14ers

No, 14ers is not the saga of some young teen skater boys. 14ers is the name given to mountain summits that surpass a height of 14,000 feet. (For my metric-fluent friends, that's 4267.2ers.)
14ers was my challenge this week as I sojourned to Breckenridge, Colorado with three friends, Tomas, Matt, and Tiffany. We all share a common goal, to trek to Everest Base Camp in November of this year. We came to Colorado to try not to fall off a mountain while getting in some altitude training.
We came home with much more than that.
We arrived on Denver on Sunday, hopped in a rented 4WD Dodge Journey (trading up from the Ford Fusion they had given Matt when he reserved a car) and drove two hours to Breckenridge, where we moved into a townhome we rented for four days from a friend of Tomas. Sunday evening, we planned our next day's hike to Mt, Sherman. We planned on a 6 hour hike - 4 hours up, 2 down.

Mt. Sherman is part of a large
but abandoned mining area

Day 1: Mt. Sherman is a 14,036' peak in the Mosquito Range, 10 miles east of Fairplay, CO. We got up at 5:15 and left shortly after 6:00. Just south of Fairplay, we turned up up a dirt road and drove about 10 miles, past an abandoned mining building, then parked near the end of the road at 12,000'. We put on our packs and started hiking! The mining road continues into the old complex. We hiked abut a half hour on a steep, steady incline, and I was getting very tied and out of breath. Welcome to altitude!
I was not sure if I could handle four hours of this kind of exertion. We stopped for a water break and some rest, after which I felt much, much better. On the east face of the ridge, there is a huge rock fall and we followed another hiker a few hundred yards up the steeply angled path across the shifting boulders on this death trap (well, bodily-injury trap). I put away my hiking poles so I could balance better by putting my hands down on the boulders.

Tomas going up the Mt. Sherman ridge

There were several other very steep sections. Mt. Sherman slowly reveals itself to the hiker. The trail is mostly up a ridge line, with very few switchbacks, so it's mostly steep climbing. The fog and the ridge line constantly hid the summit, so the climb became a set of small, independent challenges to be met.
We reached the top to find white-out conditions, but the fog parted somewhat to reveal the vistas. It was quite gusty at the top. Previous hikders had stacked up several wind breaks made out of small boulders. We made our way to one, and as we started taking off our packs, another hiker came over to inform is that this was not a windbreak, it was the summit bathroom. We moved on to another windbreak and spent about a half our at the summit.
Mt. Sherman really contradicted many of my pre-conceived notions of a mountain. The landscape was bleak; the mountain (and those around it) so much more, well, crumbly than I expected. They looked like the Creator just poured rocks and boulders into teetering mounds; the terrain felt more lunar than earthly.

Tiffany, Matt and Tomas behind me on
the tricky rock fall descent.

Our descent was pretty difficult, especially when we got back to the rock fall, which was extremely tricky. Luckily, rocks were the only thing tumbling downhill here. Tomas also felt very ill on the second half of the descent, probably the effects of the altitude. I was amazed that he pushed on and finished. He told us his condition, but never complained. We later found out that we had missed a turn on the ascent, and that the real trail completely bypasses that rock fall.
On the drive home, we stopped at Hoosier Pass, where Route 9 crosses the Western Continental Divide.

Day 1 synopsis: distance: 4.7 miles; ascent: 2,100 feet; total hike time: 5:30; average grade: 17.2%; GPS track. Lessons learned: I feel stronger after getting warmed up and in the groove of climbing, I can find a pace that works for me, I could do much more than I thought I could... and we need to read our maps more carefully.

Mt Mt Mt Mt Mt Mt Mitchell

Ma Ma Max Max Max Headroom

The image of Max Headroom (well, to be more correct, the voice of Max Headroom) came to mind as I looked at the map of our Black Mountains training hike route. All laid out, north to south:

Mountain: Potato Hill, 6,475 ft
Mountain: Balsam Cone, 6,611 ft
Mountain: Cattail Peak, 6,583 ft
Mountain: Big Tom, 6,581 ft
Mountain: Mt Craig, 6,647 ft
Mountain: Mt Mitchell, 6,684 ft

Yup, all those mountain peaks lined up: Mt Mt Mt Mt Mt Mt Mitchell. (Now say it like Max Headroom would...)

