Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Watching the Sierra


I'm sitting here wondering what it looks like at 10,000 feet. I know what Fresno looks like right now: It's hazy, dark, wet, cold, unhealthy. Other than that, it's a real garden day out there.

But at 10,000 feet, the sun is shining. So I went online and found the photo above from a Webcam. It's at Tioga Pass in Yosemite National Park. I've been through there many times, but it has been a while since I've been there in winter.

That's because you can't drive the Tioga Road in winter. They don't plow it. I don't blame them. It runs about 45 miles on glacial rubble at 8,000 to 10,000 feet. By far, it's the longest trans-Sierra route in California. It is fabulous and virtually isolated in late December.

So Happy New Year in the high Sierra. We're watching those Web cams.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

For the holiday ...


A storm is supposed to dump 4 feet of snow on the Sierra today.

Merry Christmas.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

It's not a pointy peak



People think Mount Whitney is a peak with a point. Well, it sort of has a point, but it's mostly flat on top.

That's why I loaded this picture. It was taken from the air. There's a little hut on top. You can barely see it.

That's the hut right behind me in the other photo, which is goofy beyond belief -- the guy in the funky jacket, not the hut.

It may be the highest mountain in the continental U.S., but you don't scale it like it's a pointy peak.

Monday, December 22, 2008

One good reason to live in Fresno


I'm not too subtle sometimes. I really like wonderful outdoor photographs. Whether they're mine or not.

I took the photo above at frozen Huntington Lake. It's at about 7,000 feet across the street -- Highway 168 -- from Sierra Summit, a Sierra ski resort in Central California.

I'm sure it looks like this up there now. When people ask me why I would live in Fresno, I show them photos like this one. This is about 75 minutes from my house. Merry Christmas.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Trail Camp on the way to Whitney


This was the scene up at Trail Camp on the way to Mount Whitney. It's from the 1995 trip.

I didn't bring a tent. Crazy. I wound up bunking with one of my friends in his Boy Scout pup tent, which flapped wildly in the wind at night. Never really slept.

Trail Camp was an abomination. People were everywhere. The tarns were terribly polluted. You can't imagine what I saw on huge mounds of ancient ice. It was like a sewer in one place. That was 13 years ago. I hear it's worse now.

I remember seeing a lone woman who was probably in her mid-50s. Tough lady. Camped and climbed by herself. I'm in my mid-50s now. I wouldn't think of doing that trip alone.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Whtney in '95


I'm still putting together the daily blogs -- the journal, if you will -- from the trip to Mount Mendel. I'm trying to put them in the logical order and parenthetically fill in the gaps that my elevation-addled mind left out.

Meanwhile, I found photos of our '95 excursion to Mount Whitney. I had never slept above 12,000 feet until then.

I took the photo above after we cleared the ice field above Trail Camp. I don't know if the ice is still there or not. Haven't been back since.

But I do remember how it felt at 14,997 feet. Cool and breathless. Incredible views on both sides. I kept my down jacket with me the whole way and it was late August.

I couldn't make my usual stupid remark -- where's the Starbucks -- when we reached the top. I was Starbucks illiterate at that point. There were something like 680 Starbucks locations at the time, none of them in places I frequented.

Now they're getting ready to close down my favorite Starbucks, and I'm thinking about going back to Whitney.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Those magical scenes in Yosemite


I thought the Kenny Karst photo on the last blog item was so stunning that I thought I'd put out another one.

This is one is also in Cooks Meadow at Yosemite National Park with iconic Half Dome in the background.

I've been talking with Kenny on the phone for a few years now. Just met him in Yosemite Valley a couple of weeks ago when I was up there to do a story on the rockfalls at Curry Village.

I suppose I could turn this whole blog into a Yosemite forum. I've been covering the park for the last 15 years. A lot has happened.

Look for more photos from Kenny. I've also got a few shots of the Lyell Glacier in Yosemite. This is not exactly the stuff of Glacial Mystery, but it's pretty cool.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

At last, snow


I finally have a huge dump of snow in the Sierra, several feet of it above the 10,000-foot elevation.

