An Ísland of Adjectives and 'The British Fell Relays'

An Ísland of Adjectives

A chance encounter --- facilitated by lack of enthusiasm to pick up two smelly hikers dancing to the Beach Boys at the side of the road (but that’s another story) --- at a restaurant1 in a tiny village in the alps led to KW and I to consider a trip to Iceland. An american couple we dined with had just used the ‘free stopover’ service offered by Icelandair on transatlantic flights2 and waxed lyrical about the place.

It seemed that everyone we spoke to had been to Iceland --- who knew?! --- and we quickly noticed a pattern:

‘Iceland is a beautiful, challenging place’

‘Iceland is an interesting place’

‘Iceland is beautiful and intriguing’

‘Iceland is a shit and boring place’3

‘Iceland is…’

Iceland is an adjective-inducing place.

Almost three months from that first encounter, we arrived --- twelve hours apart due to classic am/pm mix-up --- ready to find out for ourselves. This report is our small contribution to the country’s descriptors.

The windswept look in this photograph is 100% manufactured.

The weather forecast for our week was simply horrendous --- locals claimed that Hurricane Matt had something to do with it, but we aren’t convinced. But, all things considered, we managed to make the most of our mostly soggy sojourn. Without going into excruciating detail, we’ve compiled a brief list of Do and Don't Icelandic experiences and a fun game of guess who was responsible for what idiotic act.  

Do’s:

• All the saunas/hot springs/thermal baths/pools. (Except Blue Lagoon which everyone told us is shitty and crowded.) We recommend: Laugarvatn Fontana, particularly if you get mistaken for tour group members and get in for free, Grindavik swimming pool, and Selfoss swimming pool. You get hot, then you get cold. Repeat. Adjective: Invigorating.
• Westmann Islands. Well and truly worth the 3 hour or 30 minute ferry from the south coast (weather dependant source port), The main island’s north side has 4 hills for the conquering (some volcanic, one still hot, one with ladders and cool sheep). The south side of the island is the self-proclaimed windiest point in Europe and the town includes what may be The Cutest Spectacle On Earth in September. If you go, we know someone (known locally as The Puffin Lady) who can host you for free. Adjective: Magical.

Blue skies and wooly sheep

Teeny tiny house on the cliffs

Every evening, a man lights candles on ladder+sheep mountain.

• Eat all the Icelandic bread you can: preferably with Pear and Fig Jam. Adjective: Tasty.

And don't forget to leave space for the cinnamon swirl pastries

• Car camp. As in literally camp in your car. If you rent a 4x4 (which you probably will), you're going to want to get as much bang as possible from that buck. Even with only one sleeping pad between two people, it's surprisingly cosy, even on the stormiest of nights. Important note: if you park in Thingvellir, you may receive a wake up call in the form of a threat to be bulldozed by local law enforcement. Adjective: Resourcefulness-Inducing
• Running (for a bit) on lava fields along the continental divide (or anywhere, really). You can almost enter a trance state, engulfed by whipping winds and rains, bounding over seemingly infinite lumpy moss, which springs under foot one step and threatens to snap an ankle the next. Adjective: Weird.
• Cook a meal for yourself in a farm stay, preferably one that includes a hot tub. Discover that the cost of one potato and one sweet potato is greater than almost an entire fish from the local Físka. Best enjoyed with a creepy bottle of wine. Adjective: Contradictory.

It was as dillicious as it looks

Creepy wine man, tell me what you are thinking...

Don’ts:

• Tour the Geothermal Bakery at Laugarvatn. The bread samples are delicious but you could easily swipe a few slices from the table and skip the “experience” -- a $15 10 minute walk behind a sullen teenager with a shovel to a hole in the sand with a pot buried in it. Complete with a busload of photo-takers who form a cloistered queue around the samples at the end. Adjective: Awkward.
• Sulphur hill (AKA Krisuvik). Unless you're into walking along roped paths with other waterproofed Guidebook-readers, through random blasts of sulphur fumes, to a “peak”/lump with five feet of visibility, you're safe to skip this spot. Adjective: Smelly.

Our verdict: Iceland is an Invigorating, Magical, Weird, Contradictory, Awkward, Smelly, Tasty, Resourcefulness-Inducing place.

