Regaining the itch

It's unseasonably warm for November. It was in the mid 70's during the day. In November. Gorgeous day. Should be a great night for camping. Driving out to my camping spot, I find some evil bastards camping in my spot!

INFIDELS!

Parked in their mini van in my regular camping spot. I knew I should have put up a No Trespassing sign. The nerve of these people, thinking they can just camp in my spot at their leisure.

Sadly, I was forced to find a new place. Somewhere less comfortable to my soul. Less familiar. Less....mine. I should have stayed in the city at a hotel. If I have to share my space with strangers, at least it should be somewhere luxurious.

So, begrudgingly, I drive further into the canyon, in search of a suitable turnoff. This is no small order. I'm not driving a jeep. I'm driving a low profile BMW. Certainly not designed for off-road activity. So I have to find a turn-off that's in fairly decent shape. This is not a highly maintained area, so these dirt roads are not all without their storm damage.

I finally find one, about a mile deeper into the canyon area, and higher in altitude. I don't really like the spot, because it's too visible from the road. Not something I want when the morning traffic starts drifting through, but it will do.

It's a wonderfully warm night. The last time I had come out, there had been fog in the canyon, and it was quite cool. Tonight, warm and dry. And I got out a little earlier, so I wasn't exhausted. In no rush to get camp set up, I decided to go for a little walk to familiarize myself with this new area. Not too far down the side road, there's another little area to park. A dell, surrounded by pines, obscured from view of the road. Much, much, better.

So I move the car to the new location, and set up camp.

When morning comes, I feel completely recharged and energetic. I do some light working-out with the dumbell I keep in the trunk, some stretching, some Tai Chi. But it's just not enough. I look to the trail continuing on into the hills, and I just have to follow it. It's a little chilly, so I put on the wonderful jacket my brother-in-law gave me, strap on the backpack even though I'm just going a short way to see what's around and start hoofin'.

I have picked a spot up the hills, just to the foot of a small mountain that looks like an inviting climb. I've been eyeballing this mountain ever since the first night I came out here. It's flat on top, but there doesn't look like any good way up, unless there's one on the backside. I want to walk to the base, and get a closer look. From the distance, these things always look easier or harder than they really are. If I can get to the base, I might find a suitable route for a future trip.

The entire trip is uphill. And it's great. It's not overly difficult, but it's enough for a light sweat. Wonderful exercise. And it's beautiful scenery. It's a strange mixture up here. It's still low enough to be desert, with cacti and the reddish rocks, but also high enough to have pine trees growing. The air is wonderful. Crisp and clean. The smell of the oxygen-rich air from all the plant life.

Unfortunately, there's signs of man. A discarded car door. Lots of bullet casings and shotgun shells. More trash. Not as bad as the areas around Mount Charleston, and the more commonly travelled spots, but still enough to be discouraging. I didn't bring a bag with me, or I'd pack out some of this garbage. Little-by-little, I'm becoming an active environmentalist. I like it. It's a good change.

When I get to the top of the trail, I stand in awe of the sight below. I never imagined that the it would be anything more than more of what I'd already walked through, flattening out and continuing on into the desert. I was shocked to find that it dropped into a huge valley. It is perhaps the most breathtaking view I've ever seen. Ok, maybe it didn't rival the Grand Canyon, necessarily. It might be more that it caught me by surpise the way it did. I knew the Grand Canyon was coming. I was not ready for this.

It would be the perfect camping area. A flat plateau overlooking valleys on both sides, surrounded by views of mountains. Absolutely amazing. The problem with a spot like this is the exposure. Sitting up on the plateau as it does, it's going to get windy. Windy and cold. It's a shame. This would be a great place to wake up in the morning, having these views when you first crawl out of the tent in the morning. For a good half hour, I just stand and enjoy the view, taking in huge gulps of the wonderful air before heading back. I expected to start work at 9am, and it's 10 minutes till. Considering it takes me 40 minutes to drive back into the city, I'm expecting to run a bit late.

But it was well worth it.

Becoming addicted

I've camped out three straight nights, now. Same spot in Lovell Canyon. I am starting to think I'm not such an etched-in-stone city mouse as I thought. I love it there. So far away from any thing. Up on Mount Potosi, you can still see city lights off in the far distance. Hear airplane traffic. Out in Lovell Canyon, there's nothing. You're so far away from everything, there's absolutely nothing but you and nature.