Before I go snowshoeing, I have to change out the baskets on my trekking poles. A few years ago, I figured out that I needed the wider snow baskets to keep from making a post hole every time I dug the pole into the snow for balance.

I also have to find my snow boots in the garage. I usually have to clean out a few spiders.

Which reminds me, I carried a daddy long-legs spider all the way to Darwin Canyon in September. He was living in my rolled-up tent. I left him near a boulder above Lake No. 5 at 11,500 feet. He's probably pretty cold about now.

The photo above is Yosemite Valley in the snow. It wasn't taken during the current snowstorm, but I like the photo. It was taken by Kenny Karst, the PR manager of the concessionaire in Yosemite National Park.

Kenny, as you can see, knows how to take a photo.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Oh, that satellite phone call


This one is hilarious when you consider I was trying to call my editor at sundown and wound up calling my own phone at work.

I immediately hung up after the recording, called my wife and asked her to tell the editors about the call. Which she did. That's the last I heard of the recording.

Never saw it on the blog. Maybe it's there. I'm tired of searching. These things are supposed to be easier to find. Anyway, I kept the recording on my phone.

The photo above is actually my last shot of the day from below Lamarck Col, looking east into the Owens Valley.

Here's the call:

6:50 p.m. Sept. 7


Hello, I accidentally called my own voice mail. This is Mark Grossi.

I'm at 12,600 feet (wind blasting and voice quivering in the cold.) We're camped below Lamarck Col (which is the crest of the Sierra where the wind is howling and the world is primitive. Boulders everywhere. Dirty ice that has been sitting there for decades, perhaps centuries.)

(I've been hiking all day, climbing several miles straight up with the weight of a 4-year-old on my back. I'm basically comatose. But I'm determined to have a good time with this.)

It's Sunday night. Mark and I went a lot farther than we thought we would. It was a good idea. While the trail system is easily passable, it is hard to understand. (The last sentence makes positively no sense. Here's the explanation: We would have been lost the minute we left Upper Lamarck Lake. We were going to stop for the night at the lake. Instead, we met author Peter Stekel and his hiking partner, Michele, who guided us up to the crest.)

Went about 3300 3400 feet vertical over 5.5 miles. It was a long haul.

The sun is going down, so we're going to eat our dinner, go to sleep and tomorrow climb over the top and go see Mount Mendel.

(At this point, I remember wanting to say something clever. The only line that came to me was a moronic "there's no Starbucks up here. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" I double clutched and punched out of the phone call. Pathetic.)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Aha, the Sept. 8 blog!


Yo, I found the Sept. 8 blogs. Guess where? On the site of the newspaper where I work.

It has taken me weeks to find them. I feel like a corporate lawyer who has found a little-known codicil (is that how you spell codicil?) referring to double-secret internet site stuff.

Yeehaw.

Remember, the first items are later in the day. The lower items were written earlier in the day. Actually, I didn't write any of them. I called on the satellite phone and dictated off the top of my head. And it reads like that.

The photo above is from Upper Lamarck Lake. We got there in 90 minutes from North Lake. Piece of Cake. That's the last time we had a mellow stroll on this trek. The rest was straight up. Slippery rocks. Boulders that were in motion. Absolutely terrifying rockfall while we were on the glacier. This was one tough, scary trip.

Without further whimpering and complaining, I give you Sept. 8:

3:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8: I heard a whoop and a splash. Bee photographer Mark Crosse had dived into Darwin Lake No. 5. Icy-cold water made him surface and climb out quickly. But he's a polar bear.


The jagged peaks of Mendel and Darwin are directly above us now. It is ominous out here. The wind howls, clouds go overhead, and smoke comes up the canyon from some fire in the national park.
We'll be on the glacier in the morning. If all goes well, I will call and blog from there.

Our destination has shrunk
2 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8: I'm in front of Lake Five in Darwin Canyon, almost directly in front of Mendel glacier. The glacier is smaller now than last year, and you can hear the rush of melting ice in the background.

This morning we went over Lamarck Col at 12,880 feet, and we had to boulder-scramble class 3 boulders, which is fairly difficult. We didn't go across the ice. It was frozen solid and too slippery. The canyon headwall is an intense downward descent of about 1,000 feet. We're looking for camp sites.

