SummitPost.org

My wife is looking for a goal to motivate her to lose some weight. She mentioned she might like to hike/climb with me. I suggested something along the lines of a three day, two night backpack/climb of Mount Langley in the Sierra. She didn't like the idea because I'd already been there. So now I ask for your help in a possible climb with the following criteria:

- Air travel from Dallas/Fort Worth, TX preferred
- Minimum 3 days - One (or more) day in, one day climb, one (or more) day out
- Ideally we would set a "base camp" for the climb so we'd only need days packs
- Level of difficulty - Walk up, similar to Mount Audubon, Mount Langley, Taqhuitz Peak, Wheeler peak (NM), etc.
- Does not need to be a particularly "special" mountain (i.e. 14er, high point)
- Wilderness preferred (i.e. not a developed forest service campground)
- Some snow is OK but glacier is not (consider her a beginner)
- Quality of the experience is very important

Why leave Texas (unless it's to come to the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma)? Take her down to Big Bend National Park/Big Bend Ranch State Park. This is a great time of the year down there, and you have the advantage of nearly a million acres almost to yourself. It's not an alpine experience, but it's sublime in its own way--it is my second most favorite U.S. national park of the 41 I've visited (there are 58 in all). Plan it for new moon, or close to that--you've never seen the night sky until you've seen it like this ...



By the way, don't discount the Wichitas, especially at the right time of year (which you just missed). Where else can you go to sleep listening to the call of wapiti, and wake up the next morning surrounded by a small herd of bison?

--mark d.

I'd like to second the idea of Langley. That was a great idea. The meadows and lakes below there are beautiful.

Onion Valley to Kearsarge pass and the local mountains around there are really nice. Not too hard. (Out of Independence, CA just north of Lone Pine)

DukeJH wrote:My wife is looking for a goal to motivate her to lose some weight. She mentioned she might like to hike/climb with me. I suggested something along the lines of a three day, two night backpack/climb of Mount Langley in the Sierra. She didn't like the idea because I'd already been there. So now I ask for your help in a possible climb with the following criteria:

- Air travel from Dallas/Fort Worth, TX preferred
- Minimum 3 days - One (or more) day in, one day climb, one (or more) day out
- Ideally we would set a "base camp" for the climb so we'd only need days packs
- Level of difficulty - Walk up, similar to Mount Audubon, Mount Langley, Taqhuitz Peak, Wheeler peak (NM), etc.
- Does not need to be a particularly "special" mountain (i.e. 14er, high point)
- Wilderness preferred (i.e. not a developed forest service campground)
- Some snow is OK but glacier is not (consider her a beginner)
- Quality of the experience is very important

My recommendation, even though you have been to the Sierras, would be Yosemite. For climbing, it is hard to top it plus you get tons of variety and the "experience". You mentioned this as a reward - which would make me want to be somewhat cautious in how committing you make the trip - will your wife get psyched out at the sight of a big climb? How about mental conditioning, etc. I mean yes, your training for it, but when the actual epic adventure starts, emotions are high and this can happen - I say go to a place where there are tons of options close to each other.


Yosemite, you have some great hikes to choose from - day hikes of the falls to half dome with the cable route or climb Snake Dike and descend via cables. You have the valley for warmer weather and if you go during the summer, Tuolumne Meadows offers a nice reprieve from the heat - with some awesome options for climbing!! Beautiful climbing near Tenaya Lake - Stately Pleasure Dome with an easy approach. If you guys haven't been there, it is an experience with everything you could want minus the glacier - but Glacier Point is one heck of a sight.

Experience wise - you have all the goodies a climber, hiker, or backpacker could want. You have tons of options and can't cover them all in a month, even taking advantage of the free eco-friendly park buses. Views are endless & breathtaking, people beautiful - Camp 4 is AWESOME!!!, and did I mention the opportunities for climbing? lol

Best of luck in choosing a place!! Hard choices!!!

