still fuckin with climb cuz climb pays: the ILX hiking thread

I got back a couple of days ago. Great trip! Actually two great trips - one being 4 days' and the other of seven days' duration, in some very remote mountains, where I didn't see another soul for as much as two days running.

I walked 105 miles in those 11 days, saw a herd of mountain goats up close, watched ospreys diving into mountain lakes for trout, did some x-country hiking, endured two thunderstorms and 30 continuous hours of rain (mostly at 7400 feet elevation) where I needed to utilize my survival fire-starting skills for the first time in decades in order to dry out before bedtime. In short, I was 100% alive and engaged.

It is only too bad it is over and I won't have such an intensive hiking experience again until next summer.

wow! that sounds amazinggggggggg. you went alone???

did you take pictures? please share!

Yeah, tehresa, I am one of those crazy solo backpackers who launches himself into the deep backwoods and sometimes off trail for a week or more at a time. After doing this for about 35 years now, I have a fund of experience to draw on, so I am not quite as crazy now as I was when I started this. I'm actually pretty conservative and careful, for a madman.

Oh, and the pics, if forthcoming, will have to wait a bit. I am leaving to go camping with my wife in a day or so, and I have too much packing to do.

see now you are making me jealous cause i'd love nothing more than antisocial hiking but i am just so damn paranoid about breaking an ankle and then sitting there til a bear eats me.

i've only done solo overnight trips - no extended trips. the first one i did, i had an anxiety attack about getting really sick - the fear was that i could try to splint a broken ankle or even crawl out or something, but that if i was insanely sick with some stomach virus, i wouldn't be able to move or think straight through my fever, etc.

so thank god the capitol peak thing i linked to above was called off, at least for me. anyway, now im trying to convince friends to do the much more friendly subway at zion in Oct. Anyone done it?

http://www.zionrockguides.com/zrmg/Canyoneering/Zion%20Canyoneering%20Info/Subway%20Top.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9372441@N07/2802107837/

must. move. to. seattle.

― a terrible camera... with fangs and shit... (ytth), Saturday, August 8, 2009 11:48 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark

holy shit otm

tza i bet my pals in seattle would go hiking with you, they are def day hike w/beers after type ppl

send 'em my way!
(but maybe warn them i am wary of people!)

also all of you: move here. now! i tell you, there are like 30000 apartments open in my hood alone.

maybe you've already met them ;)

i swear roxy is my soul sister. metal and hiking. <3

i have been doing a lot of hiking this summer ever since i spent a week in alaska. i need more hiking friends because my car can't make it to the mountains right now. and everyone always bails on me or just wants to do some like wuss 2-3 mile hike.

yeah. i have not been excited about any of the meetup group upcoming hikes since i went on the last one. and i don't want to hike with 10 ppl. mandee and roxy, plz to come hike with me!

Guys I'm taking a week off work to hike the 5 tallest mountains in Tennessee, tbh!

~~pound

~~return pound!

tbh it's like a nervous tic

what is

My need of the Great Outdoors.

I hear ya, tza. I went on a hike with six people last weekend and it was just too much. TOO MANY PEOPLE. I think three people total is a max for me.

I'm bummed because I was going to do epic hike in RMNP tomorrow but my hiking partner is bailing so now I have to do something in Boulder that is far less scenic and cool. BAH.

my hiking cru and i (man + dog + me) went to devil's lake this weekend. not terribly strenuous, but nice to be outdoors and in nature.

soon i will post pic of THE DEVIL'S DOORWAY (ie a rock formation)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2573/3871755027_0d67d15b69.jpg
this is actually from last year, but the rock and the dog haven't changed at all. my hair is longer.

<3

I spent the past weekend hiking with my bro and his dog. We backpacked in to a nice, little lake at 5000 feet near the PCT and set up camp just before a brief but heavy rainstorm on Friday evening.

On Saturday we hiked about 6 miles with 1000 ft of elevation gain, and visited four other lakes. This was about as much my bro and his dog could handle; my bro has some serious heart problems as a result of 45 years of insulin-dependence and his dog is 10 years old, so this was pretty epic for them.

We had a great time. I love my bro and his dog Diva is pretty darned nice, too.