Good morning, wind
8 a.m. Monday, Sept. 8: The wind is an alarm clock here at 12,500 feet just below Lamarck Col. I'm remembering that last night, Peter Stekel told me he had scoured all the military records he could find.

There is little to tell us how the AT-7 crashed on Mendel. He said Mortenson, Munn and Mustonen were picked to fly that day as part of an alphabetical rotation. The trio may have even bunked together. Today we will climb the col and work our way down the Darwin Canyon headwall. It should take two or three hours on the other side. Mendel Glacier awaits.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The missing blog items continued


OK, more stuff from the disjointed presentation in September.

This probably seems a little disjointed as well. OK, it is. But I will pull all of these items together in a single posting a few days from now. Then you can read them together.

For now, this was the beginning of our Mendel trek. It was a travel day from Fresno to North Lake on the Eastern Sierra. Read this item first, then read the next item, and you'll have pretty good flavor of our trip.

There is one other missing blog item, which I will have to reconstruct from memory and notes. It is for Sept. 8. For now, this is Sept. 6 and part of Sept. 7.




6:07 p.m., Sept. 6, 2008: We just passed over the edge of Long Valley Caldera. It's a massive hole -- we're talking nearly 20 miles wide -- where the Earth opened up and spewed magma all over the place.
The eastern Sierra is a vast volcanic panorama, one of my favorite places. The caldera is a great example. The explosive eruption took place 700,000 years ago. Volcanic ash from the blast has been found as far away as Nebraska.

There are bubbling hot tubs hidden in the vast countryside. I've been here when it was 29 degrees outside and snow on the ground, yet there is still steam coming out of the rocks.

We're in Bishop now. And we're here for the granite and ice. Mount Mendel couldn't be more than 15 miles west of here. So our thoughts are turning to the plane crash and the missing victims.

But for a while, it has been a real pleasure to think about the volcanic past of the eastern Sierra.

6:05 a.m., Sept. 7, 2008, 42 degrees, at 9,300 feet at North Lake campground -- I skipped the tent, slept out under the stars. So did Mark Crosse. It was a beautiful glittering show overhead all night long. The temperature was still 50 degrees at 3:45 a.m. It didn't feel very cold to me. I imagine it will be a lot colder farther up. We'll make Lamarck Lake today, in a few hours, maybe less. That's good news. But you can't have a fire above 10,400 feet: No firewood.

2 p.m., Sept. 7, 2008: It's about 2 p.m, and we are at about 11,600 feet.

We decided to change directions and follow Peter Stekel and his climbing partner Michele Hinatsu up to Lamarck Col. We were scheduled to stop at Upper Lamarck Lake -- we've continued on.

Monday, December 8, 2008

The lost blogs from September


I've found some of the lost Lost Flights blogs.

People who don't think we told enough about the hike. Well, take a hike. We did.

Check it out. These are the last two days. I have no idea why they didn't actually get onto the Web site. I could never find them. They were printed in the newspaper, which obviously folks didn't read.

I'm still pretty disappointed in the way our blogs were handled. For those who criticized us and our presentation, I'm glad I finally got these out. These two days were pretty dramatic.

I took the photograph above. It was our camp site just below Lamarck Col. This is about 12,500 feet. Cold. Windy. Boulders everywhere. We slept between boulders. That's Peter Stekel to the left and Mark Crosse closer to the camera. There was a huge ice field about 50 meters from us and a tarn where we got water. And we were still on the east side of the crest, not even within view of the glacier.

Could I have been more descriptive and make it more exciting? Sure. No excuses. I did my best. And I still have vivid memories of what happened. I can still write more. I might include some here.

Until then, this is what you didn't see.


On Sept. 9



Noon Sept. 9, 2008: The wind is really bad today. I'm standing on a dirty edge of the glacier, not far from one of the two engines of the AT-7 that crashed here. Huge slabs of granite are perched on top of the ice, making them look like they're on pedestals. Water runs everywhere. The glacier itself has melted out far more than last year. We're not even on the clean ice itself yet, we're on the boulder-strewn ice. My advice for anyone who wants to come up here? Get in shape, get a guide, and get life insurance. We're not quite on the ice yet, we will be later this afternoon. It's a harrowing climb to get up here.

