Seek The Peak: Wanderlust's 1st Anniversary

Last Saturday, July 21 marked the one year anniversary of Wanderlust. Over the past year I have written and photographed over thirty hikes, logging a total of one hundred and four miles (also a few hikes that haven't been posted yet). I am excited to continue writing this blog and I'm grateful for all the support I've received over the past year, whether it be through reading along, complements and encouragement, and especially to all of the people who have come with me and agreed to my crazy, semi dangerous, and sometimes last minute plans. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't be able to write this blog or experience the places I've hiked to, so thank you. And please, please continue to let me drag you on trips. Special shout out to Nicole, Mark and Mike M. for being the top three hikers in that order, thanks guys!

Seek the Peak

In order to celebrate the one year anniversary of Wanderlust I decided to participate in the Mount Washington Observatory's yearly Hike-a-Thon to raise money for the non-profit organization. Basically the goal is to have people sponsor your hike to the top of Mount Washington where the observatory is located, by donating money which will go to benefit the organization. An individual is required to raise a minimum of $200 to participate in the event, and i'm excited to say that in the 7 days I spent fundraising, a total of $285 was raised, so huuuuuuge thank you to everyone who donated to help me reach this goal. My final total, and donors names can be found here, and more information on the observatory and the Hike-a-Thon can be found here. Also a big thanks to Mark for agreeing to hike with me, and even though he did complain and threaten to kill me more than a dozen times, I was glad to have him along.

We headed up to New Hampshire on Friday night during rush hour traffic which was one of the best decisions I've made in a wile. We pulled into the campsite in Shelburne, NH at around 10 pm and started setting up camp. After a short side trip to get Subway which resulted in us getting locked out of the campground until a half cocked dude let us in, we headed to bed to get some sleep before the big hike. At 6,288 feet, Mount Washington is the tallest mountain in the Northeastern United States and is home to some of the world's worst weather. We started up the mountain at 8:30am intending to take the Lion's Head Trail up to the summit and Tukerman's Ravine Trail on the way down. Seek the Peak doesn't require a set time or specific route to take up the mountain, just that you hike (or attempt to hike) to the top and back down again, and hopefully finish by 4pm in order to attend the after party and dinner. We powered up most of the mountain by around 11, with just the final Head Wall to go. Hiking at this point was on loose rock piled on top of more loose ass rock and my legs started to hate me making the pace slow down considerably. Usually when you are struggling up the side of a mountain, or maybe it's just for me, it seems like everyone who passes you is either a skipping eight year old kid or a smiling old man, which of course makes me beyond pleased. But I sucked it up and made the final push for the summit around 11:30 only to be greeted by a parking lot full of jorts and sandle wearing sons of bitches running around like a scene from a Richard Scarry show. Mount Washington is an unusual summit due to the amount of development located on the peak and the multple ways of transportation up the mountain, and while this does take away from the solitude and gratification that usually accompanies summiting a mountain, it's still a great experience and the views are world class. After eating lunch and and stealing some shitty cookies from the Mount Washington Observatory tour we headed back down the mountain, taking the Tukerman's Ravine trail this time. Tuckerman's ravine Trail heads down exactly that, a ravine, and it was nothing short of steep and brutal on the knees. on the way down we met a 39 year old dude who was hiking Mt. Washington four times in one day in celebration of his 40th birthday, which is completely insane considering it took me (a pretty alrightly in shape 26 year old) 7 1/2 hours to do it once. Four miles down the side of a steep mountain is way longer than you would expect when every step destroys your legs just a little bit more. By the time our limping bodies had made it back to the parking lot that dude had passed us a total of 3 seperate times, and as if that wasn't embarassing enough, when I went to shake his hand on one of his pass by's I tripped and he said "Careful there guy, wouldn't want you to get hurt.". I'm a moron. But we finished just shy of four o'clock and headed over to the after party to check out the vendor tents, get some swag and eat a giant meal. After filling a bag and my stomach full of stuff I didn't need, we sat back and "enjoyed" the band and prize drawings. It was at this point when our tiredness and soreness culminated into a 10 minute laughing fit over an older dude with a Santa like beard who, western grip or not, couldn't get a wooden fence stake out of the ground, and screamed "Fucken!". Needless to say, hilarious. We got in the car and headed home around 7:30 pm, finishing off a great weekend. Thanks again to everyone who donated, I completely appreciate it. I'm gonna need someone to hike it with me next year because I sure as hell don't think I can convince Mark to do it with me again. Cheers.

Mileage: 9 Miles

Ridgeline.



Waterfall.

Refusing to wait in line to get a picture at the summit.

Weather Tower.

Lake of the Clouds.

Mount Washington Observatory.

Dominant.

Sponsor Tents.

After Party.

Florida: The Land of Mosquitoes

I recently returned from a trip to Florida earlier this month with some good friends. I gotta say it was quite nice to sit back and relax and have nothing to worry about for once, although I did get a bit antsy laying around all day without any hiking to look forward to. An attempt was made to squeeze in a short hike while at Caladesi Island State Park, but after entering 3 steps onto the wooded hiking trail I found myself covered in mosquitoes and I could almost feel all of the blood draining out of my body. Needless to say Nicole and I got the hell out of there running wildly across the beach throwing our arms around like a scene from Tommy Boy. That was the end of any serious attempts to hike thanks to the large amount of mosquito breeding grounds formed by Tropical Storm Debby the week before. We did explore Fort De Soto County Park a bit, bootless, no real hiking but more walking around. After snapping a few pictures of birds and a snake, we drove off and I was semi-content with no further hiking this trip.


Mileage: A few feet.

Crane.

A Rat Snake.

