13 July

 

 

13 July: well we made the last 12 miles including one pass fly by. we averaged over 3 miles an hr for the 12 miles. in fact the last hr we walked almost 4 mph, which is good at 10000 elevation. Debbie made the trip to mirror lake brought us cold Corona (of course) and ham sandwiches and snacks, she then informed us that she had home made cherry pie and shepherd pie at home....so lets get going!!!!

 

 

we all made the trip safely. Nothing other than some minor cuts and bruises. This was a good warm up hike for me. I need to do a few more and intensify my workouts and then back down in mid Sept for the az hike. hope you enjoyed. take care...be safe.......just walking

 

12 July

 

 

 

12 July: Today was the big day of the hike. we had hiked slow and low miles so far on this hike to accommodate the weather and to acclimate to the elevation. I actually slept the best on the trip last night. We went over two passes today and hiked 16.5 miles. to get close to our last pass.

 

Every time I go hiking I fight my fear of heights. It has been a major issue with me all my life. Try being an aircraft sheet metal man sitting on an edge of a wing 15 ft off the ground. I developed great ass muscles holding on for dear life in those instances. Not so much the fear of heights but the fear of falling. building our cabin the ground would actually start moving on me when I would get too high on the extension ladder. But I got it done. today going over dead horse pass my heart was a pounding when we had to make our own trail going up on loose dirt and rocks and one fall was a going to be a big step backwards. sad to say we saw a 10 yr old boy later with his dad that had hiked the trail up also and kicked ass and was working their way back. So much for my ego. But we all fight our own demons in our own way, so I am happy with what I did. Larry Boy scampered up the trail and marked our trail for us so we didn't have  to walk on the remaining snow much. There was a big patch of snow that was ice and slush and if you slipped you were headed down a few hundred feet to a quick stop at boulders so that is why we made new trail.

 

fittingly dead horse pass has a horse's skull along with the bit still in its mouth, but no way was I stopping to take a fricking picture.

 

 

earlier in the day we had climbed Red knob pass at lowly elevation of 11,800 I think. piece of cake. we saw some deer and a few elk on the trail. we passed one lake called ledge lake that had the excess water run off falling over the cliffs. It was quite a sight.

 

we camped at Brinkley lake a mire 12 miles from mirror lake. it was a long hot day but we beat the thunderstorms to camp. the mosquitoes were horrendous here as well. In fact for most of the trip we were all wearing deet 100 and glowing in the dark from it, and the bugs still came. Sherpa and Grizzley did some fishing at the lake and caught some nice brooks.

 

the trip has been great, even in the rain/wind storm. these sights you can't see from a car or ATV. this is a true wilderness area, chain saws aren't even allowed here. speaking of sawing, the day before we went through an area that had burned and the trees were weakened and dead from the fire but still standing. when the big winds come through they tumble like bowling pins. some of the areas we saw looked like they had dropped a bomb there. I was waiting for zombies to come out at any time... I had my three inch blade ready....

 

dead horse pass looking down from coming up. dead horse lake is below and ice had just come off. would have been a great place to camp but we had many miles to still walk

 

 path ahead over grizz's head

taking a break on top of the pass. I suggested camping there...which was quickly shot down

not going that way for certain

 one last looking and saying good bye to dead horse

11 July

 

11 July, hiked over Porcupine pass at 12200 ft elevation. going up the North side it had switchbacks, coming down the south side was basically a path heading down at an angle. I think it had two switchbacks. hiked a pretty easy day of 12 miles. we planned each day to hike over the passes in early morning due to the weather/thunderstorms in the afternoon. for the entire hike we never had to hike in rain. I think the rain God gave us his best shot Thursday night when it rained for 12 hours and he took pity on us the rest of the trip. lambert meadows was for the most part over 11000 ft for the day. we saw some mt goats in the hill sides. Some of the mt ranges were just majestic and rugged. we didn't see a person on this section for the day.

 

  heading up to porcupine pass

 made it down

 blurry damp pic of the mountain ridges the meadow was between

 Larry boy fussed out

a reflection of the reflection

10 July

 

 