5:30 p.m. Sept. 9, 2008: Author Peter Stekel today found part of an aluminum wing to the AT-7. It was a gully-wash of pure glacial melt. He photographed it, then continued his search in a brisk wind, with clouds racing overhead. We followed and saw some of the most incredible pieces of the Sierra.

Huge slabs of granite in columns 800 feet tall climbed the sheer cliffs at Mount Mendel. There were Hummer-sized blocks of granite standing on pedestals of ice.

The trip to get here is tough and dangerous. I can see why nobody is touching the wreckage.

What a beautiful, rare and terrifying place.


The next day ...


6:45 a.m. Sept. 10, 2008: We're going to pull out today. It's very cold: windy all night last night, in the 30s. Clouds are moving in over the crest. Hopefully we don't ... (and then the rest of Mark's message was lost in the wind).

4:25 p.m. Sept. 10, 2008: On the return from Darwin Canyon today, storm clouds gathered at the crest. As we boulder-scrambled 1,400 feet nearly straight up, it began to hail on us.

The hail was beginning to turn to snow and we realized that Lamarck Col, our destination, is one of the worst places you can be in lightning and a thunderstorm.

Photographer Mark Crosse found the proper route to get to the Col. Two days before, we had stopped for more than an hour to take pictures and make a satellite phone call.

This time, we passed without stopping.

We boulder-scrambled along the ice below the Col, and when we got down we just kept going. Thunder and lightning began about an hour later, and it hailed on us again near Lower Lamarck Lake.

It seemed like a fitting way to end this expedition -- lots of lightning and thunder but no real damage.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Am I asking too much? Let it snow in December


Notice in the photograph, there are big, knarly campons on my snowshoes. The one on the right is turned to the underside, so you can see them. I would like to put these aggressive crampons to use on a tilted mountainside filled with snow.

Note, also, that there are weeds growing in my flower beds to the right. I'm so not going to pick weeds three weeks before Christmas. This is not weed-picking time, people. I'm tired of warm-weather activities. Do you hear me?

But we're caught in this late fall purgatory. No storms. Just gray days. I'm sitting here drinking espresso at my kitchen table and fuming.

We haven't seen the sun in the San Joaquin Valley for a week now. The high temperature yesterday was 49. The low was 43. This is boring and drippy cold.

This blog, at the moment, is no longer about finding mummified remains in a glacier. That came and went in September.

This is about waiting for a storm in December.

I want to see the Sierra pasted with about three feet of snow. Oh, we have snow already at 9,000 or 10,000 feet. But it's not that much, and I'm really tired of waiting for my snow season. I ordered it in July. Where is it?

More later.

Monday, December 1, 2008

This blog is basically a secret


I'm going to be straight with you, folks. According to the sitemeter that logs every hit on this page, there have only been two of us visiting this spot since Nov. 2.

So, let's have a recap. There was one person in early November. There were two other visitors in October. Peter Stekel visited in September. But let's leave Peter out of the equation, because he's writing a book on this very subject and has good reason to look under every rock.

Of the three people from the outside world who hit this page in the last two months, none of them spent any time here. The duration of all three visits was zero seconds.

This page is virtually unknown, except to the other person and me. To that one person -- and I know you very well -- thanks for checking to see if I have a pulse. (If I knew how to make one of those sideways smiley faces, I'd put one right here ... wait, :)

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Lost Flights page hard to find


I've noticed I can't get at the blog items I wrote while we were trekking to Mendel Glacier.

The Web site where you can find the items is hard to navigate. I can't find the Lost Flights page unless I search with Google.

We still get e-mails once in a while about it. I even got a telephone call from someone who first burped in my ear and then raved about how much he liked the series.

I thought it was a great series, personally. But colleagues have told me they thought it went too many days -- 17 or 18. Others said it just didn't have the drama it needed from the stuff I wrote during and after the trek to Mendel.

Whatever. We put everything we had into that series. I think it packed quite a punch. Just too bad you can't easily go back and read it.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Bring it on again


Rummaging through the garage, I came across my old snowshoes. They are battered and scratched from those magical days in December, January and February over many years.

