Training Log Archive: biggins

mt climbing in the cascades for the week

late at night after work and a big chinese dinner

up at Mt Pinos checking things out for coursesetting next month. Felt really tired after the run saturday, and from the altitude (8k). Still a couple feet of snow on the ground in the shady parts, but hopefully most of that should be gone by the meet. Ran a couple legs on the edge of the map that I wanted to work in because we'd never used that part before, but I think its just too steep to fit into a course. It led to about 2k where you did nothing but climb striaght uphill.

Santa Ynez canyon up to the ridge, around and back down through the palisades. Very hot, even though I started at 8am. Saw a rattlesnake, though it was either happily fed or dead, since it wasn't rattling at me too much even after I almost stepped on its head. Also ran through an enourmous swarm of bees. It was wider than the fire road, and about 10ft tall. It just sorta dropped onto me before I knew what was happening, but fortunately in my dehydrated panic I just bolted downhill and managed to get through without too many (only two or three) stings.

I think I've finally found a good 6 mile loop, so this should hopefully make it into the regular schedule. Its hard to find routes around home that don't have too many street crossings (and traffic lights) in them. It still has about a dozen lights in it and a couple dodgy roads, but I think its the best I can do without backtracking.

LAOC meet at oneil park. I'm not one to normally scan maps, but this one needs a special exception just so you can share the pain. not the course, just the vegetation. don't be fooled by the deceptive yellow section, that was just knee high thistle instead of waist high scrub, and was actually worse because you had to go off trail. I would have skipped this meet, but I had to take home all the equipment for course setting next month.

picking up controls, fortunately all on trails.

starting from the end of a super sketchy dirt road, I first ran up Gobbler's Knob (the beer drinking target shooting hangout), then hiked up the PCT about 6 miles to Wright Mt, turned off it and climbed Pine Mt and Dawson Pk. Snow line started just as I left Wright. Snow was in great shape, just soft enough to give some grip, but never got in further than the ankles, even on the descents. Didn't want the 6 mile approach in the plastic boots though, so I was perfecting my crampons-over-running-shoes technique. Works pretty well. Ran into lots of northbound PCT hikers, they all got a late start this year because of the snow. map - started at the east end. pics.

Hadn't had a good epic insanity march in quite some time, so this was long overdue. Drove back up to the end of the road from last week, but brought the climbing gear this time.

(map - clockwise starting at NW) Hiked in on the closed section of the road a couple miles, which was totally covered in snow, and had some pretty impressive (40' deep) avalanches across it. Then cramponed up a nice steep snowfield (pic from last week, the one on the right) to the ridge between Throop and Hawkins. Got both of those, then went way down the ridge to Copter Ridge peak. Since that was the sunny side of the main ridge, the snowline stopped about halfway down and it got pretty hot. Then did some great scree/snowfield contouring around to the next ridge west, and hiked that back up to the main ridge picking up South Hawkins and Middle Hawkins along the way. Was planning on going up mt Islip on the way back to the car, but I was totally out of water by this point and getting a little loopy, so I just bailed back down to the road from the gap. About 12 hours total. pics

C • 4

temescal canyon. this place is a lot steeper than I remember. it got trashed by the mudslides this winter, lots of huge holes. a couple minivan sized rocks on the trail, which is a little dicey when the hill is steep and the trail is only 3ft wide.

home late from work. mmm summer in LA, the air is already humid and dirty.

hot

They just cleared the mudslides on the road along the crest of the San Gabriels (at least part of it), so I drove to the end of what they cleared to take a look. Was planning on a 16 mile/5 peak loop up pretty high (9k+) on the PCT, but I only got about 1/2 mile up the trail to where it cut across to the north side of the mountain and still had about 4' of rock hard icy snow on it (at a 45 degree sideslope or so). No one had broken the trail at all (the road had been closed since fall), so it was nowhere in sight. Would have been cake in crampons, but not so easy in running shoes...

Bailed back down to the parking lot, and went up Mt Williamson on the other side of the road. The south facing slope was completly dry. It curved around north into the snow a few times, but it was patchy enough that you could get around it. Up on the ridge there was a nice flat cornice that you could run along the top of, so I tried to follow that down to the next peak on the ridge, but got stopped after about a mile when the ridge dropped down a steep snow slope into a saddle. Another one I didn't feel like doing in running shoes. I guess we had a better snow year than I thought.

Properly defeated, I took a siesta on the summit and went home. Standing glissade 1500ft straight down through open pine forest is pretty sick. Will have to come back with real gear before it all melts, there were some gullies on the other side of the road that looked like they'd be really fun to climb.