1997 | Wheeler Peak, Nevada
I rarely keep notes. I just found these old scribbles among miscellany, and post them here verbatim.
The picture here was made near the summit on our second ascent, on a sunny day the following summer.
7-15-96
Great Basin N. P.
A bit of rain in the morning.
Alex and I climbed up the to the bristlecones while Dad walked the lake loop. Still marveling at the trees; even after dying 300 years ago, their wood is strong and clear and resinous – what a way to build a boat! Most specimens very healthy. It was not easy to tell how old the young 3-foot trees were.
On up to the glacier. Alex waited at the moraine making snowballs while I climbed ahead to the wall, then a glissade down in a shower of his cold projectiles.
Huge thunderstorms all night. First, just strobes on the horizon, silent. Then distant thunder with increasing light and then boom, flash, hail; rain most of the early morning.
Big breakfast, strike camp, and detach huge mouse-nest from underneath the carburetor. Then on the summit trail before 8am, trusting the clouds would clear. Dad sent us off at the hikers’ register, finally superannuated by his 75 years, still walking well at 10,000 feet, but no longer seeking higher adventure.
Very cold and windy on the first exposed leg, then extremely cold and windy (40-50) for the final 1.5 miles straight up the ridge with no suggestion of switchbacks. The tundra wildflowers and birds accompanied us all the way to the top. Above 12,000 not even the teaser breaks in the cloud gave us glimpses of the basin and alpine lakes straight below. About the time our legs gave out, the gradient faded a bit, and Alex spotted the summit rock shelter. We explored the cairns to the south, added our own stone, and made a ceremonial photo into the fog.
Heading down, we were greeted with even fiercer winds and made frequent use of the rock shelters, good practice for the day we might get caught in a T-storm. Coming down, barely able to stay up in the wind, but an occasional break in the cloud gave us vertigo – the trail was so steep, the desert basin floor was askew, and the northern shoulder was striking in from above. Then, nothing.
The air seemed very thick as we passed down thru 11,000 feet.