I cleaned them up and stacked them next to my new pair -- these hi-tech Atlas snowshoes with very aggressive campons. They're wonderful for off-trail trekking, which is my favorite thing in winter.

Looking at the snowshoes reminded me of a day a little more than two years ago when I napped on a huge boulder in the waning afternoon sun at frozen Huntington Lake.

I had snowshoed quite a distance. I began making cell phone calls and e-mailing photos of my surroundings. Then, I ate my lunch watching the clouds stream in overhead. I got sleepy from the hike and the big meal, so I dozed.

A half-hour later, a huge clunk woke me up. I thought it was some critter checking out my backpack. Turned out to be a block of ice floating down Big Creek and banging into my rock.

I sat up. To my surprise, I had a thin layer of snow all over me. Those wispy clouds had turned dark and angry. It was still snowing.

I shook off like a big dog, stepped back into my snowshoes and hauled it back up the hill. I stopped and filtered a liter of water from Big Creek and drank deeply when I got back near my vehicle. I was still shivering and laughing at myself when I picked up my son, who was snowboarding at Sierra Summit.

I can't believe how much fun I had that day. I had seen nature go from a glittering, sunny morning to a slanting snowstorm in the afternoon.

OK, maybe it's not so bad to be in the ice and cold of the high country. Maybe it will snow by Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Not quite the same, sadly


When I think about trekking areas where nobody can drive, it is such a humbling experience. It brings a clarity that I can't find in my backyard or even in a lovely meadow in Yosemite Valley.

Yet, I was surprised by something in this trip. The hike didn't work the way it usually does -- didn't vaporize my demons and instill this soul-shaped glow.

I come from Bakersfield, land of oil derricks, renegade red necks, all-night bowling alleys and fist fights on Friday nights. In those days, I went to the mountains only for the purpose of fishing and drinking beer. I mostly hooked hangovers.

Most of the people I grew up with would either laugh at you or slug you if you suggested something bigger than your own daily functions was going on out there. I am relieved to say that I haven't fit that mold in decades.

So, lynch me from the top of Father Garces at the traffic circle on Chester Avenue where the kids cruise, looking to meet each other, purchase booze and discover their own brand of nature.

But I must admit that the buzz from the glacier adventure departed rather quickly. More quickly than this nature buzz ever has. The cynicism of the workplace, the economic downturn and the election year sapped me.

I've taken two weeks off to explore other ideas. Maybe something will spark. Can't wait for Nov. 4 -- election day -- to come and go.

Or, maybe there's another day that is more important. On October 22, I will be 55. Maybe that's the day I need to come to grips with.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Loose ends and impressions


A few random thoughts about the Sierra/aviation project:

-- One long-time friend told me there was not enough of Cyndee and me in the newspaper over the 18 days of the series. He wanted to see more about the journey to Mendel, as well.

Well, we had seven consecutive days of my blogs in the newspaper. Sometimes, I wrote three times a day. Cyndee blogged as well, and her work found its way into the newspaper.

-- Another friend asked why the bylines sometimes had Cyndee's name first and sometimes my name first.

The first name in the byline was the lead writer on the story, though I must say I leaned pretty heavily on Cyndee in my stories. In fact, she made a huge difference in the last story. So, think of Lenon and McCartney, and you'll be pretty close to the relationship.

-- Someone asked if we had injuries from the backpack. It was a pretty intense hike.

My knees both hurt afterward, mainly because of osteoarthritis. But not a big deal. The bigger injury was whatever happened to my left hand. I think I banged it against a rock when we were boulder scrambling. It is still puffy, though it doesn't really hurt. Actually, for a guy who turns 55 next month, I came out pretty unscathed.

-- One other person asked how my family reacted to the trip and the danger.

As with all my treks, my wife followed closely and was most relieved when I came home. My Mom, two sisters, three children and assorted other relatives by marriage? Absolutely no response. I'm fairly certain they had no idea what I was doing. And, just as in the past, I can write about it in unflinching terms here because nobody in my family reads this or anything else I write. No sour grapes, actually. I might not read any of it myself if I hadn't written it.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

What a thrill ... let's not do that again


We've been back a week now since the hike to Mendel, which is one of the most beautiful, rare and terrifying places I've been. OK, I haven't been around very much. It's really not that bad.

