A combo hike to reach the most inaccesible mine of Iron mountain

17 miles, 9000 ft gain

Click on balloons for geo-tagged photos

Click for more stats & gps files

On a trip back to LA with a Saturday free, what to do? Or should I say, what hike to do?

This was a hike for settling unfinished business. Never doing the challenging part of San Antonio ridge (Gunsight Notch), and failing to reach the Gold Dollar mine in my last attempt (that at least ended up reaching Eagle mine). So let’s get’em both, and why not add Iron mt summit to top it off? Sounds like a big day? It was.

Fortunately I was able to get a small group of extremely strong hikers (Steve, Fern, & Frank) to come along. We headed off from the East Fork parking lot at about 5:30 am and started a brisk ascent that got us to Allison / Coldwater saddle less than 90 min later. From there, we took the old Coldwater trail down (which I had done twice before) which is decently brushed over and becoming a little more washed out. At one point Steve managed to slip off the trail into the brush so quickly that is just looked like he vanished!

Down in the canyon, we headed up Dry Gulch to the Widco / Baldora mine ruins, which I’ve documented twice previously. Fern climbed on top of the stamp mill and showed that the ball bearings were in surprisingly good shape!

Now, like the route to reach Eagle mine, we began heading up the west side of Gold Dollar ridge. This time I seemed to find and follow the faint old use trail and kept switching back across the slight ridge spur we were on. Eventually I lost it, but just headed straight up. This was quite steep and exhausting. The 2 steps up, 1 step down sort of ascent.

(Gunsight Notch from below Gold Dollar ridge)

With a strong group, we made it up to the ridge in good time. Now for the tricky part that I messed up last time. The mine resides on the west side a few hundred feet below the ridge top. To get there, you have to follow an old trail that veers off the ridge, generally maintaining the same elevation. If you pass it up, you’ll run into some cliffed out sections.

I was able to find and track the old trail this time, and we were making good progress, until we came across some rock fields just before the cliffy rock. There was no sign of a trail here; we just went with a ‘best option’ to navigate around the rock and made it to the other side without too much effort. Steve did almost through a huge rock onto my head, but luckily I had moved and thwarted his attempts.

A few minutes more of traversing, and voila, ruins! A whole bunch of them. Lots of terraces, concrete foundations, stoves, cables, hoes, clippers. we hung out and played around a bit, before starting back up to the ridge. We followed a cable that still attached to trees at both ends at least a few hundred vertical feet apart!

We continued straight up the ridge to the high point and terminus along San Antonio ridge. This was a lot of work, and basically the halfway point. But still we had to deal with Gunsight Notch and reaching Iron mountain.

After a food break, we continued on west. Just before reaching the notch, we noticed a group climbing up it as well as another hiker relaxing near us. Turns out it was Dagmar, who we knew and has hiked with us before. She was with a Sierra club group (led by the Doggetts) who were doing an out and back from Baldy (she wasn’t feeling up to the notch part).

As others have noted, the notch looks more intimidating that it actually is. For my route, there was one move in which I was glad the rock didn’t break (and trust me I tested it out first!), but the rest was moderate and fun. Maybe there was more crumbly rock in the past which has been removed by the increasing use?

We eventually caught up with the Sierra Club group and followed them up to the summit. As usual, the views were great as Iron probably offers the best 360 in the San Gabriels. We hung out for a a while. At some point I noticed movement maybe 200 m away on the ridge that I didn’t see again. Just as we were getting ready to leave 15 min later, we see 3 hikers heading up the final slope – turns out to be Rick Kent, Rick Graham, and GigaMike. They were an out and back from Baldy Village. Gee, I guess Rick’s ankle has healed up well!

The next 2 hours were full of classic Iron – leg-pounding steep descents. I slipped a bit at one point and my hand landed right on some buckthorn, piercing my fingertips’ flesh in 4 spots. That’s Iron for you.

Past Allison/Coldwater saddle along the osciallating ridge, we encountered some infestation of bees on the trail. They were just hovering, hanging out. Didn’t seem like they were in a hurry to move. Then we heard some high pitched chirps. What was it? The bees flew away. We hike a few more minutes, and run into a whole slew of folk including Tina and Frank (asbufra), who kindly waited 1/2 hour for us. We all suffered throug the last 2 miles which seemed to be killing my feet. I guess this sort of 9000 ft cross-country hike can get to you!

