OK Uglies...it's now 3pm on the day after the expedition up Mt. Donaldson and Mt. Church. We've all had good nights sleep and the sun has to have been up for at least 7 hours now (we, however, probably just finished breakfast).
But let us digress...The Players:
Sandra Cashen
You remember her. She's the one who came up with the idea of the nine-peaks in "our lifetime". Cute, yet unrelenting in the "quest".
Tammy Ryan
Perfect combination of "perky" meets "Highlander". She smiles when she's kicking your butt up the hill.
Janice Fountain
Veteran Kilimanjaro conqueror. Yikes! This ought to be a piece of cake. But then again...
Jeff Thomson
I call him "Yeti". He seems natural climbing the back-hills. Always out in front except when it involves driving the SUV's into ditches.
Greg Perkins
Hmmmm, what can you say about Greg? Quite a lot if you pay attention. He's half the man he ought to be given his eating habits.
Brent Williams
Brents' got calves that should be able to kick a mountain a few inches if he kicked it. But, that was before he pulled his Achilles tendon doing the "Cycle Idaho". Buck it up Brent! You won't be carrying your bike on this one.
Chris Williams
Your most adorable Ugly. I can say that, cause I wrote it.
The Drive
It's Saturday I think; and we've just emerged out of Trail-Creek Road from Sun Valley. Not a bad bit of road in retrospect. Only 30+ miles or so of pot-holes, dust and the occasional suicidal cow. But, we're past that now, heading to what we believe is the nirvana of trail-heads (literature reads base of a ravine where a river runs through...blah blah, right). To be honest, it's certainly better then the road to "deliverance" that Leatherman so inhospitably offers. But, I'm just a little bitter. You see, it's now two running-boards on my Landcrusier that need replacing. I'm writing two letters on Tuesday...one to my insurance agent...the other, to my congressman.
I know why Jeff is paid the "big bucks"...he sends me out scouting for the spots in the road that pose "clear and present danger". Did I mention how much I love my 4-wheel-locking-differentiial? But we're beyond that now. As we've found what we believe is the trail-head. It's dark though, so 7 people, a topo-map and two GPS devices begin the dance of "where are we?" Turns out, Brent has become quite the redeemer since the "Naugahyde" climb. Oh, just so you know, it's not on any map, it's not registered with any geologist, and it's certainly not the "Mt. Leatherman" we thought we were climbing last year (get it? Naugahide? huh?). So Brent has been sufficiently sacrificing work to better understand topo-maps and GPS coordinates--case it point, we were correctly positioned at the trailhead to begin our bright and early ascent.
The Morning
It's morning...rather, it's still evening (according to the lighting around us). But there's this faint stirring; a disturbing sound just North of our tent...oh, it's Tammy and Greg. Giggling like it's two hours after work, and they're into their 2nd round of Martini's. Somehow, they must have missed the memo that it's not only impolite to be so cheerful at 6:30 in the morning, but that it's SIX F'N THIRTY in the morning! Gads!
If I could describe breakfast without feeling slightly nauseous, I'd be able to come up with a more apt illustration then Greg chomping on handfuls of Cheetos while washing it down with a Dr. Pepper. Remember that old commercial "I'm a pepper, she's a pepper, wouldn't you like to be a pepper too"? No, well good for you. Cause you'll never have to bear that playing in your head with images of yellow polymers screaming through your digestive system. At...Oh yeah, it's now SEVEN in the morning. Ahh, coffee's ready! Time out, OK?
Daybreak
It begins. It sounds wonderful in the "Climbing Idaho" book. Beautiful views, crisp air...Nature at its finest. But then, I looked up. Yow! That's a frigg'n long way up. Two of em, huh? Sounds feasible. After all, I have been running twice a week for 30 minutes. Bring it on!