But, for the unprepared or the beginner in the outdoors, it is dangerous. Even Michele Hinatsu, who I think is a wonderful backpacker, navigator and all-around outdoor enthusiast, fell at the glacier because a rock shifted underneath her.

Michele hikes with Peter Stekel. They are a dynamic duo, laughing, talking and enjoying the mountains. They were a true pleasure to be around, and I learned a lot from both of them about boulder scrambling and finding my way without a trail.

Yes, it's hard to believe I've been hiking the Sierra for so many years without really venturing very far off trail.

As a trail pounder, I'm still moving pretty well for my age. As a boulder scrambler, I'm a tentative snail. I'd like to say I faced true, harrowing times up there, but really I just followed Peter, Michele and photographer Mark Crosse, my long-time friend, colleague and backpacking buddy.

This was truely an eye-opening adventure, at once humbling and exhilarating. It has to be the pinnacle of my hiking experiences in the Sierra. I'll tell you more in later blogs about the thrilling search for ice mummies.

And yet, as Crosse says, we're not going back there again. Agreed, Mark. It was a terrible thrill that I am so pleased to have completed. Now, let's not do that again.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Back from Mendel


Seattle author Peter Stekel found part of a wing to the AT-7 aircraft that crashed on Mount Mendel in 1942. That was quite a highlight of our trip to Mendel Glacier.

Great trip. Learned a lot from Stekel and his hiking partner, Michele Hinatsu, who is just a marvelous off-trail navigator and hiker. Both of them were so impressive.

Photographer Mark Crosse and I have been back for a couple of days now. The knee swelling is slowly going away. We did a descent of about 3,600 feet on the last day from Lamarck Col to North Lake.

I wish I hadn't been so cold all the time. The wind was incessant. On the hike out, we had to climb 1,400 feet to the Col. No trail. Lots of boulders. Near the top, it began hailing.

Worried about exposure to lightning, we blasted over the Col. Didn't even stop at the top. Then we boulder scrambled around the ice field at the Col. Actually, it was far less difficult than it had been two days earlier because I was learning more and more about boulder scrambling.

I will write more about the desolation and beauty of the Mendel Glacier. It was like being on the Klingon home world, if you ever watch Star Trek. Just another world. Nothing growing. Lots of ice and rock and scary looking combinations of both.

I'll write a little more about this in the next week before I give up. I loved doing this adventure.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Headed to Bishop


Photographer Mark Crosse and I are driving to Bishop, then North Lake today. We'll camp at North Lake and begin hiking in the morning.

Looking forward to it. Weather seems fine. The forecast is 102 in the San Joaquin Valley, meaning it will probably be in the 70s above 10,000 feet. Very nice.

The satellite phones work. We tried them out in the parking lot yesterday. Now we need to figure out if they'll work up there.

Keep your eye on http://www.fresnobee.com/lostflights/. I will try to blog on the satellite phone from the glacier.

The photo above was taken two years ago at Evolution Valley, which is west of Mendel Glacier.

Monday, September 1, 2008

The flurry is hitting now


It's crunch time in our reporting at The Fresno Bee. On Sunday, Aug. 31, we started the first of 18 days of stories, graphics and photographs on aviation and the Sierra Nevada.

We've been working on it for a solid two months.

Now, the marathon becomes a fast-paced finish. Graphics, editing, photographs, online audio, map data. Fellow writer Cyndee Fontana and I are trying to make sure we see as much as possible to help troubleshoot and find mistakes. At the same time, we're still writing and reporting.

It's tough. It means looking at stories that you've read dozens of times, trolling for that one preposition that you left out. Poring over that same map and trying not to miss something really obvious.

It is very humbling. I've worked with Cyndee for about 20 years, but I had no idea how talented she was in organizing stories, turning a phrase and hashing out details. She's really good.

I need to think about buying food, checking my tent for leaks, calling the forest service to hold my wilderness pass in Bishop. That sort of last-minute stuff needs to be watched carefully. I've messed it up too many times.