I was grateful to hear the East Fork water and see the fire road. Another time I can’t believe I have hiked this trail. Will it be the last? Probably not, but I’m sure it will probably be a while.

Even still, there’s always more exploration, even in this specific area. Of course there’s the north ridge. More interesting would be to attempt a Big Horn ridge ascent following the original trail out of Coldwater Canyon. It’s not looking like I’ll get to that.

So someone, please go do it!

More steep sections than Iron Mt. Imagine the fun!

10.5 miles, 5200 ft gain

Click on balloons for geo-tagged photos

Click for more stats & gps files

Since I’ll be moving up to the Bay Area soon, this was my last time organizing a hike in SoCal (at least for a while). I wanted to do something new that had a few of the special characteristics of the San Gabriels – steep and exposed. Pigeon ridge certainly delivered that!

20 people showed up for this little trek. We parked just off the 39 at the beginning of the fire road and headed up.

After ~ 1 mile near Chamisal Mesa, the road turns east, and we hopped off onto a use trail that quickly becomes a wide and clear firebreak up Pigeon Ridge.

This ridge offers a great workout – a combination of very steep sections with some flat sections to get a bit of a break. Even with the flat sections, Pigeon ridge gives 4000 ft of ascent in ~3.4 miles.

This is a very easy route to navigate. Once you intersect the S Hawkins – Rattlesnake ridge, turn left (north) and keep up the ridge to the summit.

Snowball FAIL

We quickly left our anti-rock shelter and made our way up a safer turnoff towards Thunder mountain.  We hiked up about a quarter mile and found a chute which looked decent enough. So upwards we went.

The chute itself was a lot like the Baldy Bowl. The snow was soft and at times we had to posthole on up. But for the most part, it was uneventful. Which is good. I even had that moment you get when surrounded by nature. Which totally made waking up at 5:30 worth it.

We gained the ridge and headed up to Thunder mountain where we got to see some brightly dressed skiers and snowboarders. We took a short break up here and planned out the route some more.

Telegraph Peak was the next destination. From Thunder it didn’t look too bad. But as we descended to the saddle, it turned out to be decievingly deceptive.

After much planning and consideration. We decided against taking the NW route in favor of exploring the NE face. This is the steeper route, and more technical.

An avalanche was probably the greatest risk today. The top layer of snow was pretty soft and fractured in good sized chunks as we traversed. So we set up a system of crossing on at a time and keeping eyes on each other and for falling rocks.

The traverse for me was a bit more difficult. Tim had broken the trail across, but with me weighing in at about 215 pounds including the pack, I would just sink in further. This was pretty tiring. By the time I met up with Tim at the base of our target, I was wiped.

Five minutes and a few sips of Gatorade later, we started up. The snow was the same as the first chute. Tim and I took turns breaking trail and implemented our “rock watch” leap frogging system.

As we climbed up, the slope just got more and more steep. Which was to be expected when we looked at the route from the bottom. But as always, the route looks scarier from the bottom. But it’s the scariest once you’re up there.

During our initial assessment from the base, we knew the last 100′ would be steep. But when we got to the transition from steep to steeper, we were right.

At this point, the chute we went up started getting icy and really steep. I really had to kick in to break the ice and swing the axe like real weapon to get some a grip. On the plus side, there was a nice tree that I could grab on to and grip.

After what seemed like endless climbing, we finall made it to the top. The view from there was one of the best I have yet. It was quite amazing!

3000 x 389px (1mb)

The next objective was Timber. This would be the third peak and about another 600-700′ of gain. We looked down one of the canyons and decided to cut the route short. Looking back, this was probably more tiring than a climb up to Timber would have been. Lesson for the future, don’t cross country over snow covering rocks. It was punch through central.

After 11 hours, we finally made it back to the parking lot at Icehouse Canyon. Objective complete.

Here’s a great video that Tim put together that summarizes the day.

Mountaineerin Manker Flats to Icehouse Canyon – Extreme Edition

Lastly, do not try this route unless you have experience and are with someone who is trained. Chances are, I would have frozen or gotten stuck at some point.

With headlamps on, we started at around 6am from Manker Flat parking area. Parts of the road leading to San Antonio Falls were covered with ice. So some caution was needed until we got to the rockier portions after the hairpin going away from the falls.

At the register, we shed some layers, ditched our headlamps, and carried on. The snow coverage on the trail itself was mixed until about a half mile in. Then it covered everything. There wasn’t any ice, and the snow was already a little slushy. So crampons weren’t needed. Just a little extra caution.

