2017 Sierra Challenge

The 2017 Sierra Challenge just finished up. This year I felt less ready than I have in past years, although I have done a bit of mountain training and can still plod up mountains off the couch. Especially for the first days I just tried to do the designated challenge peaks. This was both due to the weather (with afternoon lightning) and my feeling pretty tired. I never stopped feeling tired, but I reached a steady state and most everyone else got tired too. Most days I was able to keep up or at least within sight of the lead group up to the peak, On the way down sometimes I tried to keep up and others I just dropped into plod gear (but also had more time to take photos). This was a high snow year and I brought crampons and ice axe on most days. I also enjoyed some of the best boot (or running shoe) skiing I have ever had.

a pretty lake on the way down from 4 Gables. I sort of wanted to slide down the snow into the water

Bob and Alberto scramble from Wahoo peak onto Glacier Divide

Iris scrambles up Woods Peak

the moon heading down behind Nameless Pyramid (day 7)

Matt on the descent from the Sharktooth

The faster people ended up either taking a day off or doing alternate peaks on some days, so by virtue of being the only one who did all of this year's challenge peaks I won the Yellow Jersey. I also came in second for the "king of the mountain" polka dot jersey with 19 peaks - way way behind Scott with some 40 peaks I think (I am not sure exactly how many he got - he had many epic long days in the mountains). I actually finished with the stage winners 3 days, although on one day they started a few minutes late so were actually faster.

The total miles and altitude gain for just doing the challenge peaks was about 151 miles and 60,200 feet of elevation gain although with the bonus peaks I am sure I did a little bit more.

Iris models the 2017 Sierra Challenge shirt - and list of peaks

As usual I didn't get enough sleep but by not doing lots of bonus peaks I didn't end up with multiple days of sleep deprivation (although I did end up with only a few hours one night).


I would like to thank Bob Burd and all of the other participants for making this challenge so much "fun". It is a lot more fun to have big days and suffering with friends. I also had help from Leki (their trekking poles kept me going and upright when I don't think my feet alone were enough), Evolv and Altra for footwear. I wore the Evolv Maximus on days where I expected steep snow and scrambling/climbing and the Altra Lone Peak for longer days. Prana for Stretch Zion pants - with and without zip off legs, a Tilley Hat, Cotton Carrier for helping me lug around my brick of a dslr, and Columbia for an Omni-Shade shirt (more on this later I hope) and an ultralight raincoat.

For a lot more details check out Bob Burds web page...

http://www.snwburd.com/bob/challenge/2017/

Hopefully someday I'll have a real trip report with details and pics from every day.

That day is today, Check out the trip reports here:

2017 Sierra Challenge Part One:

http://www.electricant.net/grundyman/sierrachallenge2017.html

2017 Sierra Challenge Part Two:

http://www.electricant.net/grundyman/sierrachallenge2017b.html

Mount Clarence King and Gardiner Peak

Originally Jonathan and I planned a longer trip to the Great Western Divide, but a number of factors including the weather changed our plans to a more modest trip. We delayed another day for weather (wisely it appears) and then hiked in over Kearsarge and Glen passes and into 60 Lakes Basin where we set up camp. The next day we climbed Clarence King and then headed over towards Gardiner but walked past the base in Gardiner Basin opting to head back to camp to swim in the lake before it got too cold and climb it the next day. So, the next day we headed back and climbed it including a most excellent summit ridge. J headed back to camp and I traversed along the ridge passing a number of un-named peaks along the way before dropping down and back to camp for another swim. The last day we hiked out up towards Dragon lake and then south cross country and over the ridge west of Gould and back down. There was a lot of frosty dew - especially the first night. I took heaps of pictures of the lovely scenery. As usual there will probably be a more extensive trip report with more pics to come - I'll post a link here to it if I remember.

Jonathan on the summit of Clarence King

Jonathan picked up mylar balloon litter - it made a nice Thomas the Tank Engine doormat

some of the most excellent summit ridge on Mount Gardiner

Milky Way reflected in a lake

here I am relaxing on a summit

Rae Lake and Painted Lady Peak - quite scenic really

Mount Washington Winter Hike

On Dec 22 Sam and I celebrated the new winter by driving up to New Hampshire. We slept in the back of the truck with the alarm set for "in a little bit". Things were dry and cold when we went to sleep and when the alarm went off things were still cold but there was also 3 inches of fresh snow everywhere. Eventually we got everything packed up and started wandering around in the dark looking for the trail. We started up around 6:45 or so just as it was starting to get a little bit almost barely light. The trail was wide and pretty obvious despite the fresh snow. Unfortunately under the snow was a mix of gravel, rocks, and ice. We both slipped and fell over or at least to a knee or hand a few times. There were 2 groups ahead of us and we followed them on what we thought was the turn off to Lion Head trail - it actually wasn't and eventually we noticed this and backtracked a bit and took another trail that rejoined the Tuckerman Ravine trail. From there we found the correct trail and started up.

Sam where we first started to get some visibility

Soon things started getting steeper and we put on crampons. Between my heavy leather boots, steel crampons, and heavy gaiters my feet felt very heavy - but they stuck on the ice. As we got higher up the trail the snow eased up and we began to get a little visibility. We were both pretty hot at this point but didn't want to actually take off any more layers. Near the top of the Lion Head trail we even saw a little bit of sun. Then we came over a point and the wind picked up. This helped clear parts of the trail but drifted other parts. Where the trail passed through the Krumholtz it was a little more sheltered again but beyond that was pretty windy again. It was nice to have a balaclava and ski goggles. The cairns - rock piles to mark the trail - up here were very big and close together so that they could be followed even in a whitout. We could usually see at least 6 at any one time. There were little rime ice fingers growing all over towards the direction the wind comes from. I didn't see many bigger than a few inches, but they were impressive in their number.

We barely saw the sun for a little bit

rime ice formations

When we turned N towards the summit the visibility was going down and the wind was coming up. Also the footing was harder because it was larger rocks underfoot but many of the gaps between them were filled with drifts of snow. It made for some slow plodding progress but by 11:30 or so we made it to the parking lot. From there we went up to the buildings and found the summit sign. I thought the visibility was completely going but it was only ice covering my goggles (and just about any other surface). It was forming amazingly fast - you could see it cover the camera lens among other things. (we took Sam's camera up because mine probably wouldn't have handled the conditions well). (most of the photos here are ones Sam took, although you will have to wait for my trip report to see his "arty" shots.

Tom hiking up past more rime ice and rocks

At the top the wind was windy (40 to 50 according to the summit weather station we were told) but we measured only 25 on Sam's wind meter as well as a bit under 20 degrees F with a windchill in the negative numbers. It was cold, especially as ice was forming on just about everything. We had more warm clothes but rather than stick around and get everything ice covered putting it on we just headed down. We made much better time heading down at first, especially as there was a bit more snow and the wind was from behind. We passed 4 groups that were still coming up (including one group ahead of us that also took the wrong turn but continued on up Huntingdon Ravine). The final part of the trail seemed to take forever, but we got back to the parking lot by 3 or so. As far as elevation goes it was a little lower than going from Phoenix to Flagstaff and back, but the weather was a lot more severe. It was enough to give us a good taste of winter and not have it be totally casual but the unpleasantness didn't actually last very long. I would have liked to have a few expansive views and some wind and snow free times to swap out lenses though. Still, I have to rate it a highly successful trip.

Sam and Tom icing up on the summit of Mount Washington

here is a link to the spot track - unfortunately it didn't start registering until we were a good ways into the trip and it didn't get us on top. - zoom in to the satellite view to see some of the buildings up top.

http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=288840