Then I looked at the topo map and see our starting point at 2,750 ft at the trailhead of the Colbert Ridge Trail.... then the 6,684 ft elevation of Mt. Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi. That's a 4,000 foot net elevation change from start to end, but with the gaps and saddles between the peaks, we had a total vertical ascent of about a mile ahead of us. Awesome!

Even if it is 10,000 feet below where I will be in six months, this would be some great training for my Everest Base Camp trek in November! The Colbert Ridge Trail and the Deep Gap Trail (aka Black Mountain Crest Trail) are much steeper and on much more technical ground. We had to climb under and over logs, and at times use ropes to ascend a steep rocky incline.

Vista from the Colbert Ridge Trail,
the best view we'd get on an
overcast (low cloud cover) April day. 

David M. and Ashton planned the route and we were joined by Omar, Tomas, Amy, Janice (and Janice's dog, Nikki) for the April 27th hike. We arrived Friday at Carolina Hemlocks Campground, a very nice spot on the South Toe River, just west of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Burnsville, NC. We planned to get up and leave by 7:30... and managed to start walking by 8:00. We had a 3/4 mile walk to the trailhead. Then it was up, up, up.
No switchbacks here - just straight up the ridge. I was wearing my heart rate monitor, and for most of the climbing stretches, my rate was 145 to 150, reaching 165 on some of the really steep pitches. It took us 3 hours of climbing to reach the end of the Colbert Ridge Trail where it meets the Black Mountain Crest Trail at the bottom of Deep Gap, elevation 5,800 ft. We had a another climb of 700 ft. to get to our first peak, Potato Hill. The section of the Black Mountain Crest Trail we hiked crosses five peaks, each around 6,600 ft until we got to Mt. Mitchell.

Trails of the Black Mountains.
The Colbert Ridge Trail is trail #178 near the center. The Black Mountain Crest Trail is trail #179.
North is roughly to the right along the line of the crest trail.

We got lucky with the weather - predictions were for rain on Saturday. It was fairly dry for most of the climb in the morning. We had one clear view while on the Colbert Ridge Trail; once we got higher, we were above the clouds and it was whiteout conditions (same as every other time I've been to Mt. Mitchell...) When we reached the crest trail, some light rain was starting, but there was no wind at all. It was amazingly quiet and quite lush - a beautiful trail to be hiking in April.

We got to Mt. Mitchell around 3:00PM and it was raining more heavily. One of our party had had severe cramps for most the the crest trail hike, so it would a true

I meet Big Tom (peak 4 of 6)

hardship to do the remaining nine miles back to the campsite (or to leave him there while we hiked back and brought a car back.) There were few visitors at the peak (a brother and sister from Michigan and San Francisco who met to climb Mt. Mitchell because their last name was Mitchell!) and no one to catch a ride with. We called our wonderful camp hosts at the campground, and Jerry offered to bring a van to pick us up. The park ranger kindly opened up the museum so we could wait inside for the 45 minutes it would take Jerry to reach us by road. We had a nice, warm, dry ride back to camp. Luckily, we had covered our firewood with a tarp and David M. had no trouble getting a nice fire going.

This was a great weekend for me. The hike was fabulous- challenging and draining, but also extremely rewarding. My knees and ankles survived without any pain or injury; my gear served me well and kept me warm and dry and comfortable. I'm used to the extra weight and bulk of a full backpack. Those Mt Mt Mt Mt Mt Mt peaks were knocked down one by one, and the companionship of a great set of outdoor-loving folks and kindness of new acquaintances was ice ice ice icing on the c-c-c-c-cake.

Do you know where your pants are?

The scene: a Friday evening, earlier this month. I brought my hiking gear to work - boots, poles, backpack, some protein bars, water, and Gatorade, hiking pants, and a couple layers for the chill. I changed clothes at the SAS gym after work, then drove to Umstead State Park and started my hike on the Loblolly trail. This was just before all the trees budded out, so there was no pine pollen in the air. Lovely!

