Epic Victory Lap

So as to not be too redundant, we will jump right in with the summary provided by Redline Guide Debra McCown. She was just out there — and will be heading back out there — with a guest nearing the end of his list of 4000-footers. On this trip the plan was to hike up to the Lakes of the Clouds hut, detour via Camel Trail to Davis Path so as to pick off Mt Isolation, then revisit points along this route on the way back to the hut. This is an atypical way to get it done, but to our guest, this epic was so positive it was almost beyond words. We know that feeling well.

And Then There Were 10

A returning guest who’s been working on his 48 has gotten down to mostly hard ones, which we’re helping him pick off with the hope of getting them all done this year. This past weekend, he checked a big one off his list with Mt. Isolation. This is a guest who hikes slow, has some physical limitations, and struggles with elevation gain, so for remaining peaks that require a big effort, good strategy is an important part of the planning.

For Isolation — a peak that’s often approached by either the miserably waterlogged Rocky Branch or a dry trail route with 5,000 feet of elevation gain — we decided on the easier (but still not easy!) option to hike down to the peak from Lakes of the Clouds hut. The roughly 8-mile out-and-back hike took us 10 hours on rocky trails and, on the wooded portion of Montalban Ridge, deep and relentless mud.

But victory was achieved and our guest reported that he had an epic day. ‘I don’t use the word epic very often,’ he told me the next morning, when using it to describe the expeience. In particular, he enjoyed the victorious above-treeline walk back to the hut, in the dusk and strong wind, which was both a new experience and felt to him like a triumphant end to the day. With Isolation checked off the list, he has just 10 peaks to go — and we’ll be getting to those shortly. Stay tuned. —Debra