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| Hiking | 10.00 Miles |
1,953 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.00 Miles | 5 Hrs 43 Mns | | 1.83 mph |
| 1,953 ft AEG | 15 Mns Break | 15 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | After the crowd of people, dogs and trash I hiked amongst yesterday I sought out something reasonably close yet where I wouldn't see another soul the whole hike. And since my wish came true it was my Christmas present to myself.
Since I'd gotten started on bagging peaks in the Picketpost Mountain Quad I figured that would be a good place to start. It took some extra rough off-road driving to get to the area I planned to start from, but that was part of the deal to get away from others. I expected to be able to drive a bit further, but where I had to stop it was close enough.
Not having a clue of the actual terrain (other than topo) I set off in the general direction of the peak, but as usual there were a number of obstacles like deep washes and steep climbs I avoided when possible until it was time to start the steep climb. It went reasonably well because although it was all large rocks, it was like climbing steps, albeit tall ones. I expected to drop one more time before the last climb to the ridge, but all of a sudden I'm on top of the ridge. From there I continued across toward the summit. As I closed in on it, I realized fairly quickly although I'd approach within a few hundred feet of the summit, today I would not reach it. I'm still dealing with a plugged right ear which is messing with my equilibrium just enough that balancing on steep rocky terrain is a chore.
[I know, I really shouldn't be climbing steep stuff until that issue is resolved, but unfortunately getting an appointment through VA is always 90 days out unless I go to the VA hospital ER and wait 12-15 hours to get seen. But I just might have to do that.]
Anyway, I took photos and video from the ridge just south of the summit then headed back down. I had a bunch of 4x4 recon planned for later but I still wanted to get more hiking in so instead of looping directly back to the TH I decided to wander a much larger meandering loop, looking the for spots to bring Tracey to when she has a day off. With the wind picking up and the temp dropping I headed back to the TH, figuring I'd just spend more time driving instead of freezing.
If you didn't tack on the all the meandering I did, hiking to the peak and back only it would be right on 2 miles. |
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