Thursday, August 28, 2008

Yosemite Trip Report Part 2

So after a 13 hour hike and 20+ miles we are driving back to our campsite when we see this big guy sitting in our camp chair next to a hog (motorcycle). As we pull closer I see it's Hikin Dave! Yes, he bought a new motorcycle and rode it to Yosemite. We talked and told stories about crazy events from the past. It was a lot of fun.

Our plan we to bag Mt. Conness on Saturday, but Mr. Conness had other plans.
We were on the trail before 7 am and moving at a good pace. The directions from summitpost.com made it seem that route finding would be easy. As the trail faded there were numerous cairns guiding us. We saw an enourmous talus slope and put our heads down and started up. It was not as bad as it looked. We soon were on the ridge and heading for a chute looking for a 20 by 20 slot. We climbed every chute, but no slot. And we were not the only ones to make this mistake. There were lots of footprints. What was suppose to be class 2/3 was hard class 4. We knew we were way off route with no options left. So with decided to bail and leave that afternoon for Vegas.
Back home I figured out we followed the climber's path way too far. We were less than a quarter mile from Conness and only 400 feet below, but probably would have run into class 5 rock to get on top of the summit ridge. It was still a great trip and we already have plans to visit the area again in September.

No comments:

Post a Comment