Last wekend, Bill, Lucas and I decided to make the rough climb to the high camping spot that Lucas and I had scouted out in July. That trip we made camp at Horse Brush, about a 2 mile mild hike in from the road and then struck out with day packs the next morning for the tougher 2.3 mile ascent of the mountain.
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| Low camp's namesake |
This trip we took off work early on Friday, determined to make the full 4.32 mile hike to the top and camp.
About a mile in we caught a little bit of rain, that managed to stop about 2 minutes after we got our rain gear on.
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| Lucas doing his hunch back impression |
After passing Horse Brush, the trail begins to climb. Slowly at first, then it gets quite steep. Soon you're doing, what I call, the Himalayan Shuffle, where you can take about 15 or 20 steps, then have to stop for a few seconds, and repeat this process... for a couple hours.
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| Land of Lunges |
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| Those aren't just pretty rocks, that's the trail |
All told the trail rises over 2,200 ft. in elevation in about 2 miles of length. Combined with 40+ lb. backpacks and you really feel the pain. Lucas called it "The toughest hike I've ever done.". It was rough, no doubt, but Billy and I have been conditioning ourselves pretty good, so we fared a little better.
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| Billy likes backpacking |
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| Lucas is thinking about throwing up |
At the top, we made camp. Lucas had to take a break and barf so he wouldn't die, so Billy and I hiked back down the trail about a quarter mile to fill up a 2.5 gallon container with water. By the time we got back, it was nearly dark. Lucas rustled up some grub, we ate and went to bed pretty early.
At 11:30, Billy and I woke up simultaneously to a strange sound. Groggy from sleep, Billy says, "What's that?"
"That's a chopper." I say and turn to go back to sleep. Then it dawns on me, as the bird lights up our tent with a spot light, WTF is a helicopter doing up here? We're 4.5 miles from the dirt road, which is 8 miles from the nearest small town, and we're on top of a mountain at 10,400 ft. elevation.
The bird leaves just as fast as it came and we stay up a while wondering what that was all about. Lucas managed to sleep through the event and questioned us, thinking we made the whole thing up. Probably the strangest thing that has ever happened to me while camping.
The next morning we dawned our day packs and went down to the other side of the mountain to see what we could see. This side of the mountain was steep, but not nearly a long as the other side. We connected with some different trails and spied some really cool campsites we plan to hit next year.
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| Some rocks that promised some interesting future climbs |
That afternoon we hung around camp, got some wood ready for the fire and built up our "couches". Then we just sort of hung out and enjoyed the beautiful weather.
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| Wood and rocks |
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"Whatcha thinking 'bout?"
"Camping stuff I guess." |
That evening we ate some food, had a couple drinks and sat around the mountain TV set. We stayed up pretty late, watching the stars and waiting to see if the chopper would return, but it did not.
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| Billy's a big fan of the "stump fire" |
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| Lucas demonstrates the power of Axe Rock |
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The fire was so hot, I think it crinkled the polarized
coating on my glasses |
The hike down the next day was probably the roughest part for me. I'm in desperate need of new boots as my dozen year old Danners allow for way too much movement and really hurt my toes on the downhill. The headache from too much bourbon didn't help either.
But we accomplished our mission and got a lot of exercise in the process, hiking over 15 miles total, and over half of that with 40 lb. backpacks on.
Good times.
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| "Ye Olde" the ultimate walking stick |
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