Death Valley: Not so wicked hot

So I just got back from a few days in Death Valley National Park; it was an awesome trip. It seems that every place I go introduces me to a few more places that I want to visit, it is a never ending cycle and this trip was no different.

We spent the first day doing road-side touristy things, visiting places that fit the image I had of Death Valley. We drove in the south entrance of the park and up to Badwater--the lowest point in the western hemisphere at 280 feet below sea level. It was a flat, dry lake bed with lots of salt crystals. There was also a spring which made a pool with floating salt crystals. And you could look up and see a sign on a cliff above you reading "sea level".

Then we drove further up the valley to Artist's Palette, an area of colorful rock formations. Then on to the visitor center and Borax museum (Death Valley was a big area for borax mining with the use of mule teams). Finally we went on a short walk of Mosaic Canyon--a canyon with really cool rocks, both finely polished marble and mosaic like conglomerate.

The next day we headed out of the valley and up Telescope Peak--11, 049 ft--the highest point in the park. It was a nice hike--though I could definitely feel the altitude. There were lots of really gnarly, big trees and some colorful shrubs. The top was cold and windy but with great views. We could see Death Valley and Badwater to the east and the Sierras to the west. From that one point, one can see the highest and lowest points in the continental US.

On our last day we headed to Panamint Valley, on the western edge of the park. We were warned by the book that the valley was frequently used by the military for low elevation flying and indeed they were flying over our heads all day. We camped out on a dry lake bed and then hiked out to the Panamint Dunes. Distances are deceptive in the desert, it certainly didn't look like 4.5 miles to the dunes, but it did take us an hour and a half of walking to get there. The dunes were really cool, especially the dramatic ridge lines. I felt a little guilty walking on them and messing up the windblown patterns, though judging by the scarcity of footprints, it doesn't take the wind long to erase our steps.

Panamint Valley with Telescope peak in the background (tallest mtn on left)

Panamint Dunes

Hitch 1: The Work

By day we wonder the desert, collecting branches and digging holes; by night we sleep out under the moon and stars. Overall, I really can't complain.

Our primary task is to restore illegal OHV (off highway vehicle) trails. The Rand Mountains are a limited use area so OHVs are allowed on marked trails/roads, they are not allowed to create new trails or ride across the open desert. Our task is to disguise the illegal trails and to promote re-vegetation.

Since most desert plants look rather dead for most of the year, our primary tactic in disguising trails is to build fake plants out of dead branches. So we wander around collecting dead branches, then dig a hole where we want the bush, and arrange the branches to look like a living bush. We also decompact the soil (the soil gets really hard from being ridden on) and spread seeds to encourage real plants to take over the area.

While out there, we saw a horny toad, two desert tortoise shells and a bunch of tarantulas. And the local ranger stopped by with fire wood and marshmallows.

Horny Toad---Baby Tortoise Shell

Bird skeleton found with a pack rat skeleton in a piece of pipe

Aircraft fly overhead frequently, and whenever they do, we stop work and stare up at the sky for a while. There are also periodic explosions from the mines.

Our group has definitely reached the storming stage of group development. People are no longer pretending to be overly patient with each other. This has caused a number of conflicts, though so far I have mostly stayed out of them.

When the clouds come, it make for great sunrises and sunsets

So that is what we do, though I am still not convinced that this is an effective method. It seems like a labor intensive project that is easily ridden over or around. The problem in the open desert is that short of a fence, people can easily drive around just about any barrier we create.

Yosemite

While it has now been several weeks since the trip, I did not get to write about it because our internet crashed and then we headed back into the field for work.

Anyway, one of the benefits of this job is that we get 4-6 days off at a time, and we are based in Ridgecrest, CA which is surrounded by many cool places. So on our first set of days off, a few of us headed up to Yosemite National Park.

Yosemite Valley --- Fall leaves near Mirror Lake

Terry and I did two good days of hiking from the valley. On the first we hiked up to the top of Yosemite Falls and then over to North Dome. The beginning of the hike was packed with people but once we got past the falls, we saw only a handful for the rest of the day. The trail offered many great views of the valley and also wandered through groves of giant sequoias covered with awesome green moss.

