today the day was spent packing - or so was our intentions. i wanted to run to syms to pick up a suit that i bought last week before the traffic started. due to our usual morning delays, it was almost 11am before we got our butts out the door. and, by the way, since i was headed down into paramus, i thought we would run a few more errands while we were there. making a very long story short, we stopped at verizon wireless, kinkos, ikea, syms, back to kinkos, back to ikea, toys r us, and campmor. when we got home, it was 4:30!! our packing quickly got underway and as of a few hours ago we are pretty much done, thanks to the monster duffel back i got last week at campmor. the damn thing fits everything we need (except our suits which we'll pack seperately for wrinkle prevention) and right now i'd estimate the weight at between 50 and 70 lbs.
monday looks like an exciting day. we're going to need dry ice to keep the frozen breastmilk frozen during the flight. i'm going to attempt to retrieve my wedding ring from the bowels of my cousin's car, into which i accidently dropped it last week. i'll need to drop some stuff off at mikey's work on the way. i'll need to gather about ten hours worth of food for the baby and put it into the carry-on. and, of course, the sandwiches we're getting for the plane-ride cannot be forgotten.
six hours after leaving new york, we'll pile into a car in LA and head straight for the dirty mexican food joint (t-minus 50 hours) where i'll be sure to take lots of pictures. of course, everyone there will be excited to see the baby. i'll be excited to see the carne asada burrito.
there is an itinerary change regarding whitney. we are no longer going to attempt humphrey's peak in arizona. instead, we'll do an acclimization hike at san jacincto peak, which is much closer to my parents house. san jacincto is the summit of the famous "cactus to clouds" climb, which goes from the desert of palm springs 10,000 feet up to the summit - usually done in a day. it is said to be one of the hardest hikes in the country. i will not be doing the cactus to clouds hike. i will spend $21 and take the palm springs tram to about 8000 feet and hike the rest of the way - still respectable at 2500 feet 10 miles round trip - and it will make a really good acclimization hike for whitney. it will keep us out of trouble. this will be on tuesday august 31st. an added bonus to this change is my buddy vince, who lives near palm springs, will be able to join us on this hike! mikey arrives at 11pm the night before, and the first tram is at 10am. so we should have plenty of time. meanwhile, the ladies (alexandria and vince's wife) will spend the day shopping.
from san jacincto, we'll probably end up sleeping in riverside, then leaving early the next morning (september first) to the whitney portal, where we'll spend some more time sleeping at 8000 feet. we'll need to get our rest any way we can, because at the strike of midnight (or earlier) we're going to start up the mt. whitney trail!
milestones of the whitney trail are as follows:
whitney portal, 0.0 miles, 8365'
lone pine lake, 2.5 miles
outpost camp, 3.5 miles, 10364'
mirror lake, 4.0 miles (treeline)
trailside meadow, 5.0 miles
trail camp, 6.0 miles, 12009' (start of switchbacks)
trail crest, 8.2 miles, 13777' (end of switchbacks)
muir junction, 8.6 miles, 13480'
whitney summit, 10.7 miles, 14494'
as i've said, whitney is a test of my mental toughness. i know from my experience that if i take something nice and easy, i can overcome the gradual fatigue. in other words, i may not be able to run a marathon, but i sure as hell can walk one. that said, whitney is going to be the hardest nice, easy walk i've ever done in my life. that's a lot of gain to take in one morning. i figure that i can average 1mph, which is slow as molasses, all the way to the summit. figure two 30-minute breaks and i get there at noon. we'll probably end up walking a little bit faster than that, at least to trail camp, and slow down from there. from trail camp to the summit is less than five miles, but they're a hard five miles. so if we can get to trail camp before dawn, we'll be in pretty good shape. trail crest is a different story - it is likely that altitude is going to really be hitting us hard at trail crest and at the very least we'll be short of breath. on the other hand, i kind of see trail crest as the point of no return - if we've made it that far, we better go for broke. sitting here in suffern, personally, the only thing i would think would turn me back past trail crest is lightning or HAPE/HACE (severe life threatening altitude sickness). I definitely want to see the "windows," which will be my first ever experience of mountain exposure - and those windows are between the crest and the summit. so we'll see. hell, we may not even make trail camp. that would be a bummer. but then again, we may go all the way.. and exceed everyone's expectations.
i can't wait.
dirty mexican food countdown
8/20/2004 11:30:24 AM
my plane arrives in LA at 8:50PM PDT on Monday night. I figure I will be eating dirty mexican food at albertos by Monday 8/23/04 10:30PM PDT that night. Right now it's Friday 8/20/04 11:30AM EDT in New York.