And just for fun, here's a game of Who Done It (Answers below4):

1. Suggested poaching an egg in thermal boiling water
2. Puked on the ferry. And in a car park just as a tour bus emptied its parade of passengers.
3. Took the car on a 45 minute detour, while using Google Maps
4. Balls turned to raisins in the cold plunge pool.
5. Saw the Northern Lights.
6. Almost let 46,000 Icelandic Krona fly onto the highway in the “Let's See Who Can Handle Having The Windows Down” game
7. Attempted to downclimb a waterfall for the sake of an aesthetic ‘loop’ run rather than out’n’back while waiting on their better half
8. Had the best Michael Jackson smooth criminal lean?

British Fell Relays

The other part of our trip that might be of interest to WCAC members was one of --- in Iain’s opinion --- the highlights in the British ‘Fell5 Running’ scene: the Fell Relays (http://bfhrrc2016.westerlandsccc.co.uk/). The event, which moves to a different area of mountainous countryside of the UK every year, is a relay involving four legs and six runners. All the legs start and finish at a central event hub (rather than forming a continuous circuit like many in the US). This makes for some good spectating as you can see how the positions shift as the race progresses.

Roughly speaking the legs are as follows:

1. A short trail running leg that the winning runner should take ~30 minutes;
2. A longer fell run with pairs of runners (who have to stick together) taking around 75mins for the fastest pair;
3. A long navigation leg --- orienteering --- where a pair of runners get a map as they start and have to make their way from point to point as quickly as possible;
4. A shorter fell run involving the final runner; usually straight up and down a mountain.

More difficult the the race itself packing a small car with a carpet, 5 runners and a dog...

I was --- perhaps surprisingly for some WCAC members --- on the navigation leg for the men’s team of my old club, Carnethy. The fear-mongering that it was the trickiest course, both in terms of 'terrain' (bushwhacking factor) and navigational complexity in years was exaggerated, though the fact that 'clag' (cloud) was down to 300m meant that most of our run was at 10m visibility with eyes glued to compasses at all times, making avoiding all the 'tussocks' trickier than it would normally be. For anyone interested, here is the map that we were given on the startline:

Hit all the checkpoints (1-7) in order. What routes would you take? Answers on an email...

The dishevelled look was 90% authentic.

KW was on the prestigious Leg 2 in her first Scottish Fell race! In her words…

Some people like running. Some people like hills. Some people like both, but when push comes to shove, everyone's got a preference. The Brits love their hills by God, be that they have to finger claw up and butt sled down in gale force winds through knee deep mud.  I'm the former (the type who, when alone on a mountain, would forego a rocky summit in favour of a runnable trail), but I can enjoy a bonnie romp in the fells on occasion.

The going is tough and thrilling and “knackering” (British for soul-crushing), but the atmosphere is what makes the day. Marshals stand on fog blanketed hilltops all day, cheering on and handing out jelly sweets. Runners exchange encouragements and cheeky banter on the course. Afterwards, everyone shares detailed (Crime Report-level) descriptions of every inch of their route and every moment of their race drama over cups of tea and stovies (yummy Scottish stew), then dances the night away at a Ceilidh.

I don’t know if such an event could ever be run in some hills in California, but I’d encourage anyone who happens to be over in Scotland to give a hill race a try… :-)

Footnotes

1. Spoiler alert: unlike Iceland in October, the restaurant, Ptarmigan in Champex (one of my favourite birds, a reminder of the Cairngorms in Scotland), could not be more highly recommended. If you are nearby, GO!

2. To my dismay, Icelandair do not fly from SFO, but they do from Portland, FDK!

3. This was, in fact, the summary of a couple of local students that we chatted to in Reykjavik.

4. Katie, Iain, Katie, Katie. But Iain looked really cold too,No one. Ever,Iain,Iain, (see below)

5. The british term for running on rough, soggy mountains.

Mount Whitney

Californians do not take their altitude lightly 

Logistics:

• Whitney is 22 miles out and back trip. While it would make for a long day hike, I argue that it is well within reach to do in one day; parts of the trail are even runnable (adding an interesting challenge to this summit).

• To hike Mount Whitney, apply for a permit ~6 months in advance of your trip (sometime in April). Good news, you can list up to 15 choices, so it is likely you will get a date!

• Consider if you want to hike Whitney in a day, or hike halfway to Trail Camp, stay overnight, summit and hike out the next day.

• Wait 6 months.

• Book a campsite for the night prior to your Whitney ascent  - highly recommended to book Whitney Portal for the convenience and altitude acclimation.