What's this? It appears that Greg, Tammy and Jeff have decided to show off their exceptional lung-capacity. They're disappearing into the river-creek trail at a blinding pace...They must not have read the part in the book where it talks about 10-12 hours. Suckers!
What's this? Is that my lungs convulsing in and out while only a half mile from base-camp? Couldn't be, After all, two days running a week is more then adequate exercise for just "walking" up a hill. They disappear into the thorny sticky nettle bushes. The trail winds across a virtually dry creek-bed and fallen branches. We're in a ravine, pacing very slowly up, around, down, then over, then under, then....WE'RE OUT!
The Realization
IT'S ANOTHER LEATHERMAN!!!! DAMN IT! Shifty bits of loose rock, one on top of the next. Say it ain't so! Leatherman, although 3 weeks ago, is still fresh in my mind. Apparently still fresh in Gregs too...I think I saw the F-Word escape as a whisper from his mouth. At this point, we pulled out the tools of the trade (our topo, our GPS, our beef jerky), and planed the ascent. Left? No Right...how about up the middle? This is where we should've come to the realization that no amount of map or electronics could congeal the consensus of our attack. One thing we did agree though...lunch can't be much further.
Lunch
Ahhh, after the first bit of scrambling through the rocks, we arrived at "the pond"...looks a little dry though...maybe it's "NaugaPond"...like our Faux Leatherman turned out to be. We were right...only another 100 or so feet we came across the perfect resting spot for a "Break". The "pond" looked more like a "puddle". August must've been hard on moisture in this neck of the...mountains?
It all comes out now. Everyone pulls out their version of "perfect" hiking food. Greg with his Cheetos and Dr. Pepper? OK, maybe he brought it up a notch. From what I can tell it appears like Chicken-Jerky...which, by the way isn't considered "jerky" by "dry meat" aficionados. Tammy, yup...that looks like trail-mix (I was wondering if anyone had the courage to bring a bag of that after our previous trail-mix-saturating-climbs...but there it was! Jeff, it turns out made a wonderful sandwich. At least it looked wonderful at the car. Four hours was plenty for the Jelly to make a break for the outer confinements of its wheat bread imprisonment. Look like it was a pretty bloody jailbreak. Brent and Janice then pulled out the delight...is that dried pineapple? Why, yes it is. Once secured in my hands I could not help notice that dried pineapple weighs the same as my four propel bottles. Dang! That's heavy. Janice acknowledges before then slapping Brent for making her carry it up for all hours of trail. Sandra and I then snack on peanut-butter-and- jelly tortilla wraps. Yeah, it may sound ugly, but then again...it at least had containment.
Donaldson
All full of lunch and dreams, we start it up. and up...and oh wow this is a climb. From the big amphitheatre where we were in the middle of Church and Donaldson, it was everyone for them selves. Jeff, Right up the middle! The rest of us were clumped together for a while, until packs started splitting off. Sandra and Greg were hitting it from the right of Donaldson through a very difficult rock-chute. After a few boulders came rushing down from the scramble or our predecessors, Tammy was able to apply the lessons learned back when we first heard of "duck and cover"...Good thinking too! as they were just clearing her head as they came rushing down. This didn't look like the best route to me. Maybe I'll just go around and show them! Ha! I'll be laughing a good one when they finally arrive to the peak and I'm all rested and bragging about my exceptional navigation skills. Follow me Tammy, this is the way! I'm just twenty-five yards in front of Tammy, when I got to the turning point...S%&! F&*#...CLIFF...no way around. Go back Tammy! We then get to the point where Greg and Sandra went up...looking up the peak I see Jeff and Sandra sitting on the top of Donaldson...all rested, and probably bragging about their exceptional navigation abilities. Greg stayed behind to make sure we came back around.
We then cleared the chute, and it was not that bad to get to the top of Donaldson. Ahhhhhhhh, here at last. Then we see Janice, and Brent making there way from....how did they make it up that path?!?! I believe we may have found all possible ways up the Donaldson ascent. Break out the Gatorade! Take some pictures, and then we looked over our shoulders.
