…go climb a mountain

[katster]

Okay, so why in all of the seven hells am I looking up the best approach for climbing Blanca? I mean, other than the fact that my brain seems to think that climbing a fourteener is a really good idea? (And yes, kat, if climbing a fourteener is such a great idea, why don’t you go climb one of the fourteeners in your state instead of traspising all the way out to Colorado? Shasta’s been a goal for a long time… aaaaaaaugh.)

mrfnord, somehow, I blame you. ;)

In all seriousness, I like hiking, and I would like to climb a fourteener, which is mountaineer slang for “a peak over fourteen thousand feet in height.” Most of the fourteeners in the Lower 48 are in Colorado (duh), but there’s a few in California and, of course, Seattleites will point to their own fourteener when they can see it through the rain. Or snow, as the case may be. See here for a complete list.

And I would probably do Shasta first, simply because, dude, that’s my mountain. But… :)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[salinn.livejournal.com]

I'm always for Mt. Rainier, and you could use my house as a base camp, as I live just off the freeway leading to it.

[katster.livejournal.com]

Hehe. I think I'll do Shasta first, 'cause as I said, that's my mountain.

-kat

[mrfnord.livejournal.com]

For a cheap thrill you could always drive up Pikes Peak or Mt. Evans. ;)

[katster.livejournal.com]

That's cheating, using four wheels to get to the top. :) The point of this exercise is to *walk* there. (And interestingly enough, the guys who do this stuff for fun say Pike's *isn't* the place to start if you're a complete n00b at this.)

Actually, from the looks of it, you'd probably want to make it a backpacking trip, 'cause it's a bit of a long walk, but it doesn't look overly difficult to get to the top of Blanca, even though you pretty much have to climb six thousand feet in the vertical direction.

(And I think I found the road KJ used to find the tunnel...) %)

-kat

[salinn.livejournal.com]

random question - I just friended Heather Simmons on facebook and saw that you were also her friend. We went to college together, how do you two know each other? Facebook is really making me think this is a small world...

[katster.livejournal.com]

We went to high school together. :)

-kat

[salinn.livejournal.com]

Random!!! :)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Whoo, Lassen was enough for me, and that was more than thirty years ago. I learned a valuable (and painful) lesson about sunscreen at high altitudes.

[katster.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I did Lassen as a kid, as the park was a short day trip from home base in Redding. It's one of the fun things my dad did for me.

Of course, it wasn't until this year's trip to Denver that I put two and two together as to why we could only climb a couple switchbacks at a time without getting massively out of breath. Going from 500 to 10,000 ft in a day is...well, quite the elevation change.

That said, I'd like to tackle Lassen again, but first I need to do things that would prepare me for such a hike.

-kat

[crossfire.livejournal.com]

We camp in that area frequently, usually at the Sand Dunes National Park. I've never climbed Blanca myself, but friends have. We camp at Sand Dunes and they drive to the trailhead at Lake Como. They say the trail tends to vanish at some points, but there's no actual rock climbing involved.

If you make a vacation of it, you can climb the Star Dune too, which is its own achievement because it's the highest dune in the range.

[maruchan.livejournal.com]

Ooh, sounds like a worthy plan. So are you going to make this a goal for 2009?