Umstead State Park, along the Loblolly Trail, in Spring, 2013.
Photo by yours truly.

The story: I was doing about 6 or 7 miles that night, on an out and back route. I started around 5:40 so that I'd finish before dark. I had come back about a mile after the turn, and stopped for a drink and to enjoy the hidden lake on the trail (see photo, right). I checked my phone, and there was a missed call from home at 6:45.  I called, and Debbie answered. I said "Hi! I see you called me." She replied, "Do you know where your pants are?" Hmm, that was not the phone conversation I was expecting deep in the woods on a Friday evening.

And yes, defying all reason, and knowing perfectly well I was wearing pants, I looked down. Wouldn't you?

Of course, when I had changed into my hiking pants at the SAS gym, I put my jeans down on a counter top to fill my water bag in my backpack. I then left my jeans there instead of taking them back to my car. The folks at the gym found them while making rounds before closing, found my wallet inside, and called home.

The gym closed at 7:00. It was now 6:55, and it was at least a 45-minute hike back to my car. I had to go in Monday morning to pick up my pants and wallet. My friend Patrick remarked that if you were to leave your pants and wallet anywhere, the SAS gym is probably the best place to do it.

It's all part of the journey, and all part of being 50, I guess. Mistakes are there so we can learn from them, right? A few things may slip my mind, but there are perks—now that I'm 50, I can put $6,500 into my IRA instead of the $5,500 that my young and beautiful wife is allowed.

The moral: Keep your pants close, and your friends and loved ones closer.

Dry, humerus

I was planning a long hike in Umstead park after work on Monday. I planned to stuff my new Patagonia Torrentshell hard shell top and rain pants in my backpack, since there was a chance of premature April showers. On Sunday, we woke to rain. Not a terribly hard rain, not even a rudely hard rain, just one of those steady, wet, all-day-long Sunday rains. Debbie suggested I go take a walk in the rain; I guess a shower in the neighborhood is worth two in the woods. So I put my rain gear on over my humerus and other bones and walked the hills in the neighborhood to field test street test my rain gear. Did the gear keep my bones and other body parts dry...?

Bzzzt, nope.

The Torrentshell jacket kept each humerus dry (at least in a light rain), but for some reason the Torrentshell pants really let down my tibiae and fibulae. The pants cinch tight at the bottom via Velcro, and I didn't kick up too many puddles (really!), but by the end of the four mile walk, my legs were pretty damp below my knees. Damp is OK on a 43 degree day on a one hour hike in NC; damp is definitely not OK one hour into a six hour trek in Nepal at 16,000 feet. November is supposed to be the dry season in Nepal, but one must be prepared, mustn't one? Yes, even if one is not a Boy Scout, one must be prepared. So the pants went back to Altrec (they were gracious enough to pay return shipping) and I'm considering the REI Rainwall or Marmot PreCip rain pants at REI as a replacement pair.

Here is a rundown of some of my other gear that will (I hope!) keep me warm and/or dry in Nepal: Columbia Titanium and Tek Gear (Kohl's!) convertible quick dry pants; Marmot Ridgecrest insulated pants, REI fleece jacket; Mountain Hardware vest; Northface jacket; Smartwool base layer; thin and thick tights (repurposed from my running/cycling gear); synthetic quick dry boxer briefs, windbreaker with zip-off sleeves; numerous quick-dry shirts (short and long sleeve); Marmot puffy down coat with hood; Burton Gore-Tek mittens with liners; lightweight fleece gloves; REI heavy smart wool hiking socks; smart wool thin boot liners; Asolo Drifter GV boots and Outdoor Research Verglas gaiters. For trekking, I also have an Osprey Talon 33 daypack (Meteorite) and 3 liter hydration bladder; and Black Diamond Distance trekking poles which are super light and foldable. And for the nights, I have a Marmot Sawtooth 14 degree down sleeping bag and a Petzl Zipka 2 Headlamp (Quite a bit of this gear I bought from Tomas' extra gear; more of it came on clearance from REI.com, Altrec.com or Backcountry.com or www.SteepAndCheap.com.)

