End of the Challenge and a long drive

I finished up the Sierra Challenge with an 18 hour push from Whitney Portal. It was a long day but I did manage to squeek out a victory in the race for the polka dot jersey. Then I crashed in the back of the truck.

It is a long long way across this country

My next mission was to drive across the country for my cousin's wedding. I stopped off in Manzanar to take a few pics and my truck wouldn't start- the key would only turn a bit in the lock. After much messing and wiggling and so on I gave up and got it towed to Lone Pine to get the lock replaced. Unfortunately they had a bit of a search for a replacement. but eventually it was replaced and I could be on my way. By 7 pm I was heading north out of Bishop. I got well into Nevada before I needed to stop for some sleep. The next day I had a blowout on highway 6. It took about an hour to get out the jack and put on the spare and during that time about 5 people passed me. Between changing the tire and then buying a new one that wasted a few more hours. I was able to pick up my backpack which I left in SLC. Thanks Bob. I slept somewhere in the middle of Wyoming that night. The 3rd day was a long one, the rest of Wyoming, all of Nebraska - and it is a lot, and all of Iowa. I didn't get very far into Illinois before I had to sleep though. Then another long day taking me through the rest of Ill, Indiana, Ohio, and much of PA. That allowed me to make it to Boston around noon on Friday. oof.

The wedding was nice even if we were starting to get the front of Hurricane Irene. The next day we elected to stay home and not drive. The storm brought a lot of rain and wind and a few downed branches with about 2 hours with no electricity. It seemed to mostly hit to the west of us. My brother however had to be back for work on Monday and as a consequence had to rent a car and drive all the way to Rochester to get a flight. oof. He did make it though.

I started on my trip report for the Sierra Challenge here:

http://www.electricant.net/grundyman/schallenge2011.html

I hope to continue improving it though.

2011 Sierra Challenge Day 4

2011 Sierra Challenge Day 4 - lots and lots of sierra day hiking and peak bagging, that is for sure.

4 days, 9 peaks, lots of miles (80 or more?) and lots and lots of vertical. I am tired.

I made spot tracker pages for each day... (1 - 4 in order)

 http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=272783

 http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=272784

 http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=272785

http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=272786

I think I have the virtual polka dot jersey for "king of the mountain" - most peaks. I am nowhere near the yellow leader jersey for the fastest times though (doing bonus peaks hurts that, so does being slow and taking photos).

so far so good, although I am tired.

upcoming suffering - the 2011 Sierra Challenge.

This year I plan to participate in the 2011 Sierra Challenge. Basically 10 days of long day hikes to mostly obscure peaks with between 15 and 25 miles of hiking and 4,000 to 6,000+ feet of elevation gain. Sounds great eh? Unfortunately about 2/3 of the way through a hike up to the top of Wheeler Peak on Tuesday I started feeling lousy. By that evening I was pretty miserable with a general weak feeling and everything from the neck up being very unhappy. I went to bed by 8 and didn't get up until 7:30 the next morning except to drink water and go to the bathroom (breathing through my mouth made me very dehydrated). I feel better today, but this isn't how I would like to feel a few days before 10 grueling days are about to start.


Some more info on the Sierra Challenge can be found here:

http://www.snwburd.com/bob/challenge/2011/

with a summitpost page here that might have updates once things start.

http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB3/2011-sierra-challenge-aug-12-21-t58180.html

I will take my spot tracker with me, so you might be able to track my daily progress here:


http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0Dc9Uh3Nfi5gSoXCZcVqStstGq6beNZ8X

I'll try to update things from time to time, but I might just curl up and go to sleep after every day rather than get online and update things.



here is my spot track page for Wheeler Peak

http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=271694

short update from Wanderlust and the OR show

Once again life has been hectic, which is nice, but hectic.

Sam walks a water line at Lake Tahoe

Wanderlust was fun, as you might expect. How can you go wrong with a yoga - music festival with a heap of Yogaslackers? Among other things we did a human anchored line over the high camp pool. Here is a link to a pic someone else took of it.

http://unofficialnetworks.com/line-week-day-pool-34423/

After Wanderlust it was off to SLC for the Outdoor Retailer show where I helped set up the Prana booth and the Rejuvenation room, wandered the exhibit halls looking at all the shiny new things, hung out with fellow Yogaslackers, and didn't get a lot of sleep.

These pictures of Sam, Paul, and Jason were all over the show

Sam and Dan do some acro on the 5th floor roof of the SLC library

We escaped a well behaved zombie apocalypse in a large SUV

then went on to pioneer the sport of acro yoga pool - here Sam breaks from bird

Next I plan on heading back to the Sierra with a stop in Great Basin Natl. Park to head up Wheeler Peak, and then try my hand (and more importantly feet and legs) at the Sierra Challenge. My prediction - Pain.