Top of Yosemite Falls ---Sequoias

Trail up Vernal Falls --- Half Dome seen from North Dome

The next day we woke up to a bear cleaning out our neighbor's bear bin. Then we hiked up the other side of the valley, up Vernal and Nevada Falls and then along Panorama Cliff to Glacier Point. Again the views were awesome.

It was really nice to be in an area with changing leaves. I find the desert disorienting when it comes to seasons; it is like summer during the day, winter at night, and plants look dead most of the time.

On our way out of the park, we drove through Tuolumne Meadows and over Tioga Pass. That brought us into higher mountains and even a little snow. Seeing that area of the park made me want to return to go skiing.

Circle Time

That's right, during our 17 day training, we spent a lot of time in circles. We talked about PPE and LNT; we talked about swinging tools and sharpening tools and not hurting ourselves with tools and what to do when we hurt ourselves with tools; we talked about talking to people and feeding ourselves and cleaning up after feeding ourselves; and then we talked about restoring illegal trails and about driving on legal ones. It was a busy training.

We wore closed toe shoes in the kitchen, long pants when washing dishes or making tea, boots when working, gloves when handling tools, hardhats when swinging tools, and full riot gear when working outreach. Ok, not quite, but there were a lot of rules.


It is difficult to live in such a structured environment and with so many people after growing used to living alone.

And actually training was kinda fun. It was nice getting to meet people from all of the crews (there are 6). We played a lot of games and made a lot of music. The stars were awesome and we slept out under them every night.

Camp

On one off day a group of us went on a hike in Surprise Canyon and that was awesome. It was about 45 minutes away but the ecology of the area was starkly different. We hiked up a stream bed which was flowing with water, and there were many green plants in the area. The canyon walls rose steeply on each side, in short it was awesome.

Surprise Canyon

On another off day we went for a hike up above the canyon where we were camping, and that was pretty cool too.

And now we have 6 days off so I am headed up to Yosemite tomorrow morning to do some hiking.

On to California

This begins what I expect to become a series of blogs from a new adventure. I am spending the next 8 months on a SCA Desert Restoration Crew out of Ridgecrest California. As one person said, Ridgecrest is a great place from which to go places.

Downtown Ridgecrest

Most of my first week here has been full of getting things ready for the year. Lots of sorting through gear, repackaging our bulk food order, and going through the obligatory trainings such as defensive driving, policies, and risk management. While the work itself hasn't been terribly thrilling, it gave us a chance to meet our crew members. So far, so good--though admittedly I probably wouldn't post it here.

A rock in the Rands

The highlight of the week came yesterday, on one of our day's off, when a bunch of us went for a hike up nearby Owens Peak (8400 ft). It is in the southern Sierras and just outside of town, though getting to the trail head took about an hour and a half on winding mountain roads. The vegetation changed quickly as we headed into the mountains; Joshua trees started appearing, became plentiful and then disappeared during the drive. By the time we started hiking there was a bunch of scrub oak and pitch pine. The views from the top were awesome. On one said we could see down into a dry, dusty valley and Ridgecrest, and on the other we looked into the Sierras.

Something smells like burning

Next it is off to training with all of the other crews for the next two weeks.

Headed Home

Well the time has come; I am packing up for the trip home. It has been an amazing trip--walking around Kathmandu, riding elephants in Chitwan, touring the country on top of a public bus, climbing, trekking, seeing the Everest region, summiting Island Peak, hanging out at base camp, meeting lots of interesting people, and living with Chandra, Lisa, Prushant, Shova and which ever other children and pets were around.

There are definitely things that I will miss about Nepal and things that I look forward to at home. It has been great to travel around seeing amazing places and meeting interesting people, but it will also me nice to come home and see family and friends again. I have also enjoyed the relaxed nature of Nepal but I do appreciate things happening on a schedule in the US. It is a remarkable idea for scheduled events to actually happen and more or less on time; something that is generally not the case here in Nepal. I will also be glad to get away from the dual pricing and generally dual treatment of foreigners and locals throughout the country.