Church
No way! We're doing that today! Let's just call it a day and hit Church in a couple years. Sandra was hearing none of that! The book says it would take 45 minutes from the top of Donaldson to reach the summit of Church. My opinion was that it was a misprint, and this would all be settled, when we got back and purchased the second edition of that book with the correction.
From the viewpoint, it was a frightening looking ridge that we were contemplating (my thinking was two more hours). It was 1:30 I think when we set out for Church...A little later then we wanted, but after some thought...who wants to get this close only to do the hike another day.
Whoever scribed about Chicken-Out-Ridge on Mt. Borah, must have written it before they climbed Mt. Church. It was aptly pointed out that we were on chicken-out ridge for 10 minutes, but we were on just as scary ridge for one hour on this one. After a while, we were just climbing because that's all we knew how to do...just go up...just go up. Then it happened. 50 more feet! I heard coming from up ahead. Yeah! From the top of Church was spectacular! Must've been the best view yet that we've seen from the heights. We could see Leatherman, and its long drive approach from below, the valley on the other side....very cool.
Some of that cool was the "wind". Man, it's really picking up now. After we took out our Gatorade, took some pictures, wrote our names in the journal, it was finally time to go down.
The Debates
Judging from our various attacks on Donaldson, it should've come as no surprise that we had varying degrees of heading down the hill. It was 2:30, fast approaching 3pm, and we were not even off the ridge between Donaldson&Church. Wow...this was putting the idea into our heads that we may be rollicking through the trees with our head-lamps...not a desirable thought at the time. With much debate and pause, we stuck mostly together until we reached the longitude of the chute that we were all relegated to head down. Me and Sandra took a lower approach, the others were a bit higher up...but we were heading down in either case, which was much improved from our lateral descent.
The Pain
We were back on the loose rock, sliding, shifting and avalanching down the hill. for what seemed like hours we were finally at the "puddle" that defined us at lunch. We even found the Pineapple rings that were previously lost on purpose. I still think my throw went the farthest. It was 5pm and we had a lot of ground to make up...judging from our mathematical attempts, we all came up with "we'll have been doing this for 12 hours"....off down the hill. We hit the path down with the same consistency and team participation that we had going up. Me, Jeff and Greg went to the right. Brent, Tammy, Janice, and Sandra right down the middle. Greg and I found some much smaller rock hill and found that we could just about ski down the thing....so that's what we did. Ahhhhh, we're back on foliage.
The Push
Everybody now pooled, together and exhausted...it was a great time to go into walk of the living dead. Lockstep and moving forward, each foot down was a gasp of pain. Only a few more miles through the river ravine that brought us to this meadow. It was about here that I started to remember, that there was beer in the car. Aha! Incentive!
Jeff, Greg and Tammy (the Yeti Club)...were again in there Olympian pace for the gold. Sandra and I were slowly stomping our way through....I couldn't see Brent and Janice....but there's no way other then out for the down. Sandra was keeping kinda quiet. She was battling altitude sickness...yikes! Just a bit further.
The Finish
Coming out of the trail-head and seeing the cars parked in the valley had to be as pleasing a site as the one on top of Church&Donaldson. For there was sandals and beer in what was once a black landcruiser, but now disguised as a gray dust-wagon. When we arrived, I don't actually remember seeing Jeff Tammy and Greg, but I remember hearing their voices as I passed, slogging straight to the "wagon".
IT WAS OVER! Two peaks done out of the nine. The season of climbing was over as far as we were concerned. This was the hardest so far.
P.S.
The grand plan of partying it up in Sun Valley with rounds of Patron and soothing soaks in the hot-springs around Warm Springs was but a ghost of a thought after we found the only open dinner spot on a Sunday, and we had already come to independent conclusions that "there's no place like home"...and so there we went.
Very Nice, Uglies!