Dry feet

Sierra Nevada Mts. from Schulman Grove

Today’s post will focus on my recent trip to the White Mountains where I had planned to do a 50-mile backpacking trip to recon some sites for experiments I’m going to be starting this summer and also to check out the snow at the higher elevations. The hike, unfortunately, was short lived.
First, the reason for going up to the Whites was to give a talk to the California Native Plant Society, Bristlecone Chapter in Bishop. This CNPS chapter was generous enough to award me a research grant earlier this year and in return I gave a presentation at their monthly meeting. The topic was on methods for measuring recent ecological change with a focus on the work I carried out last summer revisiting a study by Hal Mooney in 1961 (Mooney et al. 1962). This was the first time I had given a presentation for a general audience (i.e. not a room full of academics) and it was also the longest presentation I had ever given (45 minutes). All in all, I thought it went very well with a lot of positive feedback from those in attendance.
The next day, May 26, after gathering some archival photos at the White Mountain Research Station I headed up to Schulman Grove where I would start and end my trip. This was a big snow year in the Whites and White Mountain Road was only open to the Grove and still snowed in beyond.
I got started about 3 PM and made it about 10 miles before nightfall. It was easy hiking with a mix of off trail and 4x4 road. Starting elevation was about 10,000 ft and dropped to 7,500 ft in Wyman Canyon where I camped. The night passed uneventfully and I slept soundly in my 30*, 21 oz Marmot Hydrogen sleeping bag I got off the Gear Swap forum on BPL (see my previous post where I talk about my desire to get a lighter sleeping bag). The temp was about 33* when I awoke and I was warm so I think I have now reached ultra-light nirvana with my sleep system. But, I digress…
The goal of the hike was to check out some low elevation sites (low elevation = 7,000 ft). I had camped at the intersection of my rout out of Wyman, so after breakfast I left my pack and headed down the road to check out what things looked like at 7,000 ft. There were a fair amount of crossings of Wyman Creek but most were ones I could jump. I did, however, get a little wet at one, which is an annoying way to start the day. I checked out the site and was almost all the way back from the 3 mile round trip stroll when I came to the difficult stream crossing that got me wet on the way down. Instead of dealing with even wetter feet I decided to search for an easier crossing and started skirting the side of the steep slopes above the creek. After a few minutes I realized I probably would have been better off getting wet feet but decided I had gotten this far and could see a possible end to the detour. The next thing I remember were some large rocks in my path. They looked stable and I stepped on one. The next thing I know I was laid out against a truck sized boulder feeling woozy with blood pouring out of my right thumb. I reached up to feel the side of my head and realized I had tore up my ear pretty good and had a large welt between my ear and eye. Looking back, I don’t think I was knocked out in the fall but I can’t remember the actual fall so it’s hard to say. I sat for about 10 minutes to gather my senses and when I stood up almost fainted. Another 10 minutes of sitting and I was ready to go. I got across the creek and back to my pack and got cleaned up. About this point I find out my left knee is pretty banged up but at least I can walk on it. When I got the thumb cleaned up it was looking pretty bad. I had sliced it just above the cuticle with fresh fingernail showing a lot higher up the thumb than you should be seeing it. I was really hoping I wasn’t seeing bone (luckily I wasn’t). I also took a picture of my ear and head to see how bad that was. Not too bad but it sure didn’t feel good and some hair had come off so that indicated it had been a pretty harsh impact with the boulder. All this, along with the knee, convinced me it was time to abandon ship and head back to the car. The walk back to the car wasn’t too bad, although the thumb was seeping blood the whole way. After cleaning up the thumb more thoroughly I headed home. By the way, I was able to get across the stream without getting wet feet!
Looking back on the trip I realize just how vulnerable one is when in the backcountry. I consider myself to be a careful person when hiking and try to minimize risk as much as possible but stuff can happen. Although where this happened was far from remote by my standards (I was on a 4x4 road), it was still a relatively untraveled area. Had this happened in north end of the White Mountains, where probably well under 50 people visit per year, I could have been in some real trouble if I had been immobilized. Situations like this are a good reminder of why you should let someone know where you are going and what your schedule is when venturing into the backcountry (which I did).
Anyway, I’m healing up and am getting ready to head back the Whites in about a week to get started with the experiments I’m conducting up there. I will try to update this every week or two this summer so you can see what I’m up to. You can also keep appraised of my travels by following me on Twitter at @CWKopp.

Not pretty

Pretty (Prince's Plume)