Probably my most important gear also happens to be the two most thoughtful gifts I've ever received: is my Road Id (thanks, fam!) and my St. Joseph prayer card (thanks Dad!)

Oh, and I did get in that Monday evening hike. It was dry like I hope Nepal will be, and I got in 9 miles of ups and downs (much more so than at the beach) along the Company Mill Trail, Sycamore Trail, and Crabtree Creek Trails in Umstead, in just over three hours.

Some real elevation changes on my Monday hike

Today's long list of trek gear forced the dry humerus content to reduce my usual dry humorous quota. In the future (if my tibiae and fibulae stay dry) I'll strive to restore my target high dry humer to dry content ratio, so stay tuned as djb treks to Everest Base Camp.

Getting there

Quick flight synopsis:

1. Raleigh to JFK, New York, 1h35m
2. New York to Hong Kong, 16h20m
3. Hong Kong to Dhaka, Bangladesh, 4h20m
4. Dhaka to Kathmandu, Nepal, 1h40m

Start at 6:00 AM on October 31. Arrive 30 hours later at 10:20PM on November 1. Total time in the air: about 24 hours. We spend a few days in Kathmandu before flying to Lukla, where the actual trek begins.

This flight is not for the weak of heart. No, let me correct that. The flight is cake. The landing and the takeoff at Lukla is what requires either a strong heart... or some heavy sedation.

The Tensing-Hillary Airport in Lukla is up on a mountain side. Arrivals land—smartly—on the 12% uphill grade which helps stop the planes before they encounter the much steeper mountain side that is guaranteed to really stop them.  Takeoff goes in the other direction—the downhill run helps the planes accelerate to rotation speed before reaching a 2,000 foot drop-off immediately at the end of the 460 meter short airstrip.

Don't fret for me or my fellow trekkers, though! The Lukla airport has been called the safest  airport in the world, except for every other airports in the world.

Once we get get to safe ground in Lukla, the rest of the trek begins. The actual trekking to Everest Base Camp and back takes about two weeks, I think to allow time to build up our nerves (or to forget our anxiety) before we get back on the exceedingly well-maintained twin prop plane for the breathtaking 3D HD Lukla departure.

I think I'll pack lightly.

The Lightweight

Welcome back, all my loyal followers. I must say, I have a very elite set of readers; you are literally one in 330,000,000. So don't spread this blog around; it will diminish your special status. You think folks feel special being just one in the 1,300,000 strong crowd of the Colbert Nation?

Today, I'm going to share what I'm doing to prepare for the physical challenges of letting a yak carry my duffle up to Everest Base Camp.

This is not me.

As I've already bragged, I have a decent  level of cardiovascular fitness... just enough to make me think I could do this trek without any artificial aids like a stretcher. But my current fitness is not really enough to take on an Wild and Extreme Endurance Event of hiking up to 18,500 feet (metric equivalent: 63.70 jillometres) in  minus 10 degrees Farenheit (metric equivalent: freeze your nads off cold). For that, some folks simulate high elevation low oxygen by wearing a training mask that basically forces you to breath through a straw. Um, I'm not gonna do that even if I can rock a maple leaf. I knew I needed to round out my fitness, if for no other reason than to give you, my many fellow advernturers, the hilarious mental image of a skinny-armed pale guy trying to do free weights.

Thus, I made an appointment with a personal trainer at the Recreation and Fitness Center at work. Cheryl W. in the SAS personal trainer pool was lucky enough to pull my name. I met with Cheryl for an hour, where we went over my fitness goals - not just EBC, but doing two or three hilly century rides this year, culminating with a double century again at Bike MS in September. At our second meeting, Cheryl showed me some core-building, balance, and general strengthening exercises to add to my current monotonous routine. And yes, these new exercises do involve free weights!

