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Written by Daniel Hienzsch
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Tuesday, 27 January 2009 |
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Page 1 of 2  I wanted to challenge myself to accomplish something unique and significant this year. When I came home from the 2008 Summer Grand Tour I knew I wanted more of that sort of experience; I wanted to be far more of an active participant in my life, than the observer I feel I've been. I was inspired by the efforts of Will over at CyclingChallenge to not just do something relatively small, but something so far out of my ordinary, that I would really, really have to work for it. I don't know that I'll accomplish something as strenuous as Will's "ascend on a bicycle over 160,000 vertical meters", but I'm going to give it everything I can.
Of course, the trick was, finding out exactly what it was I was going to do. I noticed that I had been spending a lot of my downtime during the Summer Tour reading about mountain climbing in the various places I was camping. When I was a kid, there was a little hill called Vine Hill about a mile from my house, and my brother and I would climb up it's little gullies and washes, imagining we were Gregory Peck in "The Guns of Navarone". Then I read the line that said "Climbing the Grand Teton is an great start for novice climbers". Boom... there was the first goal... the rest have followed hence and the final list is a pairing down to what I think I can accomplish in this, my first annual challenge. Without further ado...
- Climb Grand Teton
- Hike to the summits of Mount San Jacinto and Mount San Gorgonio
- Hike Yosemite Falls and Nevada Falls in 24 hours
- Hike to the summit of Lookout Peak
- Hike to The Needles
- Scuba dive at least once a month
- Earn an Advanced Diver certification
- Go on at least one overnight hike
- Hike to the summit of Mt. San Gorgonio and dive to below 100' within 24 hours.
- Trim down another 15 to 20 pounds prior to climbing Grand Teton
Now for the details, item by item.
Climb Grand Teton13,760 feet / 4,194.05 meters. This is the big one; the main goal. Like I mentioned above, I spent a lot of time thumbing through the mountain climbing blurbs in the travel guides I bought in the summer of 2008, and I settled on this as the goal that I would accomplish in 2009. I'm training very hard for this: weight training, extensive cardio, functional movement workouts, stretching, nutrition, you name it. With an elevation that tops out over 13,000 feet and starts at a base of 6,500 I'm looking at having to deal with real altitude. I don't plan on going unprepared either mentally or physically.
The routes to the summit involve a majority of strenuous hiking and scrambling, along with various pitches that will be top roped on the way to the top. Climbing on a rope at 11,000 feet is about as non-every-day as I can make it.
Hike to the Summits of Mount San Jacinto and Mount San GorgonioThese are the tallest peaks in southern California. Mount San Jacinto has a summit at 10,834 feet and Mount San Gorgonio at 11,499. I hope to use these as practice hikes, since there isn't much climbing to be had on them.
Hike Yosemite Falls and Nevada Falls in 24 Hours
The Yosemite Falls hike. I've done it before; it nearly blew my knees out. I was in such major pain for the last 4 miles of that hike, I was nearly certain that Mountain Rescue was going to have to come get me. I was not pleased with myself. The day after that hike, I hobbled around on stiff legs and took the bus to the Yosemite Lodge visitor's center. On that bus was a guy that asked me about the hike. He said something to the effect of "I was up at Nevada Falls and Liberty Cap earlier today so I'm looking for something to do tomorrow. I was thinking about doing Yosemite Falls." Considering the condition of my body, that sounded downright stupid. The frustration that welled up in me thinking "What the hell??!?! You're only 33 Dan, what in God's name makes you think you're body is already ruined at this point?" was pretty overwhelming. I was very disappointed with myself. That's when I signed up at Easton.
Hike the Summit of Lookout PeakLookout Peak is another hike that sticks in my craw. Just like Yosemite Falls brought me to Easton Gym, Lookout Peak brought me to JD. I took a trip to King's Canyon National Park in late summer 2008, and tried this hike. I got to within 5 vertical feet of the summit and just couldn't take another step. I was totally unprepared for the hike, bringing barely any water and only one small bag of jerky and a single Clif bar. The top of Lookout Peak is a bunch of gigantic boulders and sheets of granite that you have to scramble over to get to the top, and all I could think was, even if I manage to make it to the top, I'll never be able to get back down again, I'll fall and kill myself. So I wedged myself into a split
between a couple of sheets of granite and ate what little I had, took a couple of pictures, and hiked back down again. That next Monday, I asked JD to start training me.
Hike to The NeedlesI've seen The Needles
several times now. It's hard to miss the strange outcropping of granite monoliths
just hanging out on a spur into the valley. It wasn't until my last trip into Giant Sequoia National Monument that I learned you can actually hike out to them. I couldn't go last time because my friend insisted her Mini had no business driving on dirt roads. So I bought a truck.
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