Lets figure this out here..
Monday 8/23/04 10:30PM PDT = Tuesday 8/24/04 1:30AM EDT
0 hours: Tuesday 8/24/04 1:30AM EDT
24 hours: Monday 8/23/04 1:30AM EDT
48 hours: Sunday 8/22/04 1:30AM EDT
72 hours: Saturday 8/22/04 1:30AM EDT
84 hours: Friday 8/20/04 11:30PM EDT
86 hours: Friday 8/20/04 11:30AM EDT
86 Hours until I'm munching on that tasty, decadent dirty mexican food!!
All hail the fine dirty mexican purveyors of the best food in the world!!
Lets figure this out here..
Monday 8/23/04 10:30PM PDT = Tuesday 8/24/04 1:30AM EDT
0 hours: Tuesday 8/24/04 1:30AM EDT
24 hours: Monday 8/23/04 1:30AM EDT
48 hours: Sunday 8/22/04 1:30AM EDT
72 hours: Saturday 8/22/04 1:30AM EDT
84 hours: Friday 8/20/04 11:30PM EDT
86 hours: Friday 8/20/04 11:30AM EDT
86 Hours until I'm munching on that tasty, decadent dirty mexican food!!
All hail the fine dirty mexican purveyors of the best food in the world!!
fast week
8/19/2004 09:46:00 AM
holy cow - i can't believe it's already thursday.. it feels like tuesday- and it's really hard to believe that in about 100 hours i'll be on a plane for california. this trip is coming up fast and I have to really get focused on getting ready. There are countless people I have to see, the business I have do do while I'm out there, and, of course, Mt. Whitney, which is really firing me up right now - in a big way.
I picked up a new daypack at EMS the other day along with some nalgene bottles and socks (they were on sale) and I'm just about finished with the gear I'll need for the hike. I also went to Campmor and picked up a "collosal" bag which will simplify packing.. it redefines "packing light" - the damn thing might weight 200 lbs - but we'll only have one or two bags. When you have a baby, one or two bags makes things a lot easier.
By monday night I'll be eating dirty mexican food in California! First stop is Albertos.. mmmm... burrito de carne asada.. (:
I picked up a new daypack at EMS the other day along with some nalgene bottles and socks (they were on sale) and I'm just about finished with the gear I'll need for the hike. I also went to Campmor and picked up a "collosal" bag which will simplify packing.. it redefines "packing light" - the damn thing might weight 200 lbs - but we'll only have one or two bags. When you have a baby, one or two bags makes things a lot easier.
By monday night I'll be eating dirty mexican food in California! First stop is Albertos.. mmmm... burrito de carne asada.. (:
This blew my mind
8/17/2004 03:04:28 PM
went on a brief hike today in harriman and lived to tell about it.
jackie jones mountain, which together with rockhouse mountain, are at the same height and the highest points in rockland county. on a coin flip, i decided to do jackie jones mountain, which is located just SE of lake welch. it is identified by a large radio/microwave tower near the summit.
the reason i'm posting about this hike is the fascinating ruins i came across on the way up the mountain. on my trail map, it was listed as ORAK ruins - which didn't seem significant, although when i got there i was impressed by its large size. it seemed hundreds of years old, but there were some relics of modern life which gave away its age, such as what appeared to be a water tank - possibly a heater.
when i got home i did a search to see what this place was. turns out to be extremely interesting.
Source
amazing, eh? the stuff you stumble upon in harrmiman can blow your mind..
All of the pictures I took: http://turzman.com/galleries/jackie-jones/ (go here some great pictures of the views from atop jackie jones)
jackie jones mountain, which together with rockhouse mountain, are at the same height and the highest points in rockland county. on a coin flip, i decided to do jackie jones mountain, which is located just SE of lake welch. it is identified by a large radio/microwave tower near the summit.
the reason i'm posting about this hike is the fascinating ruins i came across on the way up the mountain. on my trail map, it was listed as ORAK ruins - which didn't seem significant, although when i got there i was impressed by its large size. it seemed hundreds of years old, but there were some relics of modern life which gave away its age, such as what appeared to be a water tank - possibly a heater.
when i got home i did a search to see what this place was. turns out to be extremely interesting.
The trail at first follows the road, then detours onto an older, brushed-out road through a hemlock/pine grove and some mountain laurel stands to the impressive ruins of the ORAK mansion. (It had been built by the founder of the Karo syrup company, who decided in naming his retreat to spell the name of his product backwards.)