Charging up to the Ski Hut, we med up with the group from the San Gabriel Mountains Discussion Forum group who were holding an informal training clinic. We hung around for about an hour here meeting others and just waiting around for the last group members to get up to the Ski Hut. Unfortunately though, the group started up past our cutoff time of 9am. So Tim and I decided to leave the group and do our own thing. First off, we should his friend how to self-arrest. This was made difficult with the warm sun softening the snow a lot.

After about a half hour of this, we started our climb up the center. I’m not sure on the names of the chutes, I’m going to have to find those out later. But our goal was to head right up the center chute (where the rock formation comes to a saddle in this picture).

We were making some pretty good time up it too. Tim did a good job creating the path for us to follow. After about 40 minutes, we were three quarters or so up the Bowl. This is where Tim wanted to change course and start another approach up a different chute. I decided to stick to the original route, while Tim broke left and went about his approach.

Truong and I went up the intended chute. In the chute, the snow was just powder. I was pretty much post-holing mid-calf or up to my knee with each step. This got pretty tiring. On top of that, the snow was doing a good job of balling up on my crampons. This was extremely tiring and annoying. But at least at this steep portion, I wasn’t worried about a painful slide down the mountain if I messed up.

Finally at the top of the chute, it was pretty gusty. We Baldy looked like a chimney with the way the snow was coming off of it. Baldy itself looked pretty miserable too.

We were done for the day. No summit today. Been there, done that. Instead, we traversed the lip and started the glissade down.

Second half of the glissade:

The weather today was a cold. High cold winds at the peak, along with some winds in the shade really brought the temperatures down. Note to self, find a better moisture wicking shirt or pack so that sweat doesn’t build up on the back. Especially annoying during breaks when the sweat gets all cold.

Mt. Wilson via Mt. Wilson Trail

We had start later than normal for this hike (9:30am). So we didn’t really spend too much time at the top to relax or look around. But lunch break was enough to quickly re-energize ourselves for the trek down. We also jogged a portion of the ridge from Hastings to the connector near Jones Peak. This saved us some time. By the time we got down, the sun had already set and it was dark (~5pm). A great clear day for a hike!

The trail itself was somewhat damaged due to the rains. Some slides had ended up on the trail from the trailhead to First Water. But those were easily negotiated.

Finally, here’s the view towards Baldy. I can’t wait to finally get out there in the snow. Hopefully Sunday if weather permits.

Much like last season, we started this one off after a big storm. This also worked out since Tim and I had Thursday off. During the holidays, the tram follows weekend hours. So we were able to head up on the first tram at 8am.

Here’s the track:

12-23-10 San Jacinto Snow Shoe at EveryTrail

Total mileage was 6 miles. But being one of the first out there, we had to partially break new trail. So the three mile journey to the peak took us about 5 hours. Of course we did go the longer route to get there because we took a wrong left turn and followed a not so broken trail. Two skiers and a snowboarder passed us up to break some trail. But even then, it wasn’t enough.

But over the course of those 5 hours, I kept thinking about how to make a next excursion easier.

1. 1. Hiking poles with snow baskets – I’ve become a believer of using poles after this hike. I always disliked using hiking poles since my experience using them on Iron mtn. But I had brought along two just in case. Initially I was just using one. But being a little top heavy, my balance was thrown off so I started using two. This definitely helped with balance. As the day moved on, I started developing a technique which definitely saved my legs and quickened my pace.
2. 2. Gu Gel – I primarily use these packs during my bike rides for a boost of energy. I used these once before on Baldy but didn’t really feel anything. However, on San Jacinto, once I got into a good rhyme, I had the energy to motor on. That is of course until those calories were burned. But then I popped another pack and was back.
3. 3. Hydration – I had packed a 4 liters of Gatorade which was more than enough for this trip. I was making sure to sip often and drink up after every big push. For next time, my fluid rules are 1 liter for every 2 miles.
4. 4. Lighter waterproof gloves – I used ski gloves the whole time, and the whole time, my hands were warm but wet. They didn’t breath and just trapped all the sweat. This meant that every time I would take off my gloves, my hands would get cold real quick. I would have preferred to go with bare hands, but the steeper and fresher the snow, the more likely the hand is going to end up in it. Better to have warm wet hands than cold numb ones.
5. 5. Waterproof sack – Something cheap and lightweight. This is for when you’re tired and just want to sit without worrying about having your pants absorb what you just melted.

