This year was quite busy for me on a personal level, but I still managed to get up to lots of shenanigans in the mountains. So, kind of like how Spotify Wrapped summarizes your music tastes, here’s what I’ll remember from this year in the mountains.

Winter/Spring

I started the year as a second-semester senior in high school, which means college apps are done and classes don’t matter. It was a little busier than I imagined, but I’m still very pleased with how much mountain time I got in.

Jobs Peak

I always like to spend at least one day in the winter climbing a Tahoe OGUL Peak and this year it was Jobs Peak. I went with my dad which meant our paces were very different and the 17-mile day ended up taking 11 hours, but it was still a really fun time. Once I get much better at skiing, I’d like to replace snowshoeing with skiing, but unfortunately, that’s a few years off, at the very least.

Diablo Range Night Hikes – 1,2,3

The Diablo Range is far and away my favorite local range, but unfortunately many of the most interesting peaks are on private property. This has led to the practice of night-hiking them during full moons, so one can hike around without needing a headlamp. I fully acknowledge the dubious ethics of hikes like this, but nonetheless, I really enjoy traipsing around these mountains at night. It’s a whole different experience than daytime; your senses are heightened, every noise is potentially cause for concern, and you feel incredibly connected to nature. Coupled with the fact that many of these private property peaks don’t have established routes or trails and you get a very “primal” experience.

I was lucky enough to go on three of these hikes this year, each one to some very interesting landscapes. On the first, I got what I believe is a probable first ascent of Rutan Rock after an extremely chossy class 4 scramble right before the rain unleashed on us. On the second, I climbed two peaks, Black Mountain and Mount Day, towering above the South Bay that I have wanted to climb for some years now. And on the last, I tagged along with a friend to climb some peaks for a list he is working on which kept me out until 5 am on my birthday, but it was oh-so-worth it.

Now that I’m in San Diego during the spring, I doubt I’ll do many of these for a few years, but I’m looking forward to the next chance I get.

Rabbit Peak Traverse

For Spring Break, I went down to visit my grandmother in Palm Springs. This was my first visit down there as someone interested in getting off the beaten path, so there were lots to explore. I spent most of the week doing shorter peaks near her condo, but on the last day, I went down to the Santa Rosa Mountains to climb Rabbit Peak. By itself, it’s around 22 miles and 8000 vert, but it gets hyped up like it’s Everest or something. I got super psyched out and was pretty nervous going into it, but it ended up being quite easy and I had plenty of energy to traverse to several other peaks to make it a 27-mile, 10.5 vert day. Though I eclipsed it several times later in the year, that was my biggest day ever and I was shocked at how good I felt. I was barely sore afterward and the entire day felt cruiser. This definitely broke down a sort of mental barrier for me and allowed me to tackle bigger days later in the year.

As for the Santa Rosas, though, I loved the variety of the terrain; I got cactus, pine trees, snow, and palm trees all in the span of 13 hours. I’ve got some ideas about other traverses in this range, so I imagine I’ll be back soon!

Ventana Double Cone in a Day

Above the Big Sur coastline lie the Santa Lucia Mountains. Hoards of tourists flock to Big Sur every year, but very few take the time to brave the dense brush and harsh conditions of the Santa Lucias. Ventana Double Cone is a sort of mythical summit in the range, 15 miles from the nearest trailhead. At one time a good trail ran to the top to service a fire lookout, but it has since fallen into severe disrepair and made access very difficult. To make matters worse, the Forest Service has stopped maintaining trails in the Northern Ventana Wilderness, so a small band of vigilantes and “Ventanaphiles” have taken it upon themselves to keep access alive.

While I was in the desert, I had to decline an invite for a 3-day backpacking trip to this peak, but when they reported that trail conditions were as good as they had been in the last 20 years, one thing led to another and I ended up day hiking the peak (along with nearby Uncle Sam Mountain) with Mike Toffey. It was a pretty surreal day since I honestly had resigned myself to never summitting this peak. Trail conditions did end up being quite good, though I would imagine they have already deteriorated given how fast the brush grows back.