10 July: we hit the trail by 6 AM and had about 2 miles or so to go to before the ascent of Anderson pass. this is the highest pass we would walk over at 12,800 ft. Kings Peak is a side trail straight up the mt and I passed on hiking it. my main goal of this hike was to see if my knee and ft would allow me to walk for several days with out pain. In the end all was good. We could see clouds forming early so we hiked fast with a few breaks to get to North Star lake. this lake is above tree level, and out in the open at aprox 11200 ft. Larry Boy hiked kings peak and we moved on. We set up camp and got inside our tents by 1330 just as the first rain drops fell. about an hr later the rain stopped and Sherpa and grizzley got some fishing in, catching small brook trout. Larry Boy showed up and wondered why we were camping in no cover. Around 1530 rain started falling again and everyone went into their tents. The rain would continue to fall until well after 130 AM the next day. I have never been in a rain in UT that rained so hard for so long. It was as constant battle to keep the rain from getting inside my tarp tent.  Then the rain stopped and the wind picked up. We estimated that the winds were sustained at over 55 miles an hour. The bottom of me tent was over my head when I was laying on it. I got out once for a bathroom break and tripped over my front guideline holding my tent up. So in this wind the tent came flying down, in the dark, in the rain, I had to search for my glasses and headlight so I could get my tent back up. after about 10 minutes of "oh hell" I managed to get things in place. I hopped back into my sleeping bag, wet and cold. I zipped up the mummy bag, put ear plugs in to try and deafen the roar of the tent flying in the wind and said hell with it and tried to get some sleep.

 

Larry Boy's tent came flying down in the night and he ended up in Sherpa's tent... another one-man tent. what happens on the trail stays on the trail so I will not go into anymore details on that. although both of them woke up in great moods.....hmmmmmm.

 

we all swore that no more above tree line camping on this trip. Larry Boy stated that I can no longer...ever pick a camping spot. It was one of those nights you read about, to survive it just made us stronger. I definitely was tired for the day though.



looking down from Anderson pass

I survived the climb

marmot in the rocks along with the flowers that were growing in some harsh conditions

trail down from Anderson pass

we walked down that side

made it to the lower level

9 July

9 July: we all woke up and started packing around 5 AM. night one was in the books with no rain and nice cool temps. today was going to be an easy day of hiking- no passes to summit. instead we were going to hike 11.2 miles in what you could call a high meadow or basin and find a campsite with water and cover in an area called painter basin.

 

the trail had a lot of ups and downs today though, it would drop to 10500 then back up to 11000.  I was glad that we were doing a relatively easy day since the elevation from yesterday had taken a toll on me. first night I slept only a few hrs and the food tasted bland so I dug a hole and buried most of my dinner. I figured I expended at least 5000 calories while taking in less than 1000. to compound the fact I had left my spices sitting in the cupboard instead of in my pack...big mistake. I also left my drink mixes at home, but that part is livable. It seems at high altitude your taste buds sleep but your body doesn't. I think I had an average of about 3 hrs sleep per night even though we usually were in our tents by 8-9 PM. I'll take some Excedrin PM meds with me on my long hike as well next time. I also had discovered that my Sawyer water filter was clogged and my ability to filter water was at a trickle instead of a steady stream. All stuff you can work around.

 

I believe today was the day we saw a huge flock of sheep and a sheep herder and his horses and campsite. we had to walk right in the middle of the flock and we were moving them to the next valley for a while. Talks did center around lamb chops and mutton. I think a few days later into the hike the talk would have been action instead of just talk.

 

we found a nice campsite overlooking the valley with water not too far away. The next day we would summit Anderson pass and one of the guys on the team (Larry boy) would summit kings peak, the highest point in UT. Around 10 PM a herd of elk, spooked by our presence came rambling/stampeding through our campground, not 15ft away from my tent. Definitely got my attention.

 

 

 path ahead on some nice trail. most of trail had rocks in it and was a rock hopping experience...sort of like the AT

 my tent for the night, right past the little trees was where the elk came running by at 10 PM

 sunset

 path we had just covered- painter basin

path heading up to Anderson pass

july 8

 

 

After a few months of talking about it four hikers left for the high Unitas  to walk a good portion of the highline trail. hikers were John "Grizzley" Volt, Kevin "Larry Boy" Yogui DeVries, Rick "Sherpa" Johnson and myself. Pack weight varied from the very smart person (me) of 26-27 lbs, to the all muscle, no pain, of 43 lbs of a to remain nameless hiker. We decided to drive to Chepeta lake and hike to Mirror Lake, a total of 74 miles away. We started at 930 AM on 8 July and hiked to Fox lake did our first 12K pass at around 1400 hrs and it is true that oxygen is scarce at that altitude, no matter what folks that are in shape say.

 

we made Fox lake, storms that looked like they were going to attack us backed off, but mosquitoes made their way in by the swarms. we set up camp at an old elk hunting campsite about 50 yards from the shore. then the routine of the daily hiker kicks in, set up stuff, get clean water, get a fire going, cook dinner, check your feet for anything going wrong, then eat. Grizzley and Sherpa tried their luck at fishing for a while after dinner. around 8 pm due to bugs and the fact that it was hiker midnight we called it a night. distance walked - an easy to moderate 11.3 miles. highest elevation was 12,200, lowest around 9500. around 10 pm a herd of deer came through camp on the way to the water. 

 

 at the end of the day around a campfire at Fox lake

 Fox Lake getting close to sunset

 north pole pass the south side we came down. 12,200 ft elevation- no air

passing the meadows on the way to North Pole Pass