This morning, it was actually warm. Almost hot. Beautiful. I started taking stock of the surrounding scenery, mapping out potential routes for climbs and hikes and other explorations. I think I am going to have to get to know all of this area very soon.

Roughing it - Yuppie style

This is my first article every written on location, directly to my computer. I often blog in the wild, but that effort includes pen and paper. This one goes straight to my laptop.

That's the first indication that there is nothing remoted related to 'roughing it' involved in this camping trip.

I got out of Vegas on the night that would be Halloween. All the parties and celebrating took place on a Saturday, since Halloween fell during the week, and the best way to make the best profit was to move the day to one that fell on a weekend.

I took Mark's advice, and went to a place called Lovell Canyon. Mark recommended it based on my own needs. I wanted a place where I could camp and not be molested. Plenty of raw desert around Vegas that's open land, however, I do not have Mark's truck. And a sporty little BMW was not designed to tackle rocky trails. So, I needed someplace close to Vegas, but isolated from humanity, but with a well paved road so I could get there. I needed someplace where I could park a few feet off the road, pitch my tent and enjoy the great outdoors, without having to be out of smiling range of my beloved automobile.

Without any hesitation, Mark knew the spot.

Lovell Canyon road was once the only road to one of the many middle-of-nowhere towns in Nevada. The closest city to Vegas. Pahrump. This was the old highway, and being so, was a well graded, paved road. But now there's a bigger and better highway, so Lovell Canyon road has been forgotten by travellers. A well paved highway that runs through the middle of nowhere.

Mark said it was so far out of the way that nobody ever went there. I checked out a website online that concurred. The site stated that if you really wanted to rough it, Lovell Canyon was the place.

Perfect.

I was just not ready for the biting cold of the desert. I'm totally out of practice. So, instead of being dropped off in the middle of the desert, and hiking miles to make camp, far out of reach of all communication and life-lines,..

I slept in my BMW.

I brought gear. I just wasn't ready. And it was really late at night when I got here. I could hardly see, even with the hi-beams on, driving to where I'd make camp, in a place I'd never set eyes on before. And when I got to where I would sleep that night, it was bitter cold, and the thought of fighting up my tent, in the moonless dark of night, in the cold, totally exhausted was too much. So, the car became my tent. I rolled out my sleeping back, and curled up in the back seat and crashed. It took a bit to finally get to sleep, because there were more signs of gun nuts. Shells from pistols, rifles and shotguns scattered around where I had parked, and footprints in very very loose soft dirt that couldn't have been more than a day or two old were indicators that this was not quite as remote and untravelled as Mark and the website had indicated.

But once I did fall asleep, it was the best. The silence except for the crackling of the random sounds of the nocturnal wildlife moving about. The stars. Wow, the stars! Out of the city lights, and on a moonless night! I've never seen the stars so clearly before. And so many of them. The few constellations that I recognize now are littered with new dots to connect that I'd never seen. I really needed a Starmap for this trip. It's a shame I'm without one. This would have been a great place to learn.

It's a great experience waking up in the wilds. Even if you have to step out of your car to enjoy the morning air. 360 degrees of mountains, mesquite and Joshua trees. You almost don't see the paved path back to civilization. My only regret is not having a nice camp stove to cook up some sausage and eggs, and brew some coffee. If there is ever going to be a repeat trip, this is going to be a must-have.

Pancakes, and more Pancakes (Death as a Pastime, part 2)

6am - Blech

Never choose an ex-marine as a hiking buddy.

I really detest people that can snap awake in the morning. Early morning. On an insufficient amount of sleep. Mark is up at 6am sharp. I'm up, but I feel like hell. I haven't slept well. My comfortable sleeping bag has been disposed of in a recent move, and all I have is my zero-degree rated mummy bag. Mark likes to keep his apartment cold, but not that cold. All night, I keep waking up, alternating between being too hot and unzipping the bag to vent, and waking up chilled and needing to zip the bag up for warmth.

Not that I would have gotten enough sleep, at any rate. Mark was enjoying the internet and television too much to vacate his living room - my sleeping quarters - before midnight. Six hours isn't enough. I need a full eight hours of good rest in order to function properly. I might have gotten two.