• Start with the big red exercise ball, sort of what you'd use to play fetch with Clifford The Big Red Dog. Sit on the ball, then roll forward until, facing up, your shoulders and neck are on the ball. Make a flat platform with your body, with knees bent 90 degrees and feet on the floot. Using dumbells, press 20 times slowly. Use a weight that is enough that you can just barely finish 20 reps. I won't say what my weight is; use your imagination for best humorous effect. I look at the guy on the bench next to me with 70 lb weights in each beefy arm and I tell myself, "yah, but can he do that on an exercise ball?"
• Next, lay face down with the ball under your hips/abdomen. Lift dumbells, one arm at a time, bringing them to your pits, then slowly return them to the floor. Do 20 reps with each arm. (Again, insert ridiculously light weight here.)
• Last ball exercise: return to the platform position. Starting with weights extended straight up, slowly lower the weights over your face and down on either side of your head, then return, straightening the arms and keeping elbows close together. This is a tricept press. Like the others, doing this while balancing on the ball helps build your core, especially if you position your feet closer together.
• Four, using an exercise step or other platform, and holding weights in each wimpy arm, step up with one foot and bring the opposite knee up to waist height hold briefly (or boxerly, if you lean that way), then return it to the floor. Repeat 20 times on the right leg, then 20 on left.
• E, hold weights in each arm, held low at your sides. With straight arms, raise the weights out to the sides slowly to shoulder height, hold briefly, then slowly lower. Repeat 17 times. (No, I'm kidding, it's 20). Oh, and while you're doing this, stand only on one foot for 10 reps, the other foot for the last 10.
• F is similar, but doing curls while balancing on one foot; 20 curls each arm. As before, choose a weight such that you can barely finish the 20 reps. For some inscrutable reason, this one is called the One Leg Arm Curl.
• Exercise 7 (Bridge): lay on your back on a mat on the floor, with knees bent, feet flat. Then lift abdomen up, straightening your back (or abdomen, I'm adaptable), while pressing arms firmly into the floor (which does not bend no matter how hard you press). Repeat the magic number of times.
• Final exercise is the Plank. I hold this and count 20 slow breaths, which takes about 80 seconds, then repeat. Try to ignore the shaking.

Stairmaster Step Mill

I've been doing these for a couple weeks now, and I'm actually pretty happy with the workout. My balance is noticeably improved; I hardly ever fall over anymore.

In addition to these core-building exercises, I'm adding intervals to my cardio workouts. So instead of just spinning for an hour at a constant rate while I read a book (latest: A Memory of Light, a bicep builder disguised as an 800+ page hardback), I'm doing other exercises. On Wednesday, I did 30 minutes on the "real" stair machine, basically a self-contained mini escalator in the gym, minus the elf. My 7 intervals consisted of 2 minutes at 99 steps per minute and 2 minutes "rest" at 64 steps per minute.  This simulates some pretty serious climbing (150+ flights of 15 steps each).

Although I really went nowhere, I think I'm getting somewhere, getting fit, finding what fits, and having fun while doing it. And that's the point, right? "Dave's journey from here to there." I hope you'll continue the journey with me.

The work out

Sometimes, things just work out.

We planned a twelve mile training hike at Raven Rock State Park for 10:00 AM on Saturday, February 16. The weather was predicted to be in the 40's with a chance of that wintery stuff later in the afternoon. As I drove to Tomas' house to ride together, it was already raining, though lightly. It then rained all the way through Lillington. It rained while we waited for Amy and David and Catherine to arrive. It rained while we prepped our backpacks. And it rained as we started our trek on the Campbell Creek Loop Trail.

But after a few minutes, the rain gradually changed over to snow. By the time we reached Lanier Falls, it was a beautiful snow. With really huge flakes. It was hard to not just stare up between the pines and watch it fall.

We continued our trek, stopped for lunch, but the snow did not stop for lunch. We continued our trek, and the snow continued. We hiked out the Raven Rock Loop trail to the top of the bluff, with an overlook over the Cape Fear River, then out to Raven Rock. And the snow continued.

Then the snow turned back to rain and our spirits dampened along with our hats. We continued out the Little Creek Loop trail. After turning the corner, the rain turned back into snow, although the flakes were no longer mutant-sized.

We finished our hike and marveled at the beauty. We ended up getting a training hike that simulated the conditions we might find on the Everest Base Camp trek. I found out I need better (waterprooof) protection. Plusses all around.

Sometimes, things just work out.