Recap:

Prior to hiking Mount Whitney I read dozens of trip reports warning of the effects of altitude sickness, many suggesting additional days at altitude before attempting the colossal task of summiting the tallest peak in the lower 48. While much of this is sage advice, and thoroughly convinced me, it is important to keep in mind the majority of society is comprised of “Normies” (as FDK has dubbed normal folk who do not exercise regularly and sometimes in the extreme) for whom such advice might actually be relevant. I suggest attempting the next Whitney summit as a HOG (hike/jog).

E and I headed out to Whitney on Saturday morning with the goal of hitting the ranger station in Lone Pine before 4:30. We chose to make a loop out of the drive – first driving south through Bakersfield and making a giant U up to the Eastern Sierras. We made the ranger station in Lone Pine around 3pm with plenty of time to spare, checked in, and were informed the station was fresh out of “Wag Bags” (adorably-named plastic baggies you are expected to poop in for the duration of your time on Whitney Trail), but not to worry! The local outdoor store down the road had extras. So we hopped in the car, drove two miles and requested our poop bags for the weekend. To which the owner replied, “We’re fresh out”, without offering an alternative.  I balked, “where do you suggest I poop for the weekend?” she finally offered a “Smelly Bag”, a small, black plastic bag traditionally used to store weed. I requested two.

Non-traditional poop bag for the weekend

After our delightful experience in town we drove up the freshly paved road to Whitney Portal Campground. A word of caution here, Lone Pine is aptly named, in that there is not much to look at. Some dumpy piles of dirt comprise the Alabama Hills and some odd boulders makeup a rock climber’s playground in the desert. When you come to a campground you’ll likely think it is Whitney Portal, but quite the contrary you can drive another 1000+ feet in elevation to a second campground in an odd forest oasis above the desert scrub. This much nicer campground is the gem you want.

Picturesque little campground above the scrub

We opted for the overnight permit at Trail Camp, which allowed us a leisurely morning on Sunday. Six uphill miles were all that was on the agenda. The next morning we parked, read informative signs that set the proper expectation not to be rescued and fully disclosed the dangers of altitude sickness, and began our hike up. It was surprisingly hot, temperatures in the 70s, but the following weekend it snowed, proving weather in the mountains will always be highly unpredictable. All told it wasn’t bad, and without the packs it would have been even better. We made it to Trail Camp in a little over three hours.

Trail Camp - I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of people

Trail Camp is at the base is Whitney. You hike through what E calls a “gully” (not quite grand enough to be a gorge) between two mountains. Trail Camp is largely rock and a small lake, highly exposed, and windy, situated at 12,000 feet. More acclimation!

view of the "gully" on the hike up

Not bad scenery in the alpine country

The biggest take away from this for me was it is hard to sleep at 12,000 feet. Knowing we’d have a God-early start we hopped in the tent, listened to our creepy audio book, and planed to sleep by 8pm….come 4am I was still awake. E didn’t get much sleep either. Turns out it’s pretty damn hard to get comfortable at that elevation. I’d read a few dozen reports on this but didn’t really believe the Normies…I was totally wrong.

One of those peaks is Whitney

We started our ascent of Whitney the next morning at 4:45. The final summit of Whitney is a long series of switchbacks up the face, before dropping over a ridge, and summiting from the back.  Many reports complain about the switchbacks, perhaps tackling them in the dark helped, but again I didn’t find them too bad. Once we dropped over the ridge the path was more exposed and the sun was rising. I was fairly running to summit, giddy with the prospect of catching the sunrise. Whitney is surround by several peaks (given a picture of the range I still couldn’t identify Whitney properly), which create these pillars above the trail and excellent vantage points for the rising sun. I was in heaven, forgetting my vertigo and climbing between the pillars to catch the same sunrise a few dozen times.  Alas, we did not make it to the summit before the sun was fully up, but we still got to stand at the height of the lower 48! A pretty awesome experience.

The view of the mountains sitting behind Whitney is equally beautiful!

View from between the pillars looking out toward Trail Camp on the way to the summit

made it! 

The hike out was largely uneventful. I made E take most of my pack weight (FDK will recall the how brutal the Cascades were on my knees), so for me it wasn’t bad. Those last two miles I was about done with the trip and ready for a real bathroom and running water, but all told I was pleasantly surprised the trip didn’t prove to be the misery many trip reports promised.