On Thursday, the satellite phones will arrive, unless the federal government has taken them for use in emergency operations in New Orleans for hurricane Gustav. Still have to figure out how to use them. We're leaving Saturday.

Lots to think about. I've almost forgotten about that glacier. Almost.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Separate phones for reporter and photographer


Here's the deal on the satellite phone: We're taking two -- one for photos and one for words.

We're doing it just in case we happen upon an ice mummy and there's a national story that needs to be done right then and there. As the movie line goes, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a face to go with a name?"

News can be creepy. You should have seen the first homicide I covered in Bakersfield about 30 years ago. I'll tell you about it some time.

I'll be carrying the one for voice only. Supposedly, you can hit satellites easier with it. So I'll be calling regularly from the trail to dictate blog items, which you can follow. If you have questions, send them along. I'll answer you from the trail.

The other phone is heavier and doesn't hook up very well with satellites because of the mountains. It's for data. Photo data. This fussy contraption could be the source of much dismay from the photographer.

In the photo above, you see three of us from the Muir Trail hike two years ago. We're at the Muir Hut, near the pass. That is the one and only place that we connected on the trail with a satellite phone.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Hope there's no smoke


There are some things you can count on in California.

In the winter, it rains in LA and house slide down muddy hillsides where people probably shouldn't have built their homes anyway.

In spring, people are on pins and needles about either a drought or a big snowmelt that will flood everyone downstream in May and June.

In summer, fire rages through overgrown forests, which are the continuing target of environmental lawsuit and gridlock over proper management.

Ah, but when fall nips the air. Sometimes you get blizzards, sometimes you get Indian summer.

I'm saying all this because September is right on the cusp between fires and blizzards or Indian summer.

I'm kinda pulling for Indian summer in September, but I know we're still in fire season. I just don't feel like breathing smoke while I'm hiking the eastern Sierra next month.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Leave the phone at home, I say


The first time I backpacked for a story was in August 1995 at Mount Whitney. Quite a walk, as I recall.

But there were things I preferred about that hike to the one I'm doing in September. Recall I'm walking with a photographer to Mendel Glacier from the east side.

When we did Whitney, we didn't have a satellite phone. For photography, we were still shooting film, not digital. It was all good. I like photos taken on film. And I like not carrying a nonfunctional chunk of weight -- i.e. the satellite phone -- in my backpack.

Cell phones? Yeah, one guy had one. At about 13,500 feet, he climbed out on a ledge and called his girlfriend in Newport Beach. Whoopee.

Now for Mendel, we're carrying a satellite phone. Again. It was an albatross on the Muir Trail hike two years ago. I expect it to function better this time, but who knows?

At least, we are under no illusions about photographs this time. On the Muir hike, we brought some kind of palm pilot and tried to send photos. Never worked. Even when we got a clear shot at a satellite, it didn't work.

Look for us. We'll be the hikers trying to locate a satellite.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

A few key words ... it's worth reading this


Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Inyo National Forest, Sierra National Forest and Giant Sequoia National Monument. Recognize any of those names?

OK, you recognize the marmot in the picture above, right? He's at Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. He's the one who meets everyone, begging for food.

Have I manipulated enough to get your attention? Yes?

OK, first my apologies. I'm just trying to trip a few key words out there on the Net to get you here. I did this a couple of months ago and a few people bit. It was worth a try again.

Here's what I'm trying to say: Next month, a photographer and I are walking up to Mendel Glacier where there may be the frozen bodies of two World War II airmen still in the ice. Two mummified bodies already have emerged.

Global warming and two years of drought in California make us think there's a decent possibility that we will find important parts of the plane, such as the instrument panel, which might tell us speed, altitude and bearing of the flight in 1942. Bodies would be a grisly but amazing addition.

I've spoken with relatives of those two airmen who are still missing. Believe me, folks, they want their loved ones returned for burial in their hometowns.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Even up here, you gotta read the signs


I love the sign as you leave the Inyo National Forest on the way to Mendel Glacier: Entering Kings Canyon National Park, Lamarck Col, Pets and Firearms Prohibited.