And 2 weeks after my biggest day ever, I wound up eclipsing it with this hike coming in at 34 miles and 9000 vert. Again, I wasn’t sore after this day either which gave me lots of confidence for the summer.

Summer

Because I was going from the semester system to the quarter system, I had an extended summer break of about 4 months. But while winter/spring was quite productive, I was honestly a little disappointed with how little I did during the summer. I missed about 1.5 months of time in the Sierra and lots of fitness between a Fiji trip and a bout with COVID. But even when I was back, sort of like Klay’s mental block coming back from back-to-back leg injuries (ok not at all like Klay), I got into a bad headspace that kept me from truly getting after it as much as I would have liked. Excuses and negativity aside, I still made lots of fun memories and got up 17 new SPS peaks during the summer.

Half Dome

I always like to start off the summer with a road trip, but this year was my first time going out without my dad. It was a little scary to be living out of my car, alone, for 2 weeks, but I think I learned a lot about myself and I’m glad I stuck it out.

The first peak of the trip was Half Dome with Zee, my friend from the Sierra Challenge. He got the permits in the annual lottery and was kind enough to invite me along. Because we were going on Memorial Day and expected huge crowds, we started at 2 am to get up the cables before it was busy. Our plan worked perfectly and we had the top to ourselves for an amazing sunrise. I can easily see how huge crowds and hot temps can take away this peak’s appeal, but I had a really fun time.

Vogelsang to Parsons Traverse

The next day I set out solo to complete a traverse of some peaks in Yosemite High Country. At the start, I was cold (20-degree temps), alone (Zee had gone home), and scared (because I had no idea if the route I wanted would go). I also didn’t know what early-season snow conditions would look like at 12,000 feet, but I stuck it out and was rewarded with an absolute stunner of a day, being the first person to climb all these peaks in 2022.

It was a blast to bust out the ice axe and crampons to climb up Vogelsang and link together some bomber glissades throughout the day. It ended up being a beefy 25-mile day and between the early season snow climbing, scrambling, and route-finding, I felt like a real mountaineer.

BEAR ATTACK (and Kearsarge Peak)

Normally this peak wouldn’t have made the cut as something to feature, but the circumstances of how I came to climb Kearsarge Peak are rather amusing and worth writing down. I was at Whitney Portal to attempt an ambitious traverse, but I was awoken at 2 am to a bear dragging my pack out of the bear box and away into the night. I got into a standoff with the bear (who was far too comfortable with humans) and eventually got him to leave after shouting and throwing rocks at him. But as he retreated, he took my pack with him. I had left my wallet in there so I didn’t forget it in the morning, but now I had no money or driver’s license. After searching to no avail in the dark, I went back to sleep and when it opened, found the owner of the Whitney Portal Store to search with. He knew where the bears usually dragged stuff, and we found my pack in a few minutes. It had a big rip in the side and all the food was eaten, but my wallet was intact.

By the time I got all my gear back, it was nearly 9 am and there was no time to do my planned traverse, so I went over and climbed Kearsarge Peak, Dragon Jaw Peak, and Sardine Peak. It was kind of mundane, but I’m glad I still got a peak for the day.

Kern Peak

This was mostly a long trail hike with Sean Casserly, but it was memorable for just being a really pretty and cruiser day in the mountains. I enjoyed the views and strolling through the amazingly green Southern Sierra meadows. We also free-soloed Indianhead by a really fun 5.4 route on the NE corner that we had no prior beta on. This chill 27-mile day solidified my newfound ability to regularly do >25 miles without any problems.

Mount Irvine, Mount Mallory, Mount Le C onte, and Corcoran Peak

This was the last climb I did on my beginning-of-summer road trip and it turned out to be one of my favorites of the whole summer. Sean C and I did a point-to-point from Meysan Lakes to Tuttle Creek while traversing over four 13ers in the middle. It’s probably the most adventurous and gutsy day I’ve done, especially since I just concocted the route on Caltopo and didn’t know of any prior ascents. It included several pitches of class 4, an incredibly convoluted traverse between LeConte and Corcoran, and an 8000-foot descent down the trailless Tuttle Creek Canyon. I won’t even attempt to summarize the day (it has its own post here) and just leave some pictures here.