We had some frustrations with the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA) this past week. At the beginning of my trip we had met with the chairman and he told us about a rescue course that they were offering this week. Chandra and I expressed interest and asked to be sent a course schedule. We even met with the chairman again and he again mentioned the course. Since then, however, they have not responded to us. This past week Chandra called again to find out what was going on and was told that the course was full. We asked if we could observe a piece of it just to see what they were doing and were told that they would give us a call. That never happened. Turns out they did not want any foreigners involved, nor did they want Chandra apparently. Unfortunately, they would not come out and tell us this until midway through this week, they just decided to ignore us.

We both found the experience rather frustrating and at the same time were amazed that an organization that operates in such a manor is functioning, and relays so heavily on western doctors to staff their medical outposts. It may partly be a result of a Nepali mentality where they don't want to disappoint people by saying no. (This will sometimes result in one getting really convoluted directions to places that don't exist or are really far away.) I for one find it far more frustrating to be given the run around though than told that something isn't going to work.

On a slightly funnier note, early in my trip here I was trying to get involved with the HRA and I sent an email to the chairman following up on a meeting we had had and asking if he had any further thoughts on what I could do. I never heard back from him. When we went to talk with him a couple weeks later he said that he had received my email but was waiting to get back to me until they had my office set. Funny, I wasn't aware of having agreed to do anything yet and certainly not sit in an office.

Anyway, enough ranting. I have packing to do and a few last minute errands to run. And then my 23hr and 55minute flight from Singapore to JFK.

Back from the Mountains

Well I am back in Kathmandu after a truly amazing trip in the Everest Region, and a couple extra days rained in in Lukla. I include a few photos here but there are many more on my Picasa page.

I flew up to Lukla in a little Twin Otter plane on May 6th. There I met up with Alex, a British guy who has been volunteering in an orphanage and who was going on the same trip as me to Island Peak. Though our climbing trip did not start until we got up to Chukhung in another week, we decided to meet in Lukla and trek up to Chukhung together.

Porters carrying loads of plywood into the mountains--some of their loads were remarkable

For 7 days we hiked along, up into the mountains. We took the pace very slowly to allow us to acclimate and because moving quickly at that altitude is really difficult. On the second day we hiked up to Namche Bazar, the last piece of which is a steep hill. We started hiking up it as a normal hiking pace but quickly were absolutely exhausted. It took us a while to get into the pace of walking really slowly. It is kind of strange, the standard walking pace up there is a very slow plodding along, and it took us a while to get used to that.

Day hike out of Namche

About 5 days into the trek we got to Pheriche where it turned cold and started to snow. It snowed off and on for the next several days. Also in Pheriche we went to a high altitude lecture at the health post of the Himalayan Rescue Association. After the lecture we got our blood oxygen saturation tested. At that altitude, roughly 14,000 ft, apparently the average is about 85%, mine was 91%. I'm not really sure how meaningful that is, but I found it kind of interesting. And, I had no problems with the altitude, even as I got much higher, so that was nice.

Snow in Pheriche

From there we headed up to Chukhung where it was also snowing. We met our guide Ang; spent a day practicing ropes, ladders, and jumars; a day ice climbing; and then headed up to Island Peak Base Camp. No one had summited Island Peak for about a week because of all the snow. While in Chukhung I also ran into Robert and Keith. They were doing a similar course but with another company. Turns out Robert had gone to Apple Hill and we had mutual friends from Keene. The four of us ended up hanging out in Chukhung for several days and then summiting Island Peak together.