We made it to the car and started the second half of our loop up to Yosemite. We drove through Bishop for a Dirty Hippie (Chai Latte with a shot of espresso) and some epic almond croissants from Schat’s, and then on to Lee Vining for a “fancy gas station” dinner of the best fish tacos I’ve ever had.

Sunset over Tenaya Lake before our quest to find a campground in Yosemite 

All told it was a lovely trip. I’ll apply for a permit in April if anyone cares to repeat this adventure next fall.

Visit the lovely North Cascades!

by fdk, purple bits by KD

Trip reports have many different functions-- instruction, entertainment, bragging, humble-bragging, even monetary gain (not likely around here!).  But this is an unusual trip report because it’s supposed to be a sales job, using my three week trip to the North Cascades to sell the whole area to my California crew.  BG doesn’t like it when I go out by myself, so I want to convince you, the assembled WCAC, that it is worth exploring some new territory, even though it requires flying! But here's the thing-- it really might be worth it. The North Cascades is big, wild range with deep forests, beautiful peaks, tons of glaciers, and almost no Californians! You've got to see it. But I should show, not tell. On to the trip report! (I can vouch that it IS worth it!)

AMTL1

For the first two weeks I was on a course with the American Alpine Institute, in part because I couldn't convince anyone else to take the month of August off of work to come play with me. The course covered glacier travel, basic trad climbing, and some other general mountain travel skillz, but I'll just give you the highlights.

We spent the first half of the course goofing off on Mt Baker, walking around on crampons like clumsy toddlers, throwing ourselves down snow slopes, trying to rescue backpacks out of a crevasse, pooping in bags, and finally summiting the mountain.

Cloud inversion below us from our base camp on Baker

The Baker-horn!  You can see the large glacier leading up to the summit crater.
We spent a lot of time on that glacier!

Sunset over the Twin Sisters, with Puget Sound visible in the distance.
The Twin Sisters are suppose to be very nice climbing. 

Me on the pile of rubble that forms the high point of the crater on top of Mt. Baker and is therefore considered the summit. Mt. Shuskan is just behind my left hand.

One of our guides, Wade Spiner, is also a professional photographer (http://www.wadespiner.com/), so I'm going to include a few of his awesome pictures because, well, this is a sales job!  Good material is really helpful. 

Baker Glacier, photo by Wade Spiner

Me, feeling stoked on summit day, photo by Wade

Sunrise on Summit day, photo by Wade Spiner, but seriously it really was this awesome!

I think I'm going to get a print of this one for the wall.

From the top of Mt Baker you can see a lot of land, and I got pretty excited about other places I want to visit. Just next to Baker is a group of peaks called the Twin Sisters that I really would love to check out (see above). You get good views of Glacier Peak (more on that one later), Mt Rainier, Mt Shuskan, and countless other peaks, including Sloan Peak, which will also show up again later in this story.

Summit photo by Wade.  You can see Glacier Peak, Mt. Rainier, and Sloan Peak, and a bunch of others. 

Then we drove out to the east side of the Cascades and spent a few days in Klipchuck campground near the lovely mini-hamlet of Mazama, WA, which has the magical Mazama store and a mighty fine swimming hole.  The climbing at Washington Pass was beautiful, and it seems like there are a ton of routes over there and a lot less rain than the rest of the Cascades. (What, rain?  Who said anything about rain?) Again, like the peaks from Mt. Baker, there is so much near here that I’d like to get to explore! Just a few that look very inviting: South Buttress of Cuthroat Peak, Wine Spires, and Silver Star Peak.   

Mazama Swimming Hole.  Thank goodness, it was HOT on the east side!

Climbing Liberty Bell

Summit pano, many peaks

The last part of the course might have been my favorite-- the “student-led objective.”  For our objective we climbed Sloan Peak, a peak of medium height but distinctive shape with an unmaintained swampy approach trail that does not see a lot of travel.  I was one of the people in charge of navigating the swamp and I more or less failed, and I walked into a hive of bees and was stung 8-10 times, mostly around my ankles, in the process.  Many other mishaps occurred while the lunatics were left in charge of the asylum, but in the end we had a really beautiful summit day and made it back down (almost) on time and without serious injury (I think).  