That’s all for now. I think I thought of some more tips, but I forgot.

10 miles, 3200 ft gain

Click on balloons for geo-tagged photos
Click for more stats & gps files

3 miles, 1100 ft gain

Click on balloons for geo-tagged photos
Click for more stats & gps files

15 miles, 5000 ft gain

Click on balloons for geo-tagged photos
Click for more stats & gps files

Ze,

when did you start? camp out on Twin peaks?

Your 4:30 am start had impeccable logic on its side, but my night-owl hours didn’t give me much time for sleep on that schedule; so I started later than I wanted to, getting to the trailhead at around 7 on Friday morning. East Twin makes a good warm-up, and then you get a great view of that masochists dream: a twisted mass of rock and trees and manzanitas that is the ridge to Triplet Rocks. But no, I didn’t start on Twin, since I wanted to do the full hike as a dayhike.

how hard was it to travel down the ridge? see some parts of a faint “use trail”? Where did you make it down to? I’m curious if you made it to the 20′ downclimb, or 6834′ or past that even.

I did find an occasional “path,” but I couldn’t tell if it was human or animal, being very faint. It was always a welcome sight for me though; a little touch of civilization (perhaps) in this lonely area. Definitely a workout, this one, with the route-finding very devious at times! At one point I was on a steep slope embedded with stones, carefully working my way across, when a big 50-pound stone came loose and crashed…crashed…crashed…down the slopes. It seemed to keep falling forever, pulling down scores of stones and boulders with it. I suddenly felt very alone out there. These abundant steep slopes and loose rock are what make this route potentially dangerous. All in all, though, I seemed to be grinding things out at a good pace…until I hit that gully!

Brief aside: For navigation I had a compass, a map of the Triplet Rock area (from Bruman’s 106 Tops), the Tom Harrison San Gabriel map, and Erik Siering’s trip report. I had meant to copy your report but forgot to do that in rushing out on Thursday night; the gully pic would have been very helpful. Unfortunately, at some point — most likely crawling through the manzanita — I lost the Bruman map and Siering report. (Reports listed my having become lost after losing my map, but I had the two maps.)

It’s at the gully that your pics would have particularly come in handy, and I ended up wasting time checking for the best way down. I settled on a large gully and had to crawl through an ugly batch of manzanita to get to it, then down the seemingly endless gully itself.

It never was easy, and after getting to areas that looked easier to navigate from above, it turned out they were still laced with plenty of dead ends and backtracking; but I finally got to a rock wall, with some class 3 moves, onto a little plateau, and…could it be? Was that Triplet Rocks right there? Or would some other obstacle be thrown down? But no, I made it! Sweet! It was 1:30 pm. (The Triplet Rocks “summit” area is a very cool place, indeed.)

Since your register entry, seven more people have done it — kidding! Of course, there’s only three entries in the register now. I wonder what happened to the first register, and how many names would be in that one? I used a third page to sign in — a one page-per-summit group trend, which doesn’t seem an inefficient use of space for this particular summit’s register! Ze, you must have a strong grip, because I had a little trouble opening that damn register can.

Was there snow on the ridge, or down on the north east side? Stopped because too icy, or ran out of water, or couldn’t see, or all?

The weather was great on Friday. So no snow issues or such…on that day.

In heading back to Twin, I realized that I should have made better mental notes of where I had come from — my main navigational mistake on this hike. The ridge down to Triplet looked so obvious that I forgot the hiker’s cardinal rule of looking back occasionally. Perhaps Triplet Rocks hypnotized me into keeping my greedy gaze on her? At any rate, I’m sure I would have made it back to the trailhead that day, as my energy was going strong. I should have used this trip as an excuse to pick up a GPS, since marking waypoints would have made the return much easier, especially with what happened on the second day.

But no: I ended up wasting a lot of time scrambling up what turned out to be the wrong gully — which had a scary 20-foot steep wall of class 3 dirt with embedded rocks near the top: a tedious and nerve-wracking affair of testing holds, then standing up, then testing, then standing. (Is loose class 3 actually class 4?) But I could see that I was near the top…and pulled over and found myself amid a mass of fifth-class steep granite. This ain’t right! I wasted time making a long traverse along the walls to the top of the ridge and “trail.” I continued on, but my late start and time-wasting had brought the hour late; so it looked like I was going to need to spend the night on the mountain, roughly half-way back. So much for day-hiking it, but it was still a great adventure.

it seems that Scott got on the north side of the ridge, where there is a lot of crazy looking rock

You stay in the same location for 3 nights? You decided since little water, to stay put?