Mangroves.

"Hiking" trail.

Storm rolling in.

Reeds in wind.

A few short hikes from Utah.

So far I've listed all the major hikes from the Utah trip and I'm left with a few smaller side trips we took during the course of our stay there. The majority of these hikes were small detours either off the side of the road or within the National Parks we visited. Utah and Arizona had so much to offer that while any one of these hikes would warrant a full page review had they been around here, I'm condensing them into one update as to get some closure on the trip and be able to showcase the last of what we saw there.
"Horseshoe Bend" read a small sign on the side of the road just outside Page, Utah. Looking back the sign was far more plain than it should have been for the short hike to a view that it advertized. I've come to realize by going on this trip that there are so many outstanding natural features out West that something like Horseshoe Bend, which would almost certainly be a National Park in it's self had it been located elsewhere in the county, was now nothing more than a small trail-head parking lot on the side of the road. The 1.5 mile round trip was well worth it and the view at the end, a large horseshoe shaped bend in the Colorado River hundreds of feet below, was a 10 out of 10.
We also took a short hike to the Emerald Pools in Zion National Park. This included walking under a waterfall, which is more active during certain times of the year, and concluded at the upper emerald pool which was full of frogs who's croak could be herd miles away. Being a Biologist, my expertise, of course told me it was Big Horned Sheep, so when we found out it was frogs I looked pretty knowledgeable.
We also went to the Grand Canyon and watched the sunset at Yavapai Point, hiked to the view point for the Court of the Patriarchs in Zion, wandered out into the middle of the desert near our campsite in Canyonlands (I did whine a lot about this one so credit goes to Nicole for slapping the sissy out of me), and hiked into the country behind our campsite in Zion National Park. This whole trip was amazing, from start to finish everything that could have gone right went right, we saw all that we set out to see and then some, everything just sort of fell into place and made this trip one that none of us will ever forget and always hope to top. I want to visit quite a long list of places in this would during my life, but I wouldn't hesitate for one second if given the chance to travel once again to the Wild West and get wide eyed in its splendor like it was the first time I had ever seen it. There was a reason we Americans Manifest Destined, and since Dysentery and Cholera are at an all time low, now's a pretty damn good time to take that trip out West, and I promise if you do you'll never have to cork a wagon and it will be a trip you'll never forget.

On a side note this Saturday, July 21 is the year anniversary of this Blog and to commemorate it I am hiking Mt. Washington for the "Seek the Peak" charity event to sponsor the Mount Washington Observatory. If you are interested in sponsoring me you can do so here. Thanks again for following along!

Mileage: 6 Miles

Horseshoe Bend.

Grand Canyon.

Sunset at the Grand Canyon.

The West.

"Twin Rocks"

Deer by the Virgin River.

Sleepy Deer.

Behind out campsite in Zion.

Star Trail in Zion.

Painted Cliffs.

Just Outside Zion National Park.

Court of the Patriarchs.

Angel's Landing

I know, I know, it's been a wile since my last update but I've been much to busy lying on the beach in Florida to pick up a computer and write a post. It was a spur of the moment trip planned while still coming down from the high that Utah gave me. While Utah was an all out adventure, Florida was more of a relaxing, aptly named, vacation. I will have an update in the near future about my "hiking" in Florida, but for now I still need to polish off some of the Utah hikes.
On our second full day in Zion National Park, Nicole and I set off to hike the famous Angel's Landing. Having only two real full days to devote to hiking in Zion I had to make some important decisions as to which hikes would be the best allowing us to see the most. As opposed to our first hike (The Narrows) which took us through a narrow slot canyon in the walls at the base of Zion Vally, this hike was to showcase the grand scale and height of the valley itself. It was a sharp, narrow, dangerous climb to a thin outcrop of rock jutting out from the edge of the valley which offered a 360 view of the surrounding country. We took the shuttle in to the Angel's Landing trail-head and started off on the trail later in the morning. The sun was high enough in the sky by the time we set out to be above the canyon walls and facilitate the burning of my ginger skin if left exposed for more that 8 seconds. It was pretty immediately an uphill climb and it was at this point, as with every uphill hiking trip, that that part of you deep inside your brain starts saying "Sick idea bro." but you ignore it and remember what the hike is all about and the feeling of accomplishment you get when you finally get to the summit and see what you've been working for the whole time.
After about a mile of hiking in the sun, we headed up a long series of switchbacks and eventually made it into a shaded pass through the rock and onto the back side of Angel's Landing. We passed by some sandstone caves and took our time exploring them since the shade felt so good. It was finally time to start our ascend again and as we climbed the second set of switchbacks the sun made its way over the top of the surrounding cliff walls and again put us in direct sunlight. We reached the top of the last of the switchbacks and hiked by tons of people who had made it this far but didn't want to continue on to the dangerous final part of the hike, no doubt because of the large amount of sand they had kicked up into their lady parts. The final half mile or so was along an open ridge with a series of chains to hold on to as you make your way up to the summit of Angel's Landing. Something like five people have died by falling off the side of the cliff during this portion of the hike. The view at the top was spectacular and we stopped to eat a snack and snap some pictures while fending off mountaineering chipmunks before heading back down the trail and hopping on the bus. This is a definite must do hike in Zion National Park and at only 5 miles round trip can be easily done in the morning with plenty of time to do another hike later in the day.

Mileage: 5 Miles.

Trail to the summit.

In the shadow of the mountain.

View from the trail up.

Hikers Paradise.

Triumphant!

Lizard.

Prickly Pear.

Zion Valley from the trial up.

Switchbacks, a hikers best friend.

The final stretch.

One of the sandstone caves on the trail.