You've just climbed 3,400 feet from North Lake -- off trail for a good portion of it. You've cleared the snowfield just below the col. Now there's a sign waiting for you, like you're merging with Interstate 5 at the Grapevine.

And they're warning you not to bring your bazooka or your Doberman into the park? If you could haul your pet and your weapon up that far, then this sign is for you. If you're like 99% of the rest of the world, it really doesn't apply.

By the way, that's Mendel Glacier in the background. See what I mean about dirty, little glacier? It's kinda filthy with fallen granite. It's really kinda little.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Crampons or no?


Should you use crampons this late in the season on California's wimpy, little glaciers? Naw. No way.

That's what everyone has been telling me. Just take your trekking poles and you'll be fine.

I will. But I don't want to find myself bumping down a slope filled with sun cups and ice next month, wondering if I should have used the crampons to keep myself from slipping.

My backpacking pal, Mark Crosse, said he's not concerned. He's thinking about how cold it will get above 11,000 feet at night in September. Good point. But I'm always a cautious soul with cold -- down jacket, 20-degree sleeping bag, good gloves, good knit cap, et cetera, et cetera.

So I'm not worrying about cold, and I'm working on my quads with isometrics. I've been conditioning for the last six months. I think I'm just going to coast this month to stay fresh for this thing.

Anybody with suggestions is welcome to voice them here. If you missed what I'm doing, just read the next item. And I'll wait to hear from you.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

The rest of the story ...


Time to be up front with everyone. The photo above is where I'm headed.

I'm an environment and natural resources writer for a McClatchy newspaper, called The Fresno Bee. I'm telling you this because I am going to Mendel Glacier in the Sierra Nevada as a reporter for The Bee.

I'm going to meet author Peter Stekel, the man who found one of the frozen airmen who died in 1942. The airman's name was Ernest "Glenn" Munn, and his body was well-preserved in the ice for more than six decades. Another body was found three years ago by ice climbers. His name was Leo Mustonen.

I will be writing from the trail, using a satellite phone as we pursue the other two missing missing airmen. They were both in the front seats of this training plane when it went down, presumably in a blizzard in November 1942.

The glacier is at about 13,000 feet. The climb to reach it will be arduous.

In the next several weeks, I will explain a little about our writing project. Stekel is writing a book called "Final Flight." It is due out in 2009 or 2010.

Of course, there are many things to write about in this blog. Our approach, our reporting beforehand, our training to get in shape. If you have questions, please feel free to ask. If you have advice or comments, I would like to hear them.

This project will be anything but dull.

A small glacier is OK by me


The glacier we're climbing is kind of small and dirty. Which is tough enough for me.

There's all kinds of talus. The moraine is huge. Ankle-busting granite, ready to turn my joints this way and that.

A twin-engine training bomber crashed here in 1942. All four aboard perished. The mummified remains of one airman were found in 2005. A second one was found in August 2007.

Now, the guy who found the second body is going back in September. We're going to tag along.

That photo I have above is not the glacier. It's a col that we will climb at the Sierra crest before we reach the glacier. I'll show you the glacier soon.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Cool, dangerous and fast?


The guy had the cell phone thing stuck in his ear. He drove madly past me, jawing away with his arm draped over the steering wheel in a kind of driver chic that oozes, "I'm cool, I'm dangerous, I'm fast."

Being at the opposite end of cool, dangerous and fast, I wondered if there was any way to capture that feeling. I could have bought a phone thing to stick in my ear. But I have chronic ear wax buildup. Sign of middle age, you know.

I thought a little longer. Oh yeah, I know. I'll climb a glacier and look for the frozen, preserved bodies of military airmen who had crashed there in 1942.

Yeah, it's like that.

It's mystery. It's a glacier. It's mid-life. It's equal parts crazy and creepy. I'm in.

A photographer named Mark Crosse and I are walking up to Mount Mendel where this horrific crash took place Nov. 18, 1942. I've backpacked, hiked, snowshoed and otherwise hung out in the outdoors before. I've walked on a lot of ice and snow, but never a glacier.

There's more to tell, but I'm entering the freeway in my vehicle right now. Another sip of my French roast, and I'll blow the doors off this car driven by the guy with the cell phone thing stuck in his ear. I'll be back to this space later.
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