In our quest for hiking Half Dome on Sept 11, San Gorgonio yesterday was the dress rehearsal. The round trip at Half Dome will be 15.5 miles, with an elevation profile of a 4,600 foot climb, from 4,000 foot to 8,600 foot. In comparison, San Gorgonio is a 18 mile round trip, with an elevation profile of a 5,300 climb, from 6,200 to 11,500 foot.

So all in all, San Gorgonio is a longer, harder and higher climb than Half Dome – except for the frightening cable part, and a great candidate for a dress rehearsal. And rehearse we did.

Here I am when we started at 6:30am, still relaxed and full of energy.

Things change quickly on the Vivien Creek trail, however. After hiking up a Jeep road for a half a mile, and crossing Mill Creek, the infamous Vivien Creek wall looms. This is a brutally steep stretch of switchbacks seemingly straight up, for about half a mile. It sure changes the mood.

[click on map to enlarge]

After the wall, the trail meanders along the creek for what seems miles and miles, occasionally broken up by a few switchbacks, it but climbs steadily. The terrain is wild, the cliffs huge, and as a human being I feel like but an ant in a gigantic world. Here is Trisha demonstrating just that point.

At 5.8 miles is High Creek Camp [waypoint flag 11], at about 9,200 feet elevation. Getting here is a brutal hike. It is the last creek crossing and therefore the last water on the trail. This is also a perfect place to spend the night for an assault on the peak in a day hike the next day. I did this a few years ago.

Trisha decided to turn around at waypoint 12, when it started looking very stormy. I still had some energy, so I went on, setting myself a goal of turning around at 1:30pm.

On the way I got a great shot of San Jacinto, which we hiked a few weeks ago:

As I labored up the massive switchbacks to the next ridge, I realized that I had not done a day hike of San Gorgonio since my thirties. Being 56, this was a stretch. Sure enough, my progress was slower, particularly with a fairly heavy pack. I was breaking in a new full pack and I was carrying a lot of extra weight.

I finally it was 1:30pm, and I reached the end of my road, about 1 mile away from the peak in distance, and about 1,000 vertical feet below the peak. I looked up west and the storm was brewing. Hiking that ridge would still be still ahead of me. I estimated it would take me at least one more hour up, and one more hour down to this point. That was not an option.

Here is a final shot (the green arrow on the map above shows the direction of my photograph) of the peak of San Gorgonio, still a mile away, which I did not reach on this trip:

One more look at my turn around spot:

And now came the inevitable hike back down, 7.8 miles, downhill in rough terrain, hell on the knees, killer on the feet, and brutal on the spirit. Will this trail ever end?

It turned out that Trisha got rained on hard on her way down. The thunderstorms were brewing well below me. The valley was all misted in and lightening was flashing under me. I stayed dry all the way down, somehow avoiding the pockets of storms.

When I arrived at the parking lot at 7:15, I had hiked 15.5 miles, climbed up and down 4,300 feet. I was a wreck. Everything hurt. I was exhausted. To get to the peak of San Gorgonio ever again, I need to carry a full overnight pack to High Creek, camp the night and rest, then attack the peak, come back, camp another night, and head down.

Yesterday was also the day of the Perseid Meteor Shower. Another thing I have always wanted to do is to carry the full pack to the peak (in two days), spend the night of the meteor shower on the peak, and then hike down (in two days). The problem here is: How do I carry a full pack plus enough water for overnight to the peak?

I need to bring a mule named Devin for that.