The trails were full of roots, to trip us. And rocks, to trip us. And it was just blazingly hard to see. And dammit, our own feet tripped us. We tripped, but we wanted to do it.

Here’s my narrative, with photos, covering the entire May Lake Blue Moon trip. I started blogging in 2003, before the trip, but hadn’t mastered it quite yet, so there’s no contemporaneous blog entry from that period.

At the top, with sheer drops off the peak behind us, we sat on the top to capture a time exposure with my new digital (Nikon D100) camera. (No iPhone in those days.) You’ll see we are seated rather than standing. This is because we needed to hold still for the two-second exposure. Took a bunch of exposures. Well, actually we were so unstable at this height above the ground (precipice behind us) that we sat down and clenched the rock beneath our seats.

Well, I can’t speak for Aaron and Jason, but I was clenching for sure.

So around 11:00pm here we are — at the summit.

A couple of staff from the May Lake High Sierra Camp (my interview) (read about MLHSCC online) also did the ascent that night, and they caught up with us halfway up. They told us the next morning that they slept in bags near the peak overnight and had “never been so cold.” I slept at the bottom in my warm tent, but honestly after all this excitement it took me until almost dawn to get to sleep.

When I looked at the photos, at first I thought maybe I had captured nothing. But upon photoshopping the original digital photo, I discovered I could lighten it to the point where we were quite visible. Along with the streak of something behind us (probably an airplane, though it should have been red or green, not white). And here and there were glimmers caused by cosmic rays shooting through the camera’s sensor and dislodging an electron or two.

Like I said, check my interview of Brian Shoor, manager of May Lake High Sierra Camp, in 2015 on Youtube.

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Brian Shoor, who has managed the camp every summer for 14 years, gave me this interview in the summer of 2015. You can find information about the chain of camps, and application information, online.

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Jeff Goldsmith, who has made many of these trips with me and the group, was the only one with a full week to spare this summer, so he and I made this journey, which we called “27.1” because it’s the first hike of the 27th year that I’ve been doing this.

The photo gallery shows some photos taken along the way. My Yosemite page contains most of the trips taken in the last 10 years.

This year’s trip was highlighted by the following events and observations:

• We attempted to cover 10+ miles per day. We could actually only cover  8 miles on average due to the excess weight (“hobbies”) we were carrying. It is important to recognize these limitations early on and adapt the schedule!
• The amateur radio hobby was a bust this time for two reasons. Although I had a five-watt transceiver and a nice antenna, I wasn’t able to make a single contact on any band because conditions were pretty bad. I’ll have to check further into whether it was an antenna issue or an output-power issue. The second problem was that this hobby accounted for over eight lbs in my pack, which really slowed me down.
• The photography hobby needs to be scaled back. My Nikon D7000 camera works great, but it’s a heavy beast, weighing in at something over two lbs, and it’s hard to carry on the trail, since it really has to be fastened to the chest strap on the pack and it still bounces around significantly. A camera weighing a few ounces would be much better. In all I was probably carrying upwards of 10 lbs of such hobby gear that was not necessary for this trip. My pack weight was 44 lbs and could have been 34 if I hadn’t carried the extra gear. (This included 11 lbs of food, which was also excessive.)
• The Pacific Crest Trail hikers were friendly and are in general an outgoing group. Ran into more than a half dozen every day, and most were hiking from the Mexico border to the Canadian border. Many had been on the trail since April or May this year, with a few down-days (they say “zero days”) along the way. Most of them were covering 20 miles or more each day. We were on the PCT every day except for the time in Matterhorn Canyon.
• Matterhorn itself is a long ways in. I figured about 35 miles from Tuolumne Meadow. That’s just too much for slow and heavy-pack hikers to cover in three days, especially given the 3000+ to 4000+ ft elevation change on the last day going toward Matterhorn. So we just relaxed once we realized we wouldn’t make it either to Matterhorn or around the loop I had charted out in advance. We adapted and enjoyed the area.
• There are great lakes along the trail. Miller Lake, where we spent the 2nd and the 4th nights (see top photo), is a wonderful little lake and is warm enough to comfortably swim in with few mosquitoes. McCabe Lake, which I’ve visited before, is more than two miles off the PCT and thus not on the itinerary for most PCT’ers, but we spent a night there and it was a great place.
• After accounting for limitations and changing the plans, it was a memorable week-long trek.

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Summits On The Air [SOTA] is an organization that operates mostly in Europe and the US, which encourages amateur radio operation from mountain peaks. In many areas these are really just large hills, but here the western mountains of the US, we have many hundreds of peaks that are truly mountains and not just high spots.

The SOTA organization awards points for those who climb peaks and “activate” them by making a minimum number of radio contacts. It also awards points to chasers who listen for the climbers and contact them. This encourages more people to pursue the hobby, be on the air at the right time (when someone is on a peak!), and to actually make the contacts.

Backpack mobile operation, which is really what this is, requires either 1) carrying a honking big battery (several pounds); or 2) carrying smaller batteries and perhaps going solar-powered. Since my trail forays are generally 4 to 8 days in the wilderness, I go for the lightweight solution, which includes small batteries and solar-panels to charge them up.

