings though). One note though I arrived in the afternoon to very pleasant and almost overly warm weather, the night proved to be very different though with a couple degrees below freezing indicated by ice on the rain-fly of the tent. It got me so hypothermic that I had to sit in the car and warm up for over an hour to mend the shivering. Once the sun came up the quicksilver jumped upwards for a beautiful morning and day to hike in without any other people around apart from some people fishing in a dam slightly below the trail head.

In the evening I did a minor hike just to check out the terrain for tomorrow. being a more obscure peak there is a number of faint "trails" or routes one might take. The first part follows a lush valley along a small creek, the deep saddle on the right above is then one option to go to and then follow the ridge for over 2000ft elevation. alternatively one aims for the second ridge to the left and then go to the left and find Boundary peak hidden behind the peak on the left.

 The zoom above shows one of the 2 main obstacles on this hike: major rock outcroppings which one needs to climb around, navigating them is somewhat tricky though so on the ascent it is common to take a steeper than necessary route to follow the ridge, while form above going down, one can identify  that some can be avoided by walking below them on the scree on various sides depending on which is too steep.

The second obstacle can be seen in the picture below. The side of the mountain is compromised of loose scree and gravel at inclinations of 20-25% meaning it's a game of 2 steps forwards three steps back on the way up, and the way down is more of 1 step forward, 10ft of gliding downwards in loose scree. As an illustration it took 4h to the top, and less than 1h 45min down, of which close to an hour was the top scramble, and the rest consisted of the very quick and amusing (as long as the leg muscles keep up) decent. The inclination can also be seen from the starkly dark sky looking upwards at high altitude with less atmosphere to look through.

Getting up to the ridge one can make out Boundary peak on the picture below, some snow is left on the northern sides, but not much considering it was close to desert landscape around the mountains.

The picture above shows some of the magnificent rock formations one found on the mountain slopes. The photo is taken in the direction of Nevada and the valley the trail came from (on the right). The car and tent awaits less than 3 miles away (bird's route).  Below one can see Montgomery peak which is in California, the state boundary is actually passing more or less in the middle between the peaks in each state.

The top register actually had a nice flag showing the location and elevation nicely. So that lead to a good Photo opportunity, and a pretty irrefutable sign of being above 4000m elevation again.

Weather was nothing short of fantastic, and the SPF 50 which was reapllied about 5 times saved my fqace and nose from a lot of future pain.

Finally there was a section along the trail which had eerily looking trees which reminded me of the Ents going to war in the  Lord of the rings movies. Most of the was quite a bit away from the trail, but below is one nice one that was close to the trail and clinging on to the side of the valley.

As I reached the car I started heading towards California to find a place for sleeping and possibly visiting Yosemite or another park in the Sierras, however, luck had it that I could get a pass to Mt Whitney, and I had 5 minutes to decide where or not to accept it and hike the highpoint of all of continental US or rest or go to some mild scenic climb like half-dome in Yosemite. Considering the phenomenal altitude acclimatization NM,AZ,NV had given, I could hardly turn that opportunity down...


Stats:
State: Nevada
High point:Boundary Peak
Elevation: 13 140 ft (4 005 m)
Date: July 13, 2011
Total elevation to date: 135 174 ft (41 201 m)
Access: Hike, class 2, 6h round trip
Difficulty rating (of 10): 5
Potential Difficulties: Loose scree and sand will make ascend hard. Even in July, camping at trail head can lead to hypothermia.