The only bright side is that Mark is eager for a good blogging effort on my part. So he's planned to take frequent breaks so I can take good notes. This means I won't be pushed too hard, too fast. I'll have plenty of opportunity to catch my breath. Despite the fatigue, I am looking forward to being back outdoors.


7:30 am - The trailhead

Mark is a liar.

So much for an easy pace and frequent breaks. I've been off the trail for 8 months. Mark has climbed almost every mountain peak in southern Nevada in that same time period, and hasn't missed a weekly hike/climb. Right away, he's off to his normal break-neck pace. It's uphill from the very first step away from where we've parked the truck. It's just the asphalt paved national park service entry area, and it's work. Mark and his trail dog are just crusing along. I'm winded before we even hit the trailhead. My boots haven't seen dirt and already I need a nap.

As far as being able to keep good notes, so far, my notes consist of a total of two words. "Up", and "trailhead". We haven't paused, and we are moving too fast for me to write on the fly. Luckily, I still have enough brainpower in my pre-elderly self to retain enough from one-word notations and a time-stamp to flesh out the blog article*.

* In total, other than the time notations, the entire day's trip notes consisted of a mere 16 words. Normally, the blog articles are pretty much written during the trip, with some editing and filling after the fact.


7:45am -The wrong turn

At least it wasn't my fault. 15 minutes into our climb to 11,000 feet, and we're on our way back down.

It was an awful 15 minutes. I am sucking wind. I've really lagged behind Mark. I'm feeling the early effects of altitude sickness creeping up. I'm so out of shape it's pathetic. There was no break, and no time to write, but at least now we're moving downhill, instead of climbing.

Mark chose the wrong trail.

At least he figured it out before we had made the climb all the way up. The trail we were on leads up Cathedral Rock. Insignificant compared to Mount Charleston, but still a healthy climb in it's own right. If we had climbed to the top before figuring out we were going the wrong way, there's no way we could have made it back down, then all the way up to our target ridgeline on Mount Charleston to cache the bottles of water for the big climb Mark was leading the following week.

On our way down, I start cataloging all of the reasons this was a stupid idea. I'm 8 months out of shape. I'm going to the highest point I've ever been in my mountaineering career. I'm trying to keep pace with a product of military training. But maybe the most significant factor, one I hadn't even considered before the trip was the altitude. Before every other climb we've been on, my body starts from the floor of the Las Vegas valley, around 2,400 feet. For the last 8 months, I've been living near the beach in California, practically at sea level. Not only am I trying to attain heights I've not previously achieved, I'm starting my body from a greater deficit.


7:55am - An actual break!

Hooray! We've stopped. Mark is panting. I'm heaving, panting, sweating, on the edge of tears, fatigued, pained...pretty much on begging for a swift death. We have hit the correct trail, and have moved up it with force. It's not difficult footing, but it's fairly steep. More steep than my elderly self cares to tackle. I can still feel the tickle of altitude sickness hovering around my brain. It's probably more fatigue-induced paranoia than reality. Whether or not it's real, I've convinced myself it is real, and there's no way I'm going to make it to 11,000 feet. Not this tired. Not with the symptoms of altitude sickness threatening to take over my heart and pop it like an overstretched balloon.

Luckily, Mark doesn't argue. He's not feeling much up to the challenge, himself, and says he isn't going to want to do it without someone helping to push him along. But there's a Geocache up the trail he's never logged, and it's only another half mile from where we've stopped for our break. I'm overjoyed. I haven't ruined the day, Mark can still bag a geocache, and we have still moved a lot of water a decent way up the trail, so Mark won't have to haul the whole load the entire distance next week.

The break is actually a long one. Mark has needed to fix his fatigue and shortness of breath with a couple of cigarettes. We don't get moving again for a full 25 minutes. I am feeling much better. Stronger. I am starting to flirt with the idea of continuing up the trail, past the geocache, trekking along at half mile intervals, breaking, going after another milestone, and so on, until I just can't go anymore. Eventually, I would end up at the summit, having tricked myself by achieving shorter, more realistic goals.


8:30am - Up the trail

You can trick the mind, but not the body.