SOTA: (UK)
SOTA Watch (current activity): who’s on top right now
SOTA enthusiasts online: KDØBIK // KØMOS

This summer as I make week-long treks in the Yosemite wilderness, I’ll be operating low power (2.5w) and attempting to activate a couple of SOTA-rated peaks. I’ll do a sneeze page of links later as I build up more of an inventory of sites.

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I have always contended that my method in life was to avoid “work” in favor of something that I enjoy doing. And for me, enjoying means not only that I’m happy, but that I make some sizeable contribution to the welfare of humanity at the same time. So when I label something work, I am referring to something that I really don’t want to do, but have to do for some reason.

And people have always said to me “you’re always working.” But, I actually don’t do very much that I’d classify as work by my definition. I’m fanatically dedicated to what I do, but it’s more often not really work.

So let me say more about balance…

For me, balance requires doing things in my professional life that are fun, productive, tough to do, and contribute to the welfare of large numbers of people.

Balance also involves doing things outside of my professional life that are enjoyable, yet may be hard physical or intellectual work, as well as things that are fun and easy. I’d say they’re in Nicole Lazzaro’s category of hard fun.

In danah’s post, she says “…there’s a core point here: those who are passionate about what they do do it to extremes.” And I couldn’t agree more. This is indeed the core.

For example, I plan and execute (get it, “execute”?) what my buddies lovingly call a death march almost every summer at Yosemite National Park – in the wilderness. I would just call it a sizeable trek. Last year we covered about 70 miles during seven days of hiking. Yes, we were all tired at the end of each day, but damn, this was the most beautiful place, and it is always a real experience to see more and more of the Yosemite wilderness.

For my entire adult life I have cycled between executive and technical positions. Start with tech, then build the company to the right size, act in an executive position for a few years, then leave and go learn a new technology for a few years. Most people, once they leave programming and enter the executive ranks, stay there forever because their tech skills dry up and blow away. But I always come back for more – and believe me, at the moment I am really enjoying what I’m learning in this particular tech cycle I’m in.

So the point, for me, is that unlike the suggested path in the NYT article’ – that bloggers just go until they drop – I let off steam by switching my whole occupational focus every few years. I go with a company until it’s big enough or mature enough that it’s a grind, and then I drop out in favor of more solitary pursuits until I decide to ride the up-cycle again.

I think that ultimately it comes down to Joseph Campbell’s contention that you must “follow your bliss.” And don’t worry about how much time you spend on it.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

PS: Jessica Margolin responded to danah by pointing out that sometimes one side of the equation pulls harder than the other. As Jessica says “The underlying conflict, I believe, has to do with a rigid sense of control. I can control my band schedule, my art and cooking classes, my off-grid-mountaineering-travel schedule. If it’s too onerous, I can always just walk out, after all. But I can’t control my child suddenly having trouble at school.” Yes! That is truly important to understand. Sometimes we make decisions that set our course for years to come. And sometimes those decisions strictly limit the kinds of choices we can make when trying to achieve balance in our lives. And danah’s (and my) contention that one chooses in-the-moment, might only by fully possible for people at certain stages of life.

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Ah, the halcyon days of summer end in a few days (northern hemisphere) and now it’s time to chronicle all the fun we had. As I mentioned briefly in late July, we trekked about 65 miles (100+ km, with heavy packs) from Yosemite Valley down into Ansel Adams Wilderness where we spent the better part of two days, and then back over Red Peak Pass, which we had attempted unsuccessfully twice before (2003 and 2006 – bailed out because of too much snow remaining all summer long).

My neice, Merri, is down under (Australia, for a university semester) and being a suburban girl (Fairfax County VA) she is experiencing for the first time the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, uncrowded beaches and scuba diving. How many of you are city folk? My annual summer treks into the Yosemite Wilderness help keep me fit and sane, and I would think that any city folk would want to do this too.

Rather than treat you to paragraph after paragraph of text, why not just look at the photos and accompanying commentary?

The Crew — July 2007 — That sun is really bright!

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Where do you feel most at home?

I pursue an interesting combination, I think. I am at home in San Francisco, of course, but every summer for the past 22 years I’ve spent a number of days in the wilderness areas of Yosemite National Park, and have gotten to feel pretty much at home there. Yosemite [YNP] is 96% designated wilderness, and most tourists only see the 4% that comprises the main valley (Half Dome, El Capitan and other features of the valley wall are quite famous).

The wilderness areas are only available to those willing to carry food (for up to 9 days in our case) and to carry their shell on their back (tent and sleeping bag). We get dirty. We grow beards. We sometimes get cold and wet, but this year we were hot and dry and sometimes ran out of water. We run into very few animals – this year it was a number of bears, some fish and one pesky marmot.

The event takes days – we planned a nine-day trek and ended up completing it in seven days. My five hiking partners were so energetic they zoomed on the trail. We pressed each day’s distance another 25% beyond what we had planned to cover. When on the trail, we do some talking, though at times we’re going uphill and too winded to talk. Carrying 50+ lbs on the back isn’t easy. I do kind of a meditation when on the trail, followed by near-exhaustion (at the end of some of the days – but most days just plain tired) and early sleep (9pm) and early awakening (before 6am). It’s an experience that “cleans out the mind” and fills it with vivid visual memories.

Some of my friends like going to the beach or sea diving or golfing. My thing is wilderness. More on this in a few days…

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