Traveling across the glacier

Sloan Peak from a distance-- it has quite an attractive summit

Cougar Creek Falls

Snow bridge's last day

Sloan Peak summit, Wade Spinner

Another Glacier Peak sunrise! photo: Wade Spiner

The WCAC in Glacier Peak Wilderness

When the course finished I got my scraped-up legs and swollen ankles into the car and drove directly to Everett, WA, where I met Natalie and Kelsey in a dingy Travelodge, and gratefully took a long shower, and tried to wash my clothes in the sink, which proved to be a bad idea.  After a truly beautiful bed-sleep we were ready to spend an hour plus sorting food and gear, and head back out again!  

The plan was a 4 day loop in the Glacier Peak Wilderness that would actually start off the same road that we used for the approach to Sloan Peak.  I had got the route out of a very good book called, I kid you not, Hiking from here to WOW!: North Cascades.

It very hot the first day of our hike, so we hung around town and killed time for a while, and hiked in towards the late afternoon.  We didn’t need to worry so much, because the beginning of the hike was through a deeply shaded forest of old growth trees, including old-growth cedars, which I had never seen before.  

Forests don't really photograph well.
It's something I respect about them.

The forest caught us in a spell, and we dubbed it the Fairy Forest, because we felt there must be fairies about!  There was even a forest squatty potty that was magically odor-free?

I swear it smelled only of loam.

While we were hiking in we saw a party of about 5 running out with ice axes and helmets strapped on their running backpacks, and when we asked they explained that they had gone up Glacier Peak that day.  This is a 30 mile round trip on the approach + actually getting up the mountain.  Seriously impressive feat-- if I had cards* I would have given them one and asked them to call me for their next outing, as if I could hang.  We stopped a bit earlier than planned on the first day because the campsite in the forest was so lovely.  While darkness closed in around us in the trees I began to get a taste of the fact that this would be a different sort of trip.

The next morning, after our enchanted rest, we had a serious slog up 3000 feet in 3 mile to reach the top of the ridge, where the views really started to open up as we approached White Pass.

Kels at White Pass

Monte Cristo Mountains

Working on our twinsies game on the way up to the pass,
with Sloan behind us.

 We needed to cover about 10 miles a day, which is a substantial distance but doesn’t take all day, so we go to do a lot of side trips, not all of which were good ideas! (They are worth it for everyone with competent knees!)  We ended up with about 10 miles a day with packs and another 5 miles without packs off galavanting.

A through hiker named Tunes took our picture on a quick side trip to Red Pass.
I wonder if he made it to California...

Stopping to smell the flowers

The chances to explore off the path and forage really typified the slow joys of backpacking without a tight schedule, which I had kind of forgotten.   

Wild blueberries in my oatmeal make me a happy little troll.

Approaching Very Very Blue Lake

In the evening the weather started to change, and we hunkered down amid wind and spitting rain.  What the hell is this “weather” that they have in Washington?  But we did get to perfect the art of cooking in a backpacking tent! After getting a late start (late by C and G standards) in the morning we climbed an un-named knob instead of Kodak Peak, due to a little directional confusion, but we named it Fenalsey Peak, a nomination that is pending before the USGS.  After some scrambling up and over a ridge on an unmaintained trail we dropped down to beautiful Blue Lake.  This name is such an understatement-- it should at least be called Very Very Blue Lake!!  

Marmot sentry above Very Very Blue Lake

 We lingered all afternoon on its shores, encouraging the sun to come out from behind the clouds and admiring the perfectly clear water.

Our campsite on the shore

Sunset over the Monte Carlos

On the last day we had to get going early because Kelsey had a flight to catch.  I didn’t mind getting up because I was freezing my ass off in my sleeping bag-- I had foolishly brought my summer weight bag, but we had frost overnight, and I was not prepared for it!  Again with the weather, North Cascades!  We had a beautiful sunrise start, and some awesome views of Sloan Peak, Mount Rainier, and Glacier Peak on our way out.  The views of Glacier really made me want to go climb it!  So, stay tuned for that trip announcement, perhaps next summer.

Sloan Peak, again, with a nice view of the glacier

Oh, and Mt. Rainier

Dr. Suess flower

Glacier Peak looms over it all!

Backpacking with Nat and Kelsey was such a lovely trip, and reminded me that there’s space for a lot of different ways to enjoy being outside with your friends, and they each have their upsides. But here’s a pro tip you can count on: regardless of where and when you find yourself sleeping out, try to bring a warm enough sleeping bag-- you’ll be a lot happier.

* Thanks to Kelsey I now have cards! HBD Felice :)

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