Peeler Lake Backpacking

To cap off my road trip, I took my best friend from high school on his first backpacking trip. There were no peaks and the route was entirely trail, but it was pretty awesome to show somebody the High Sierra that I love so much.

Red Slate Mountain, Mount Izaak Walton, and Red & White Mountain

After such a good start to the summer, it was, unfortunately, another 1.5 months before I got back into the High Sierra. My fitness had taken a big hit from getting COVID, so this was supposed to be a chill, one-night backpacking trip to climb Mount Izaak Walton and ease back into things. But as I probably should know by now, I have a difficult time chilling. So, when I ran into Travis Soares during his SPS FKT, he was easily able to convince me to ditch my overnight plans and climb these 3 peaks with him.

It was pretty cool to witness a little slice of Sierra Nevada mountaineering history and I really enjoyed the company of Travis. That’s not even to mention the peaks we climbed which were super fun in their own right! Though, I was sore for a few days afterward since I did not expect to be doing 28 miles and nearly 10k of vert with a 30lb pack for much of it.

Whorl Mountain

This was a quick trip from where my family’s cabin in Truckee, where I spent July. I had been to the Horse Creek drainage once before while climbing Matterhorn Peak, so I knew how pretty it was and I had been excited to go back ever since. It ended up being a spectacular day with a cool chockstone the size of a car that I had to crawl underneath in order to reach the summit.

Sierra Challenge

This was the 2nd year (out of 4 total) that I participated in the full Sierra Challenge and it ended up being the mountain-related highlight of my year. The comradery that comes from suffering up the same obscure peak as everyone else for 10 days straight is truly unmatched. I unfortunately suffered an ankle injury on day 3 that kept me from making a run at the yellow jersey, but I had an amazing time nonetheless and managed to climb 9/10 peaks. I need to make a whole post dedicated to just the Sierra Challenge, but for now, I’ll just post one picture from each day and links to the tracks.

Tenaya Canyon

A few weeks after the challenge, my buddy Dylan, who I spent much of the challenge with, invited me to do some canyoneering with a descent down Tenaya Canyon. It runs from Tenaya Lake in the Yosemite High Country all the way down Yosemite Valley. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it ended up being one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. We got to rappel down a waterfall into a pool of water that we had to swim across, WTF??? It was amazing to find so much solitude and adventure right next to the zoo of tourists that is Yosemite Valley.

A descent is not to be taken lightly, though, as we went past another party that was in the middle of a rescue after somebody had gotten off route and fallen over 100 feet. I believe they made it out alright, but it was a somber reminder of the thin line between a fun day in the mountains and a trip to the emergency room, or worse.

Fall/Winter

I arrived at UCSD in the fall and quickly realized that without a car, I didn’t have much access to the mountains. I was also quite busy, as one might expect for their first quarter of college, but I managed to get just enough adventure to stay sane.

Woodside Ramble 50k

I quickly realized that road running was probably going to be my main way to stay in shape while at college. I didn’t have a way to get to any interesting mountains, so I just started running a lot. So much so that I decided to sign up for an ultramarathon, so I could have some motivation to keep running. I wrote about most of my experiences in another post, so I won’t spend much time rehashing what I already wrote there, but I will say that the ultra as a whole was a very positive experience. I’m really glad I did it and I’d recommend anybody who’s on the fence about doing one (as I was for a few years), to just jump into it.

Since this is a year-in-review post, though, what I will remember from this time is all the great runs I had around San Diego/La Jolla, so here are some of my favorite photos.

Disaster on the Slopes of San Gorgonio – 1,2,3,4

During my first quarter, I started working as a guide for Outback Adventures, an organization on campus that leads outdoor trips for students and faculty. As part of the interview process, the prospective guides went backpacking for 3 days on Mount San Gorgonio. There was a storm coming in that weekend, and I expressed my concerns beforehand (even telling my dad “if I were leading this, I wouldn’t go on this trip”), but since we were going to be “guided” by 2 older students, I foolishly blew off my own concerns.