Am off to the Lake District tomorrow for a wild camping and trekking weekend. Looking forward to it, but somewhat trepidatious due to a) the weather and ii) not having done much fully-laden-rucksack-walking before. I'm reasonably fit though, and we're not talking marathon distances.

Oh yeah, and wild camping is not strictly legal but tolerated, and one of the code of conduct things is do not light fires. But my buddies are so dead keen on the hardcore manly bear grylls ray mears lifestyle that I haven't been able to talk them out of it.

go get a beer at the Old Dungeon Ghyll for me please

I think we are planning on avoiding any and all signs of civilisation. Unless we cry off after 12 solid hours of torrential downpour.

i am signed to go on a relatively easy hike sunday (hooray for finally having weekends back!) but there are like, massive #s of ppl signed up to go and i'm a little wary.

also the weather is turning so it's v iffy.

ledge, take an umbrella in addition to your other rain gear. No kidding. It works a treat for hiking in rain, unless there are high winds with the rain. In which case, you won't want to stay out for long anyway.

Umbrella = lightning rod?

only if yr the tallest thing around

awesome weather today for going up Ben Lomond. October in Scotland is rarely so clement.

http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv105/NAPOLEONROFL/DSC00446.jpg?t=1255834188

<3

reminds me of view from the san juans but awesomer

I love Loch Lomond. Less than an hour of a drive from centre of Glasgow and only a couple of hours hike and I was up there at really beautiful scenery. Bonnie, bonnie banks indeed.

up there looking at really beautiful scenery, i don't think i make a post on ILX without omitting a word.

kinda makes me reconsider scotland!

Scotland is really beautiful. The weather is generally terrible.

yeah scotland rules

didn't know there were so many islands in loch lomond!

yeah there are quite a few, though that is a particularly island dense part of the loch afaik. When I was a kid use to go out fishing with my granddad on the loch and often stopped for lunch on an island that had the ruins of some sort of dwelling place that you couldn't see until you got right up to it because it was surrounded by trees. Whoever stayed there was some sort of rad bandit i bet.

weird sights- headlamps of big wall guys 1500 ft off the valley floor at zion at night.

hiked the subway on saturday- best hike/swim ive ever done by far. geological freak show, rappel 3 100 ft drops, swim with trout and canyon tree frogs. highly recommended for the non claustrophobic.

!!!

scotland is so so so beautiful

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/129/350665814_50f1bd98fa.jpg

i've been wanting to go back and see the highlands a lot lately

where the wellies things are

that's me
to my right are some wicker man feet

this link below has some photos that do a good job of capturing the feel of the middle part of subway hike--although like 2% of it. the scope though- the canyon walls above the subway formation go straight up over your head at least 200 feet of pure vert, with spires and slopes far higher.

also, there are so many little weird things. 50 yard long cracks/channels 3 inches wide running in perfectly straight machined looking lines with water rushing through at 20 knots. an almost spherical chockstone wedged 3 feet over your head as you swim through a 24 inch wide pool. a pothole of water with a hidden underwater passage into the pool a few feet away- you can dunk and swim through the tunnel under solid sandstone into the pool.

http://www.citrusmilo.com/zion2005/ilovezion8.cfm

the first pool swim was 49 degree water on saturday. really really cold in a farmer john with no jacket! i wouldn't do the hike without a wetsuit, at least this time of year. we did see a party without them, and two of the hikers were 10 or 11 years old. i will say TOUGH ASS KIDS. the water warms up only a short distance down the canyon, fortunately.

i didnt have my camera, so im waiting on the 3 in party that had them to send then to me.

that looks really awesome!

the chockstone i referred to- i guess its more like 5 feet overhead:

http://www.pbase.com/bjrhodes01/image/85974253

this is looking up the corridor, the direction from which you are swimming. i could just fit in between that narrows, it is shoulder width. just up out of view behind that bowling ball is a short waterfall downclimb. you can't touch bottom in there for most of the way, but its only 60 feet long or so.

wow, dude's antelope canyon shots are impressive. maybe i'll see that someday!

http://www.pbase.com/bjrhodes01/lowerantelope

that is AWESOME.