Hanging out around the stove in Chukhung: Robert, Keith and Alex

Learning to walk on ladders

On May 17th we made out attempt at the summit. At 12:30am when we woke up the sky was clear and the stars were out. As we climbed through the boulder fields up to high camp the moon came out and we hiked by the light of the moon much of the way. We came to the snow line where we put on plastic boots, crampons and harnesses right as the sun was coming up. It was gorgeous. From there we traversed across a glacier, crossed a couple of ladders over crevasses, and headed up the fixed ropes. Then we traversed the final ridge to the summit. It was 9am; 20,306 feet above sea level.

The summit ridge


Happy to be on top

The sky was perfectly clear, giving us 365 degree views of the surrounding mountains. There was fog in the valleys but we could see everything above about 5000 meters. Lhotse and Nuptse rose to the north, Ama Dablam to the south, Makalu was visable to the east, Cho Oyu to the west, and so many others in between [Everest is blocked from this angle by Lhotse].

We then rappelled down. I generally find rappelling to be fun and easy but I found it so tiring this time. I was just exhausted.

I also thought back to reading about disasters caused by bottle necks on the fixed lines, and I understood exactly how that can happen. While we were on the way down, a large party was on their way up. You can't rappel down a rope that someone is jumarring up, and everyone is trying to use the same ropes. Communication is often difficult over the long distances. We ended up setting up additional ropes to get down. The fixed lines were also a new and minorly unsettling experience. I found it difficult to tie into a rope of questionable quality and questionable anchoring. In some places we put in additional anchors, but in others the ropes were frozen into the ground to the point that you could not see the original anchoring.

After climbing Island Peak I had an extra day before I needed to head back so I decided to hike up towards Everest Base Camp, up the next valley. In the late afternoon I ran into a guy who turned out to be the doctor with the Indian expedition to Everest. After talking for a while he invited me to stay with them at Base Camp. Despite being exhausted, I couldn't refuse the offer.

Hanging out in the Indian tent at Base Camp

That night I hung out with the Indian team. Many of them were up on the mountain taking advantage of the first break in the weather since early May. The rest of them were hanging around camp, eating really well and playing cards. Sleeping on the glacier was an experience; you can hear it cracking all night long. In the morning we sat in the strong sunlight drinking tea and I fried one ear. The sun reflecting off the snow at that altitude is really intense. Then we went for a walk in the Khumbu ice fall. I wasn't sure how far I was allowed up without a permit but I got the sense that we were pushing it. We could hear people from other camps celebrating as a few teams summited--some of the first summits of the year [one party summited on May 5th]. We also watched helicopters come in to evacuate people, an almost daily occurrence.

After lunch I headed back down, and in the next two days I hiked down to Lukla. I was supposed to fly out on the 22nd. I got to the airport in the morning, checked in, and waited for my flight. The first round of flights left but the second round never came. The clouds came in. They told us maybe in a couple hours. The airport emptied out, no one to ask what was going on. There were no planes there either though. Finally we left the airport and went back to town.

For 2 days I sat in Lukla waiting for a flight out. They won't fly in the clouds here because they are flying small planes with no radar through steep mountain valleys. I read a quote somewhere about how they don't fly in the clouds because the clouds tend to have mountains in them.

People started accumulating as everyone came out of the mountains from the end of the climbing season. Every morning we would go to the airport just in case a plane showed up and every day at 3:45pm we would go to the Yeti airline office to get re-booked on a flight for the next day. During the day we would sit around the coffee shops and lodges and walk back and forth on the street (singular). I actually met a bunch of cool people hanging out waiting though. All sorts of climbing teams and trekkers were also hanging out so that was pretty fun.

Finally on May 24th the weather cleared and I was able to fly out. Being stuck for 2 days isn't so bad but there is always a fear that you can be stuck for weeks, though it is always an option to walk down which is about a 4 days walk and one day bus ride. Some people were freaking out because they were missing their international flights home. Helicopters would fly in the clouds so they came in offering to fly people out for about $3500 per flight which can take 4 or 5 people. Apparently as the day went on the price kept increasing. Some people took them up on it; personally, I would have to be pretty desperate to take them up on it, especially after only one day.

So many more stories, but I think that that is it for now. This trip has gone so fast; it is hard to believe that I will be back in Maine next week.