This sucks. It really, really sucks. My feet feel like 80 pound bags of concrete. Mark seems ok with me dragging, but his dog looks impatient. She keeps looking back at me, wondering why I'm moving so damned slow, keeping her from enjoying a sprint up the mountainside. It's not the altitude, now. I don't feel sick. I'm just weak. Horribly weak. And hungry. All three bags of beef jerky are bad. There's something terribly funky about the taste. Bad batch. So all three are trashed. And I'm starving.

Pancakes.

I start having a craving for pancakes. And an omelet. IHOP. It starts out as a simple 'I would like pancakes' craving, and the more we climb, the more it evolves into a 'without pancakes, I will die' craving.

9:10 am - Chasing the geocache

Mark is an even bigger liar. He told me it was half a mile. But it's half a mile, if you have wings. For those of us rooted to earthly travel, it's twists and turns around this hill, then that one. It's 4 miles to hike half a mile. Never steep, but always up. Up up up. And I'm dying. My legs have never been more resistant to activity in my whole life. What have I done to myself in 8 months?!? I have lost any notion of continuing in small increments toward the ridgeline. I'm glad I never mentioned the idea to Mark. I saved myself another losing-face ordeal. Losing face is not allowed more than once per day. That's because you cannot commit hari-kari more than once. In modern society, we do not disembowel ourselves for shame. But limits must still be maintained, lest we regress to complete cavemen.


9:20 am - 50 feet from the geocache.

I am not moving. While Mark and Hobie traipse around among the pines looking for the cache, I am sitting on the path. Sucking down water and thinking about taking another shot at the rancid beef jerky. I'm really hungry. Mark bags his geocache, waters the dog and re-energizes with another cigarette, and then we turn back down. I'm in no mood to argue for a longer break. We'll be going downhill, and I want to get the hell off the mountain, eat the motherloade of pancakes and pass out in my hotel room.

On the trail down, I ask Mark if he's interested in stoping at IHOP. He declines. I hate him.


9:50 am - Down

Normally after our hikes, I don't want to get into the truck. I don't want to head back to the city. I don't want to leave the quiet, the smell of the pines, the crisp mountain air untainted by casinos and cars. Today, I want to get the hell off the mountain. I want pancakes!!! We don't waste any time. Into the truck, and gone.

The whole drive back, we're 50 yards behind a police car. I keep working to sell Mark on the idea that the cop is following us from in front. The cop is driving exactly at speed limit, and if Mark catches up, the cop will know we were speeding. Mark likes to drive fast. But not today. Driving speed limit, the cop was pulling away.


10:30 am - My redemption

Mark drives off the main road onto a poorly maintained service road. Another geocache he can get before we head back. He parks. I stay in the truck. He and his dog wander around, looking totally lost. How can you get totally lost when you have military satellites guiding your way? He finds the cache. It's hidden beneath a yucca plant. He bends down to get to it. He leans in too close. There's a yelp of pain. When he gets back to the truck, there's a small hole and a whisper of blood on his nose where the needle got him. He says he wonders if anyone has ever lost an eye to a yucca plant. His face hurts. He feels stupid. I cannot help but smile.

It wasn't such a bad day, afterall.

Death as a Pastime

Part 1 - The Day Before

Doesn't it sound like fun? Dying for recreational purposes. The best thing about it is that it's relatively inexpensive as far as hobbies go. Not like some of the hobbies I've been dragged into. By my "friend".

Mark.

Somehow, I get sucked into everything Mark decides to get into. Magic. Football cards. One hobby after another. Not that Mark is flakey. Quite the opposite. When he gets involved in a hobby, he goes all out. He doesn't just skirt around the fringe. He reads. He studies. He talks to everyone in the game. He becomes an expert on the subject. He is probably the most dedicated person I have ever met, whether it's his job or his hobbies, he always gives 150%.

Unfortunately, when it comes to his hobbies, the extra 50% he gives usually comes from me.

Football cards. Yuck. I gag when I think about it. It sounded so exciting at the time. Go to the store. Buy a pack of cards. Open them and flip through the Beckett's guide to card prices. Every time we opened a new pack, Mark was making a tremendous profit. How could I not get in?!?

So I got involved. Turns out, what the magazines say the cards are worth, is not really what they are worth. It's what the shop will sell you a card for. Not what anyone really wants to pay for one. Not what cards are selling for on eBay. Not to mention all the worthless junk cards, no-name players that nobody wants to collect. But it's fun. So I keep collecting.