I heard cloud peak is good. I have a friend who did it twice. Now with parking fees idk

Thanks for the ideas. I appreciate them. Keep them coming.

My wife has tried many times to lose weight and I guess I've been a little selfish and focused more on my training than on hers. A couple years back I dropped 40 lbs in preparation for a glacier mountaineering course and I've been successful keeping it off through diet, exercise, and self control. The idea to take a trip together was her idea. We love to travel together and a wilderness experience will almost always keep me interested (so it's my carrot to help her). She loves the mountain environment but she is not in physical condition to experience or enjoy the back country. I estimate it will take her almost a year to reach her health and fitness goals and I am committing to help her by doing my "intense" training opposite training with her (i.e. I would do my running and weight training in the morning and join her for her run/walk in the evening or vice versa).

1000Pks wrote:

My wife is looking for a goal to motivate her to lose some weight.

Sadly, peak climbing isn't a good way to do that. Aside maybe from highly dedicated Sierra Club, you'll see quite the tubby individuals being members, all doing their hikes or what, then foolishly chowing down after an activity, usually pizza and beer. You can check out some photo galleries of their holiday parties, obviously the rotund and culinarily pleased, with the ample amounts of eats put before them.

Better is to develop a lifestyle, with dieting and exercise a regular part of daily life. You'll see so many weighty people hiking up trails, then wondering why they don't get fit. You need to burn about 3,500 calories of food to lose each pound, too much for most people. For most, that's fasting completely for two days of regular life, given the exercise trends. Most people do not have the muscle to work out for what peak climbing takes.

Sad to see the mentally debilitated figuring and math, one peak is far from what most will need. A climb of Rainier, say, burns hardly one good meal by what I see SC does.

When I was serious about fitness, I ran 4-6 miles every day. Zero carbon footprint, too. Treat yourself as you should treat the planet. Smartly and soberly (for the MLC SC).

The OP is looking for a mountain goal to provide the motivation. I don't think he is saying that one or two hikes per week in itself is going to create the calorie deficit that would guarantee weight loss.

Being bored and having nothing exciting to look forward to is a great way to get or stay fat. Goals and the planning and the training and the anticipation are great motivators and will give a person a lot of will power when deciding whether or not to have that extra serving at dinner or snack from the fridge at midnight.

The rest of your post does make sense.

1000Pks wrote:It sounds delusional to think that some miraculous weight loss may come from bagging a few mountains.

The OP didn't say that. I didn't say that. Nobody on this thread said that. So WTF?

My brothers and I have done a great backpacking loop for a couple of years now that starts at the Twin Lakes resort just southwest of Bridgeport.

Here, you park your car at the overnight parking section (10$ fee) and start packing up through the little RV village on the Barney Lake trail heading west to Barney Lake. I usually don't stop here to camp but rather keep on trucking until you hit a spot after several switchbacks where the trail splits. Take the left pathway that directs you to Crown Lake. On your way there, you'll pass these beautiful aquamarine lakes that makes the hike very pleasant. Camp at Crown Lake.

The next day, get ready to burn some calories! Follow the obvious trail southwest to Snow Lake where you can rest and enjoy the placid lake with red snow blanketing it's contingent cirque. Keep going up through Rock Island Pass (sandy and somewhat exposed if you're new to hiking) and then descend into a thick foresty zone where you'll find it hard to keep the trail. All roads lead to Rome though and eventually (after stepping into the Yosemite Highlands from the Hoover Wilderness) you'll find yourself in this vast, flat valley called Kerrick Meadow. Continue North for awhile until it you see the valley terminate with an elevation surge. Head East now, through a notch until you discover the gem of the entire trip: Peeler Lake. Camp here and fish until you catch your limit!

Finish the loop with an easy hike around the lake where the trail first split (you went left here) at Robinson Lakes. Continue back down the trail until you hit home at Twin Lakes. Bring a bear sack for the Yosemite portion, I've personally never seen a ranger my entire time there but it's good for the critter's sake as well.