Gear Lust

Yesterday I took a day trip to the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off (a.k.a ADZPCTKO, a.k.a PCT Kickoff) east of San Diego at Lake Morena with Daren. Janel is sick and stayed home. I had heard this was an event not to be missed but I had never gotten around to checking it out. I was mostly interested in checking out the vendors. Most of the vendors in attendance are mom and pop outfits run out of garages. They may be small operations, but they produce the lightest and most cutting edge backpacking gear available. Because of this, it’s rare to get a chance to see the gear they pedal except for on their websites. We also sat in on seminar discussing the evolution of backpacking gear with panelists including Joe Valesko (Z-Packs), Glen Van Peski (Gossamer Gear), Ralph Drollinger (Adventure 16), and Wayne Gregory (Gregory Backpacks).
I feared that seeing some of the ultra-light gear on display would ruin me on what I use now. I had this experience a couple weeks ago when I attended a presentation by Andrew Skurka and got a look at the quilt he uses. His Mountain Laurel Designs Spirit Quilt 30 degree bag is only 18 oz and is far lighter than my Sierra Designs Arrow Rock 15 degree mummy bag which weighs nearly 3 lbs. Getting a new, ultra-light quilt is now a gear priority before the start of the summer field season. But I digress…
Two items caught my eye yesterday. One of these I sought out and the other ambushed me. The piece of gear I was most interested in seeing was the Z-Packs Blast backpack. My current pack is the Golite Jam (the original version). I really like this pack and intend to use it until dies. That day is getting closer. Joe’s Blast pack looks appealing and is super lightweight (6 oz if I get it without the mesh panel). It’s fit felt very similar to my Jam so I think I found my next pack. This pack will eventually compliment my 4 oz Z-Pack Hexamid Solo tarp.
The piece of gear I wasn’t looking for but now am lusting over is the Gossamer Gear LT3C trekking poles. These are carbon fiber poles and weigh a mere 2.8 oz/pole. This is a lot lighter than the Komperdell poles I now use. I’d seen these poles online but figured that having lighter poles wouldn’t be that noticeable, but I was wrong. Now I’m ruined on another piece of my gear.
After we’d had our fill of ADZPCTKO, and all the people there, Daren and I headed out to do some hiking. We were going to go up in the Laguna Mts via Kitchen Creek Road but were stopped by a locked gate. So, we did an out and back trip on the PCT from Kitchen Creek Road to Boulder Oaks Road and back, about 8 miles. It was a peasant day for a hike and the wildflowers were fantastic thanks to a wet winter. Kitchen Creek was flowing strongly (almost roaring), which is unusual for any stream in Southern California.
Finally, I’ll hopefully be posting more updates to the blog once field season starts and I’m out hiking around a lot more. Also, I promised Luke Gibson I'd link to his website so he can climb on to the front page of Google. So, click on his name and check out his research.

Mt Woodson Hike

Today Janel and I went hiking up Mt. Woodson, near Ramona, CA.  I had been up to the top, via the Lake Poway route, a couple years ago but Janel had not been here.  Today we did a loop that started on the east side of the mountain, along busy HWY 67.  To get to the top we walked about 2 miles on the service road to the top.  This was a steep slog and we were glad we could take a different way down.  The path down was about 4.5 miles long.

There are many radio towers on the top, which doesn't make it the most appealing summit around.  However, the top has some pretty good views although it was a bit hazy today with a storm system moving in from the north.  There are some massive boulders on Mt. Woodson.  One of these boulders has split appart to form a diving board type protrusion pictures above.  There are also a number of Coulter Pines and Incense Cedars on top of this 3,000 ft peak.

Pictures from today's hike can be found here.

Day 13. Maui

We awoke at 4:15 AM and arrived at the visitor’s center near the summit of Haleakalā at 5:45 AM, an hour before sunrise. The guidebook (Maui Revealed) wasn’t kidding when it said to arrive an hour before sunrise to get a parking spot at the summit. We didn’t get a spot at the summit and there were only about six cars behind us that were able to get a spot at the visitors center. While I stayed warm in the car, Janel warmed up the camera by taking some pictures of lit-up communities on the coast. The area around the visitor center was quite crowded with people so we found the trailhead for the Sliding Sands Trail and walked about 2-minutes down that trail to find a fantastic vantage point with nobody around… helps to look at the map if you want to get away from people. The morning was chilly (the ground was white with frost) but at least it was calm. The sky was clear with clouds below us. The sun did rise (hasn’t failed us yet) and it was pretty spectacular to see it basically rise out of the clouds. Janel and I both agreed it was worth getting up early to see.

After revisiting the summit and taking some more photos we headed down the mountain. On the way back to the hotel we attended church at Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Makawao. It was a nice service with one of the hymns played with a harmonica.

After a lousy breakfast and packing at the hotel we headed over to the west coast. We did our final snorkeling at Po’olenalena Beach (aka. Paipu, Pepeiaolepo, Loves, or Keauhou Beach), where we had snorkeled on our third day on Maui. The snorkeling was pretty good on the north end of the beach but partly cloudy conditions made things kind of chilly. After lounging on the beach for a while we returned the snorkeling gear we had rented and did some gift shopping (almost everything is open here on Christmas).

After an early supper at Big Wave Café we took a walk on the boardwalk at Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge. Not too much to see besides salt-flats and a decent sunset.
Since our flight wasn’t until 11:20 PM we had a lot of time to spare so we went to the theater and watched “Little Fockers”. Pretty funny movie.

The flight home was uneventful, although we didn’t get as much sleep as we had hoped.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable trip. I’m not sure that we had a favorite island but we definitely didn’t see everything there was to see. I guess that gives us a good excuse to go back again someday.

Pictures from today can be found here.

Day 12. Maui

We covered a lot of ground today after an early morning start. Several stops were made along the Hana Highway to look at waterfalls. Falls we stopped for included two small ones at Pua’a Ka’a State Park, Wailua Iki, Haipua’ena Falls, and Upper Puohokamoa Falls. There were several other waterfalls that we passed up along the way… there is a lot to see on this road.

Since we were relatively close to Haleakalā we decided to drive to the 10,023 ft summit. Unfortunately, the mountain was socked in with clouds and we couldn’t see much of anything. We decided that tomorrow morning we’d get up early and take in the famous sunrise on Haleakala, which would be a unique way to celebrate Christmas.

After heading back down the mountain and checking into the Maui Seaside Hotel in Kahului we headed over to the west coast to do some late afternoon snorkeling at Palauea Beach (aka. White Rock). Unfortunately, my snorkeling mask malfunctioned and so I didn’t get a chance to do any snorkeling. However, Janel reported that the visibility was rather poor with few fish, so I didn’t miss much. The waves here were small but were fun to do some body surfing on.

For supper we got take-out at Da Kitchen and went to bed early in anticipation of an early start to Haleakalā in the morning.

Pictures from today can be found here.