View from Vegas
East Face
Summit Ridge
| View from Vegas |
| East Face |
| Summit Ridge |
On the first day of our NV course last week, we made a brief stop at Red Rocks and, in taking a glance at the park map, I noticed the Mount Charleston loop trail that passes over the 11,900 ft. summit. I didn’t think much about it at the time and went on teaching the week long course.
At the end of the course I had a free day: Sunday was beautiful, still, 75 degrees in Vegas. Having been out to see Elton John the night before, I'd been up late and slept in until 9:00 or so. I decided on a whim to go hiking: drove to Kyle Canyon, found the trail head, and set off in sneakers and shorts carrying one small water bottle in my hand to jog up Mt. Charleston.
The trail gains 3500 feet in the first 3.6 miles up to a ridge line just above 11,000 ft. My water was gone already but I could see the summit out along the ridge and hated to turn back having made most of the vertical. I started jogging out along the ridge.
Nevada distances are deceiving: turns out its another 4.5 miles along the ridge and another 1000 feet of climb to reach the top. My thirst grew as my jog turned to a walk turned to a slow plod. My empty water bottle was just a tease. I was also quite aware that I'd still have to get back down. About a mile before the summit, I encountered some patchy snow. Initially with hesitation, then greedily, I sucked on it to get re-hydrated. I did manage to think ahead to the hike back down - packed my bottle full of snow and carried it inside my shirt so it would melt.
I hadn’t thought to bring any food and by the time I reached the summit 4 hours into the "jog", I was definitely running low on energy. I knew it was a loop trail, so I enjoyed the summit until I started to get chilly, then planned to finish the loop. Why not?
Well, here's why not: it drops off the north face into 8 inches of snow overlying hardpack ice on narrow switchbacks through cliffs followed by mile after mile of high ridge. Temps dropped abruptly into the 30's and I never warmed up from the summit stop. Is it better to be thirsty or cold? Should I still eat snow? Even at a hard hike I wasn't warming up. Of course, neither the bottle of ice under my t-shirt, the lack of food, the incipient dehydration, nor the mesh sneakers in snow really helped that situation. It's now 9 miles back the way I've come. Surely it's best to keep going - the trail will soon complete it's loop. Big cliffs below prevent a quick escape cross county to lower elevations and dry ground. I'm reminded of Laura Savalli's story: hiking after work, convinced that her trail will eventually loop back around….
I passed a desperate looking guy hiking up in parka, gloves, hat, heavy boots. He seemed to be asking for an excuse to turn around, but I told him he was close and the back side was snow free.
I hiked on and on for what seemed like hours (only 2 hours actually, but six miles along the ridge) continually expecting to drop into the valley at any moment. Only the sun dropped - below the horizon - and I'm still up above 10,000 ft on top of cliffs. By luck, I happen upon a free running spring bubbling out of a cliff. I've been eating snow for 6 hours now and the idea of a real drink sounds pretty good. It will at least help me get down today even if I end up with ghiardia tomorrow. After the spring, the trail finally does drop in earnest and in another 4 miles I'm stumbling around in the dark down at 7000 feet trying to find my way through a maze of old logging roads. When I get back to the car, the temperature is 37 degrees.
Turned out to be a 17.5 mile round trip - at least half above 11,000 ft - with over 5000 ft of elevation gain and 6 miles of hiking through snow. Just a quick jog on a loop trail I had thought as I set out. As a kid, we used to make fun of southern city slickers who got into trouble in the northern Appalachians by being woefully unprepared. As the light began fading on the ridge I began imagining the newspaper article: "Unprepared Texan in shorts without food, water or clothing found encased in ice on side of Mt. Charleston…."