An early start and a grueling day lead to a quick and deep sleep no matter where you are — even the Triplet ridge being no exception — so I slept soundly among some thickets on a ridge for a few hours. But around midnight I noticed that the stars were smothered by fog — uh oh — and an hour or so later it started raining and snowing. I was cold — though not excessively so — but I was mainly worried about having to climb on slick rock in the morning or throughout the day.

The night was long, but finally the sun rose up, and — glory be! — there was beautiful clear blue sky above. Excellent! There were masses of that distinctive San Gabriel fog floating and rising up in the atmosphere: this was looking to be a good day. But the fog never lifted that high, and I found myself in white out conditions for the entire day! Navigating with my compass was out — again, a GPS would have been great here — so that was that. I stayed there that whole second day in a white out. (By the way, I found a rusted file on this ridge?!)

I had brought about 2.5 liters of water, but was down to about 2 inches worth now. I gathered some snow, but it was actually sparse. My biggest mistake of the trip was not filling my empty bottles with rain water while it was raining. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I just wasn’t thinking about that as I was trying to protect myself from the rain and get some sleep. But a lack of water would be the crux of the trip for me; it was the constant of my decision-making equations.

So I settled in for a second night on the mountain. The weather cleared in the morning and it was a beautiful day. This was my third day on the mountain, mind you, and so I knew a search would be on the way — I was two days overdue. Should I just start hiking out? I felt fine, but the territory didn’t quite look familiar and I was a little disoriented as to the route at this point: the rocks were too steep from what I remember doing.
If a rescue is on it’s way anyway’s, then I may as well wait, and play it safe, right? That’s the smart thing to do. Plus I’m on a prominent ridge, easy to see. So I waited…and waited…and waited. Hmm. This doesn’t seem right. What’s going on? Are they out at the wrong area? Does an S&R occur after a lag of an extra day? Did my mother forget? (Subconscious revenge for that broken vase in childhood.)

No; here’s what happened: I always go hiking on either a Friday or Saturday, but this time I left on a Thursday night. (Maybe for the first time ever?) My mother accidentally turned this into my leaving for the trail on Friday evening (which see all news reports). In her mind then, I was hiking on Saturday, and should be home no later than Sunday. The search was called in on “late” Sunday (early morning Monday). But the detective checked my phone records and found I had made a call to my mother on Thursday at 11:30 pm (or whatever the exact time had been), and no calls on any of the following days, so “things weren’t adding up” that I left on Friday. But my mother insisted it was Friday. “Are you sure?” She was positive. The detective eventually asked for permission to check my mother’s phone for my call — which would have shown that the detective was correct — but just then I was reported as found, so it was now a moot point. It’s probably all for the best, because a mother learning that her child is actually four days missing in treacherous territory would have really upped the emotional anguish. By the way, Ze, my family used your trip report to learn about the area I was in: probably not the most reassuring thing in the world, but very informative for them; they got a strong, objective feel for the route.

I wasn’t aware of any of this, of course, so I was a little worried now, not knowing if I should stay put — with only a little water now — or go for it — which might get me into some sort of trouble. As the day got later, I decided to explore down the rock, and ended up doing steep moves (again!) and a descent down a rough gully to what looked like a good flat section, but — that damn Triplet ridge — turned out to be terrible loose rock, way steeper than it looked. This ain’t right! I found a flat open area in the gully, and decided to wait there. The ridge was better for the copters to see me, so maybe I should have stayed there! But between having come down, then starting to go back up, I was losing water through sweating and needing to drink. Not good. Conserve that water!

It became too late to try to start hiking as it was too late in the day on completely unfamiliar — and obviously not what I had hiked up on — territory. Things were tightening up for me: low on water (I could only wet the tip of my tongue now); in unfamiliar territory; not knowing if a rescue was on the way. Should I stay or should I go? Thinking, thinking. If I waited another day, and no rescue came then as well, then I would be screwed with practically no water for three days straight — and a hard hike out on a fifth day on the mountain. Okay, then: I’m going to go for it tomorrow. I kept myself occupied by setting up camp and studying the map for my exact whereabouts. I decided on a firm plan and actually went to sleep with confidence, and the satisfaction of a put-off decision finally made. In the middle of the night I woke up with a particularly dry mouth, and that put a little worry in me, but a little sliver of a strawberry Powerbar whose tanginess stimulated some saliva, settled me into a decent enough sleep for the fourth (and thankfully final) day on the mountain.