Source
amazing, eh? the stuff you stumble upon in harrmiman can blow your mind..
All of the pictures I took: http://turzman.com/galleries/jackie-jones/ (go here some great pictures of the views from atop jackie jones)
klog - minus 148° - 8/14/04
8/16/2004 03:39:42 PM
Steve's booklog (klog) entry - Minus 148º - The First Winter Ascent of Mt. McKinley by Art Davidson.
Fascinating and captivating book - the kind of story you'd think make a really great, imaginitive adventure movie if you didn't know it was a true story. From the beginning to the end, this book is packed with details of the kind of ordeals they faced in their attempts on McKinley. It went into excrutiating detail of the personal emotional feelings after the group's vicissitudes, for example the crevasse fall and death of one of their most experienced team members. Other details you wouldn't believe they survived. This is the quality of book that Left for Dead should have been - a tale of survival against the worst of odds - and where Left for Dead failed, this book succeeded in keeping the reader intrigued until the very end.
Fascinating and captivating book - the kind of story you'd think make a really great, imaginitive adventure movie if you didn't know it was a true story. From the beginning to the end, this book is packed with details of the kind of ordeals they faced in their attempts on McKinley. It went into excrutiating detail of the personal emotional feelings after the group's vicissitudes, for example the crevasse fall and death of one of their most experienced team members. Other details you wouldn't believe they survived. This is the quality of book that Left for Dead should have been - a tale of survival against the worst of odds - and where Left for Dead failed, this book succeeded in keeping the reader intrigued until the very end.
bergdorf goodman
8/15/2004 08:00:06 PM
so today after church i grabbed mikey and we walked over to madison and fifth avenues to do some manhattan-style window shopping. we were really curious about the high-end stuff. on a friend's recommendation, we walked into Bergdorf Goodman, which he said was the best department store in the world. Mikey, who was wearing a $250 men's wearhouse suit, tried on a $4200 kiton sportcoat - $4200 - not for a suit - just a sportcoat.
And the difference was amazing.
i am reminded of the time i strolled into la maison du chocolat, which has a nyc store on madison in the 80s, and picked up their basic chocolate bar (which cost $18, by the way.) then, on the way home, i bought a 65 cent hershey bar. i laid out the two bars and tried each of them. my wife joined me in the experiment. her response was pretty telling; "for the first time in my life, hershey sucks." and she was right.
it was useful to have mikey there with his men's wearhouse suit. it was effectively the same experiment, only this time with clothing. he took off his jacket and put on the kiton sportcoat. alexandria and i were simply amazed. he looked incredible - like a million bucks. the suit made him look slender, confident - indeed, important. and afterwards, when he put his men's wearhouse suit back on, our comment was "men's wearhouse sucks." everything that was wrong and cheap about that suit was immediately apparent. it hung on him like a loose towel when the kiton conformed to his shape. there were wrinkles. there were imbalances. it was amazing..
now my friend who recommended bergdorf is not particularly wealthy, but he also said that he can't remember the last time he wore a shirt that cost less than $100. when i asked, "for pete's sake, why??" his response was almost arrogant - "because it hangs correctly!" totally confused, i continued buying $30 shirts - because they always seemed all right to me. now that i've had this suit experience, my opinion might have changed.
i should learn to listen to him more often.
And the difference was amazing.
i am reminded of the time i strolled into la maison du chocolat, which has a nyc store on madison in the 80s, and picked up their basic chocolate bar (which cost $18, by the way.) then, on the way home, i bought a 65 cent hershey bar. i laid out the two bars and tried each of them. my wife joined me in the experiment. her response was pretty telling; "for the first time in my life, hershey sucks." and she was right.
it was useful to have mikey there with his men's wearhouse suit. it was effectively the same experiment, only this time with clothing. he took off his jacket and put on the kiton sportcoat. alexandria and i were simply amazed. he looked incredible - like a million bucks. the suit made him look slender, confident - indeed, important. and afterwards, when he put his men's wearhouse suit back on, our comment was "men's wearhouse sucks." everything that was wrong and cheap about that suit was immediately apparent. it hung on him like a loose towel when the kiton conformed to his shape. there were wrinkles. there were imbalances. it was amazing..
now my friend who recommended bergdorf is not particularly wealthy, but he also said that he can't remember the last time he wore a shirt that cost less than $100. when i asked, "for pete's sake, why??" his response was almost arrogant - "because it hangs correctly!" totally confused, i continued buying $30 shirts - because they always seemed all right to me. now that i've had this suit experience, my opinion might have changed.
i should learn to listen to him more often.
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