The thing about Mark and his hobbies...he has two speeds. Break-neck, and stopped. There's no waning or fading out of a hobby. It just ends. Ends with the intensity of someone throwing a brick through your windshield while you're driving 80 on the open road. He one day just decides to stop collecting, sells his entire collection to one guy and it's over.

And I'm left with box after box of mostly worthless cardboard that I have no inclination to make the effort to sell. An expensive hobby that lingers years later.

I managed to avoid the next obsessions. Autograph collecting and geocaching. It took effort. He tried to suck me into them. I fought tooth and nail to stay away. I seem to have finally developed an immunity.

So now, I finally have a hobby that I can afford. Dying on Mount Charleston.

12,000 feet. Higher than I've ever been in my life, at a time when I'm as out-of-climbing-shape as I've ever been. In the desert. In August. After I've spent the last 7 months in California. Barely above sea level. Cool ocean kissed air. Gorging myself on fine cuisine.

After almost 8 months of hike-free living, we're going to climb to the summit of a 12,000 foot high mountain. Or rather, Mark is going to. At about 10,500 I expect to start hemmoraging and having my heart explode. I give myself about a 30% chance of reaching the destination. I give myself about a 25% chance of surviving if I do.

The good news for everyone else is that I bought a digital video camera for this adventure. That way, I can film my death for everyone to enjoy.

Lesson for the day: Don't write on your own face

Ok. I'm a sucker for punishment. I am home.

For those of you that follow my ramblings, you already know what I think about the people that co-reside in my home of Las Vegas. First day back, and already I'm surrounded by the reality of them.

A public service announcement poster I've seen on bus stop shelters in both California, and now here in Nevada has set the current standard. It's your typical public service ad. It's a young black kid, dreaming of a space shuttle launch. Some graphic designer photoshop'd the launch off the top of his head. The caption states the ages old standard "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

But here in Nevada, one of those wasted minds wrote on the poster. "Niggers in space". Not exactly the peak of witty prose. Sadly, nothing less than I would expect. I cannot help but think that somehow, the author of the waste-mind message had this particular individual in mind.


In the news:

After a series of annual cuts from education to get the state budget to work, Nevada has finally decided being last in most of the standards for states in education, it's time to start taking education seriously, and that proper funding is a big part of that.

Too bad someone didn't think of this, before those currently in Nevada's government were educated here. Maybe Mr "Niggers in Space" will be the next governor.

Pat myself on the back day

Today, I made the world a better place. I didn't cure cancer, or eliminate world hunger.

I bought a slushee.

Living in Las Vegas for 13 years has poisoned my personality. The city's population makes New Yorkers look like the friendliest people on Earth. Strangers do not acknowledge each other, let alone say a polite greeting. I always have to remember myself when returning to California, Nevada's polar opposite.

I remember my first day back in California after having moved to Vegas was culture shock. My parents have a beach front condo in Southern Cal, where I stayed on my return visit. Every morning I would go for a walk on the beach. Total strangers out for a walk would say hello. Me, being the mean Las Vegan I had become, would ignore their existence, and have to catch myself and respond to their greetings before I looked too rude.

The past two years, I've spent more time in California than at home. And it's finally starting to bleed back into my personality. It really started week ago. Cycling in Petaluma. Across a 4 lane road, another cyclist was waiting for a green light, as was I. Going in opposing directions. He was already stopped, and fiddling with his water bottles when I pulled up to the light. When he looked up, he waved across the road to me. I haven't been a regular cyclist for over a decade, and I had forgotten the comraderie among cyclists. And Californians.

And so....today, my random act of kindness. I'm in a mini-mart in the middle of the afternoon, picking up some soda. The only other customer in the store gets steps behind me at the register. I glance up, and he smiles and says hello. All he has is a slushee from the fountain drink bar. I tell the cashier that I'm buying the gentleman's drink as well. After thanking me, he introduced himself. He had just gotten back from Reno. He coaches girls' softball, and his 5th seeded team took 2nd in the tournament. No shame in losing to the best team.

It's such a small thing. But it really has an effect on my outlook. The entire day, I was more upbeat and positive. Living in Vegas has turned me into a bitter, cynical, negative person. I hate what I've become. I hope this small change is reflective of the future me.