I have tons of pics if you're interested. Good luck!

1000Pks wrote:

The OP didn't say that. I didn't say that. Nobody on this thread said that. So WTF?

Booze or what aside, you better start reading this thread. IN CONTEXT!

You obviously don't know me and have no idea what you are talking about if you think you can accuse me of using any drugs, including alcohol. And you really are completely mistaken if you think an attack on me like that is going to help get any of your point across.

1000Pks wrote:

Day Hiker wrote:The rest of your post does make sense.

Tit for Tat.

Seemingly in line with other SP aspersions to mental illness/debilitation, and given that no one comes forward from this website to actually meet or climb, with the many unresponded (by you) posts highly supportive of whatever (I don't know, I just read and infer), including drink and smoke, esp. this time of year, I make no unreasonable findings.

Wait. You think that text you quoted was an insult? I only wrote that because I had disagreed with part of your post, and I wanted it to be clear that I was only disagreeing with part of it. That's all! That's no insult, and it certainly doesn't warrant you feeling the need to retaliate by accusing me of being intoxicated.

Your accusations of drug use are completely inappropriate. You really know very little about people if you think I'm using because it's "this time of year." Not everybody drinks or smokes or shoots up on New Year's, if you can imagine that.

My disagreement with the criminalization of drug use is based on my opinion of drug use, in that it is a problem that is better dealt with in other ways and does not warrant criminal punishment. Try to imagine supporting a cause in which you have no direct personal gain.

Maybe with more social contact, you would have more insight as to what people are really like. But don't expect that anytime soon, at least not from anyone who knows anything about you. As for those on this site, people here have seen how you are and what you do. You talk about desiring some kind of résumé from people, just to go out and do a supposedly friendly social trip on class-1 to 3 stuff. But even a résumé isn't good enough because your default is to doubt everything that anybody claims to have done.

You make yourself look psychotic when you "investigate" to such an extent a potential partner for a social class-3 trip. You doubt someone's substantial list of summits, as if the person had the time and interest and knowledge to falsify a hundred separate summit logs on class-2, 3, and 4 peaks he didn't climb. Nobody wants to have a history that includes some very significant peak achievements, only to have 200 of his moderate achievements doubted by some guy who claims to have seen false peak résumés in the past, 30 years ago at the Sierra Club.

So there you go again in your above post, complaining that nobody wants to hook up with you for a hike. Are you really surprised? There are all kinds of people on this site that meet other people and go for hikes all the time. In order to achieve this they're not doing anything special; they're just not creeping people out by doing a 1000Pks P.I. investigation of their summit logs. I have met and hiked with several people from this site, and I didn't even have to solicit for partners in order to do so. Just don't creep people out, and you'll have better luck.

Thanks for the tip AlpineAffinity. That trip sounds awesome.

OK, more on point with the suggestions. I think some nice three day trips, with good class 2 or 3 summits are the following:

Mt. Lyell--nice trip up Lyell Canyon and then climb a nice glacier to the summit.
Mt. Agassiz--pretty Bishop Pass area to a summit with awesome views of the Palisades.
Red and White Mt. --pretty hiking past some great geologic features and nice lakes to a pretty mellow class 3 summit.
Mt. Winchell--good views past Temple Crag, etc.; camp at Sam Mack Meadow then cross the Palisade Glacier to a nice summit with great views.

All of the above are easy class 3 with the exception of Agassiz, which is 2. To be honest, it would be pretty hard to have a bad trip anywhere in the Sierra, particularly starting from the east side.

OriginalPoster wrote:- Some snow is OK but glacier is not (consider her a beginner)

R.e. Lyell: Isn't this an ice-axe type climb, especially earlier in the summer? I seem to recall that people have taken big falls there on the glacier. Supposedly, if you hit the ridge lower down, the rock is more like class 3-4.

http://www.summitpost.org/route/155682/ ... acier.html
(check out "essential gear")

I've considered that hike for this summer.