Quite cold this morning. Very cold with the crisp wind I am beginning to expect.
Breakfast was cold. On purpose. Cereal, yogurt, fruit. The essentials. And hot cocoa. Also an essential. Kids had espresso whereas I am still caffeine free.
We have another hike planned for today. Only one since everyone in hike planning is too tired for two. I just go wherever they go, don’t really care.
So, the hike. we drove a few miles to the Ryan Mountain trailhead. Hike starts on the valley floor at 4000’ and you get to the top in only a mile and a half at about 5700’. I immediately recognize the severity of the climb. That increase in elevation is extreme in such a short distance. My adult children did not seem phased by it. Prob, they did not recognize. This will be a steep climb, all upward, for an hour. At least we have clear sunny skies and a breeze. Temp in valley about 45. This means it’s gonna get colder as we climb up. I have only one jacket with me. Just gotta soldier on.
Well, sadly, I was right. Very tough climb, with stair steps in many parts of the trail. I hate steps. The real issue was the temperature. The cold wind got worse and the temp dropped as we climbed. We did make the summit in about an hour. It was so cold we just took a few pictures, looked around quickly, and left. The temp was easily below 40 with that bitter cold wind. Not so much fun.
Many people who hike for fun can tell you that the hike down is harder than the hike up. Something about which muscles are used and continual fight against gravity. This hike down was murder. My knees started screaming halfway down. Would have loved to quit but no one available to carry me. Michael got way ahead of us, he’s an ego hiker. Marika and I climbed together and muscled our way down. This 3 mile hike was more grueling than yesterday’s 6.2 mile.
Once down, we decided to call it quits for the day. No one wanted to hike more. We had planned on leaving tomorrow at the crack of dawn. I got to thinking about it, why not leave at around 5 and drive in relative comfort, without early am fatigue? What to do? We got back to camp and had dinner instead of lunch. Had a fire, burgers, couple drinks and sat around doing the camp thing. Dinner for lunch, in daylight. I’m brilliant. About 4 or so we packed up, hooked up, said goodbye and made like the head goose.
Marika and I are headed to Visalia to overnight at Dads and Michael drove his 2 hour trip to Camarillo. He is just a tad closer. We hit the gas station first for a fill up. That’s about the spot that we get a signal. So all hell broke loose and we ended up sitting on the phone for 30 mins. Mostly that was Emily. She received some strange a slightly threatening calls from a man her brother owes money to. And this creep tells Emily he had been by the house and no one was there. He wanted to know if maybe she was hiding her brother. You get the picture. So I sat and listened to Emily who is freaked out. Also, we have no power thanks to our utility PG&E so she is in the dark. And I am several hundred miles away. I did call my worthless brother in law and told him to get this cretin straightened out. I also called the deviant myself and he seems to think I need to pay him or I needed to ask my sister? to pay, amongst other things. Guy is nuts. And he is mad at me. Figure that out. Will need to involve law enforcement I think.
Back to the drive. We left Twenty Nine Palms right after the call. Our drive went from twilight to quite late in the evening. Not very exciting as drives go which I have said is always the goal. One gas stop. That’s it. Marika drove and I slept the last hour.
Got to Dads. Everyone asleep. We snuck in and went to bed.