Where did they pick you up? SAR hike down to you, then got a chopper in? Dropped you off where, near Wrightwood? Many reporters there, or just that one chick?

At the crack of dawn of the fourth day, I packed everything up and started on my designated route. Immediately, things got ugly, as a gully that looked straightforward turned out to be very steep and loose. More tedious testing of embedded stones in dirt. Without getting into all the details, this area was shot through with steep gullies that were all hassles of steepness and looseness. At one point I was doing more 3rd class climbing up a gully and could see ominous steep castle-like rocks around me that were most probably impassable without gear. But straight up looked like a possible path? Another Triplet dead-end? I wasn’t in a position to backtrack too much now. I felt good amazingly enough — but I had been essentially resting for two days before — but I needed to keep a slower pace to keep from breathing too hard. The mental side was the tougher really, because one could see bands of way-steep rock, and I had to keep my fingers crossed that all the energy I had used would be rewarded with a do-able path. Finally, I made it too a relatively flat section amid pines — sweet! — and seemed to be on the verge of rounding the mountain. I was deep in the pines, when I started hearing the copters, so I knew a rescue was on, but my waving and such as they came close was to no avail, understandably. My signal mirror was useless in the shade and tree cover. My only thoughts were to enjoy that spring that you pass on the hike to Twin Peaks; I’m going to get there if it’s the last thing I do!

A gully we went down our first attempt. Probably not the same gully Scott is talking about, but maybe gives an idea of the terrain

I rounded the mountain and seemed to be contouring at a point that would take me right to the flat spot at the base of Twin Peaks — excellent! — but even at this distance Triplet Rocks exerted it’s influence and blocked my path with a gully too steep to cross this time. Will this never end? After all this effort. Looking down, things looked too steep…but maybe not. Looking up…couldn’t tell. Down or up? I reasoned: if I hike down and it’s too steep, I’ll have to recover that extra distance; but if I hike up, and it gets steep, I can slide down. Up it was, toward the blue sky; plus the helicopters could see me on the ridge. Steep but not bad. But then big granite blocks started appearing. Uh oh. Hopefully I wouldn’t hit a wall. But finally the mountain relented, and I found myself at the first saddle you reach after descending from East Twin. Just then I dimly heard voices, and so I called out. A quick squawk of radio, a man’s voice asked my name. I told him, another squawk of the radio, and he let out a whoop.

They asked me how I was, and I told them that I felt totally fine, but wouldn’t mind some water! Three people came down, and they even remarked on how steep that section was, which of course is but a morsel of the ridge’s true colors. They said a helicopter was coming, and I told him I didn’t need one, I felt fine, but he mentioned that it was coming to get them anyways. ( Weird hiker mentality: I actually wanted to finish the hike.) A very cool group of people, doing outstanding work.

This is my stupid ego, but I feel somewhat robbed by the news accounts regarding the fact that the “missing hiker was airlifted out,” which gives an impression that I was plucked from the jaws of death, lying helpless on the ridge. I had just done miles of horrible gully-scrambling; steep climbing, slippery slopes, pretty much back to Twin East and easier trail; but being airlifted out, suddenly makes it seem like I was doomed without the rescue. And I didn’t get a chance to sip from that beautiful spring! Alas, that will be worth a trip in itself, as a fitting toast to the challenge of Triplet Rocks!

Coda: So I emerge out of the helicopter, there’s an emergency vehicle with flashing lights, a group of police, a news camera and reporter waiting to interview me. (Just the one.) I do the interview, answer questions about the basic events, and then get a lift to my truck. No more than twenty minutes after being surrounded by all the glitz and glamour, I’m standing alone at my truck, packing gear in the truck like nothing happened. Surreal. (My family wasn’t there because they were told that I was being airlifted to a hospital, so they were gathered there.) It was a gorgeous day — and I joked with the sheriff that I felt good enough to do another hike right now. (Of course, two of those days were mainly standing around, so I had some good recovery in there.) I headed down the mountain, where I saw a guy waving his hands at Islip Saddle: his battery was dead. Little did he know the celebrity who helped him jump his battery!