Up, Up and a WAY!

It's that time again! Tomorrow my brother Greg and I begin our annual backpacking extravaganza! We are meeting in Mojave around 9:30am, and then this year we will BOTH drive up hwy 395 (that runs from Mojave and goes up along the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains) all the way to Lone Pine. That's where the big new ranger station is. We will get our permit hopefully with no problems, then we will BOTH drive up to Mt Whitney Portal (the trailhead for the hike to Mt Whitney) and leave his car there. Then we'll load all his gear into my car and we will drive north to the Onion Valley trailhead (where we went out of last year). This year we are doing our FIRST point to point ONE WAY trip! We've never done this before...we've always packed in and unloaded/set up a 'base camp' and then day hiked and fished every day.

Our goal is to hike a nice chunk of the John Muir Trail. We hike from the Onion Valley trailhead and in about 7 miles (after we've gone up/over/down Kearsarge Pass) we will link into the JMT. Then the trail turns left (south sort of) and the fun really begins. We have 3 large passes to cross...Kearsarge, Forrester, and finally the hike up to Trail Crest (at the top of the ridge, a mere2 miles away from the Mt Whitney summit). Being a point to point we will be carrying the FULL weight of our packs every step of the way. We hope to be hiking down into Whitney Portal next Tuesday afternoon...however we've reserved Weds as a potential hike-out day if needed. We have no idea how hard this will be..but I think it's safe to say it will be harder than we think (but we Chapek boys are quite stubborn, so unless there is a broken femur and / or spouting arterial blood flow, I think we will make it).

OH...before I get any further, in case anybody out there is interested in following us, here is the SPOT (Satellite POsition Tracker) map that will show our location every 10 minutes (that the device is turned on) for the duration of the trip:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=05qGfOMXRF2VpAl4P6vz2qRkQqp5Y7s2a


You have the option of choosing either Map or Satellite view or hybrid (a satellite map with any roads and such overlaid). If you hover over any of the position markers it gives you the time it was sent.

Hard or not, I'm pretty sure we will have a GREAT time! Greg has been down in San Diego all week for work (riding home on the train as I type) and doesn't get home until later this evening...so it's a "hi honey..I'm home...and I'll be leaving tomorrow morning to go backpacking with Matt". So he's rather frazzled (he sort-of got out all his stuff last weekend). I've been crazy busy at work, and then getting everything ready for this trip has left ME feeling frazzled all week too. But my car is loaded, and only a few tiny items left on my checklist...so I'm much calmer now. We have our food pretty well figured out (we will each be carrying a bear can, and eating Mountain House dehydrated food for dinner, instant oatmeal for breakfast, and cliff bars and jerky for lunch/snacks as we hike. We drive up to the trailhead tomorrow afternoon and then decide if we should hike up/over Kearsarge pass or car-camp the night and go up early on Sat (keep in mind we live at Sea Level...Kearsarge is around 10,000' I believe...maybe a bit less...Forrester is over 13,000 but that won't be for a few days...and Mt Whitney goes to near 15,000). We have Sat/Sun/Mon as full days, with Tues as a planned 'hike out' day...our it can be a 4th full day and Weds is the hike-out day...that will be a day by day decision on how we are progressing each day. We'd need to hit pretty good miles to make it in 3.5 days...roughly 15 miles a day...not sure we are up to that with full packs...but we will soon see.

Here is an altitude profile of the entire hike we plan to do:

OK...enough on that..how about the VUELTA!!!! GO CHRIS!!! YOU CAN DO IT!!! OMG..if he pulls this off it will be the most exciting thing in cycling in a LONG time as far as I'm concerned! He's still one of my 2 fav (still racing) riders...he and Fabian (so VERY sad he's out). I'll be sending him whatever spare energy I can (hopefully...if he suddenly starts looking like he's bonking, it's because my 'energy sending' wave-beam accidentally turned around and I'm sucking HIS energy to survive this 50 mile hike).

Anyway, have a great weekend and I'll check in late next week with the full story AND pictures.

Later gaters...and CHEERS!