After defeat at the highly approachable Mount Timpanogos I was nervous to attempt King's Peak, but I was not to be foiled again. We set up base camp about 8 miles from the summit and camped there the night before and after we reached the peak.
Here are the highlights:
- I went with two friends, Darryl, a math major at BYU, and John, a childhood friend and science teacher from Mass. (I have no idea how to spell the name of my home state.)
- John lives 82 feet above sea level, had less than one day to acclimatize, and still had no trouble with the thin air.
- After we reached the summit I experienced what the literature (backpacker magazine) calls "altitude bonk", a phenomenon in which the altitude reduces your appetite so you don't eat enough to maintain a strenuous hike. One packet of fruit snacks later and I was good to go.
- We were snowed on at the summit while thunder claps and darks clouds approached quickly, so we didn't have long to enjoy the view from the top.
- I made a rookie mistake and didn't bring my jacket with me to the summit. It was beautiful when we left camp but turned ugly on the way down, I was very cold and very wet. There are no pictures of this part of the trip because we were all tired and just wanted to get back to camp.
- Instead of using the nice LL Bean hiking boots that I had bought specifically for this trip, I bondo-ed the hole in my old Payless boots and used those. The blisters were unavoidable, but less severe than on my previous trip.
Here are the statistics:
- Total miles hiked: 35
- Total time of trip: 46 hours (not including drive time).
- Total instant oatmeal packets consumed (by me): 7
- Total length of my tent: 72 inches.
- Total length of my body: 77 inches.
- Altitude at the summit: 13,528 ft.
- Altitude at the trail head: ~9,000 ft.
- Number of black bear encounters: 0
- Number of moose that apparently use our water source as their latrine: 2
1 comment:
Aloha Ben Glad to see you are getting up in the world !!( Yuk-Yuk).
See if you can break the Lambert Family elevation record currently claimed by your Uncle Larry at 14,256 ft. atop Longs Peak Colorado. I still have our old 1948 knapsack from the Malden MA. boyscout troop if you are interested in lugging something around with family history. Keep up the good work. U.L.
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