To make a very long story short(er), our group was ridiculously slow and a hail/lightning storm hit when we were on an exposed hillside at 9800 feet as it was getting dark. After waiting out the lightning (which was less than 100 feet away), several members of our group began to show signs of hypothermia. We spent a couple of hours tending to them until they regained consciousness, then we tried to make a beeline back to the cars, but as we descended, another person from the party collapsed in the middle of the trail. By now it was pitch black, 20 degrees, and still snowing, so the decision was made for myself and a few other people to run down the mountain to get help while a group stayed on the mountain to ride out the night. We made it back to the TH at 2 am and called SAR. Our supposed guides did not have a working GPS (quite appalling), so I had to relay the coordinates of the stuck group to SAR from Strava and the Caltopo app.

We then spent the night in the nearby Sheriff’s office and in the morning, hiked back up to retrieve all of the gear we had left on the mountain. On our way up, we met the other group coming down with members of SAR. Thankfully, they had all survived the night, though the girl who had collapsed earlier was being carried down in a stretcher. Once we reached the gear, we each had to carry down about 60-70lbs of gear 7 miles back to the TH. The girl in the stretcher was taken to the hospital and was discharged that night after some IVs and medicine.

This whole experience was quite jarring. Throughout the past couple of years, I have been on hundreds of personal outdoors trips, many with a much higher level of objective danger than this, but I have never had any major problems, until this trip. Between the wet, cold conditions and lack of sufficient clothing by many people, I was genuinely worried somebody was going to die on the mountain that night. What aggravates me most, though, is that this was entirely preventable; I knew the weather was going to be dangerous, but I trusted that somebody else was going to take care of me because it was technically a “guided” trip. I firmly believe that we never should have even been on the mountain that weekend. Though I am now a guide for Outback myself, I need to reevaluate my relationship with them, and group trips in general, going forward.

Martinez Mountain FKT

Right at the beginning of winter break, I again stayed with my grandma in Palm Springs for a few days, this time aiming to get my first FKT. I chose a really cool route up to Martinez Mountain that started from the bottom of the Coachella Valley and climbed almost 7000 feet up to its summit. That it wasn’t the standard route for the peak added a lot to its appeal. I ended up doing the 18 miles and 6700 vert in 4:40 and wrote about it here. I had an absolute blast on this day and I foresee myself attempting more FKTs in the future.

Mount Rose

After learning how to ski at Tahoe Donner, I capped off the year with a winter ascent of Mount Rose. I totally misjudged the snow conditions and ended up post-holing for several miles, but I made it! It’s always special to enjoy such a popular peak during the winter when there are no crowds at all.

Looking Ahead…

This post ended up being a lot longer than I imagined, but I suppose that means I got up lots of fun stuff this year. I spent a lot of time building fitness and perfecting the long Sierra day hike/scramble in 2022, so in 2023, I want to start using my strong base to branch out into new kinds of adventures, like trad climbing, more technical mountaineering, and even harder day hikes (Black Kaweah in a day, anyone?). I find that setting specific goals stress me out too much, so instead, I’ll set intentions that will guide me in the direction of what I want to achieve. So, here are some mountain-related intentions for the year ahead:

Prioritize new stuff – If someone invites me to climb a Cascade Volcano, it might not help me reach 20 SPS peaks for the year, but it’s a new experience I should value.
Get better at rock climbing – I started frequenting the climbing gym in the last few months of 2022, and I really have started to enjoy working on strength compared to just cardio
Keep running – I really enjoyed the last few months of running a lot, so I’d like to continue that
Plan trips ahead of time – I like to plan things last minute for flexibility, but it’s undeniable that planning ahead can help me do better trips with more people
Have fun – I sometimes take this stuff too seriously, but it’s all just an attempt to enjoy the mountains in any way I can. After all, as the late great MF DOOM once said, “It’s all just a big scam to make yall eat pig ham.”

2022 Mountain Review