Unfortunately I have to work M-F, so there would have to be a strong pull to get me to take off a weekday - being the good corporate citizen that I am The great thing about Big Sur is that it's close enough that I can do trips down there on a weekend so I really can't justify taking off a weekday for one of those trips. But, definately let us know if you do the bushwacking adventure

As for this weekend or the weekend of the April 20th. Anyone interested in the MR on Whitney before the quota season starts?

I got <a href=http://www.summitpost.com/cgi-bin/user_link.pl?user_name=mconnell>mconnell</a> to sign up for Tuesday, so we're definitely going April 16. Would love to have you join us John (or anyone else)! I know it's hard to justify taking a day off from work, but consider this:
If you do join us, the odds of you looking back a month later and thinking, "Damn, I should have gone to work that day" are fairly low. In fact, you're not even likely to remember what the hell you were doing at work that day anyway, or why it mattered.
But battling a trail-less ridgeline in Ventana for the dubious honor of standing on an obscure peak in the middle of nowhere? - That you'll remember for years!

><i>If you do join us, the odds of you looking back a month later and thinking, "Damn, I should have gone to work that day" are fairly low</i>

In fact, I think the probability is not just "fairly low" but I'll go as far as to say that it is nearly 0% Back in 2000, I made my 1 visit to Borneo for a weekend. I thought I could fly from Singapore Friday night, climb Kinabalu over the weekend, and then be in Portland, OR for a meeting on Monday morning. Unfortunately I ran into red tape which made us lose a day and I wasn't able to finish the climb / hike. At the time, that work meeting seemed to be vitally important. Now I never think about it except for that it caused me to not top out on Kinabalu and I don't know when I'll get to Borneo again At the time my hiking partner was asking me just how important that Portland meeting was, as it turned out - not very

><i>battling a trail-less ridgeline in Ventana for the dubious honor of standing on an obscure peak in the middle of nowhere? - That you'll remember for years!</i>

You're right about that one. I'm sure I will remember it for a long time....

Hmm... let me think about it some more. When do you need to know by? How about Monday?

Give in to it, John! You KNOW you want to!

Remember Borneo! (OK, so this ain't quite Borneo but what the heck.)

You can let us know up till Monday. But I'll be going to bed pretty early that night so I can be at Mark's @ 5a. (!)

Though it ain't Borneo, there won't be any leaches either. Maybe some poison oak - wear long pants!

The Ventana Cone Expeditionary Force is set to explore the vast uncharted regions of the Ventana interior beginning tomorrow. If all goes well on the approach drive, we should be at China Camp around 7a to begin the assault. Assuming we are not shot by drunken men carrying guns and sporting camouflage fatigues that seem to lurk along the roadways in these parts, we will post a report following our victorious return. Stay tune!

My legs hurt already!

For those of you that care to pay your last respects, snwburd can tell you where I dropped.

I am happy to report that the Ventana Cone Expedition was a huge success. We were blessed with unbelievably fine weather throughout the day, a stream with fresh water at a key location, and only about 20 minutes of serious bushwhacking (because we didn't know part of the easier route on the way out). It took us 10.5 hours for the 17 mile roundtrip from China Camp, including 4 hours to do the 4 miles of cross-country travel.

Along the ridge we had to adversarial plants to contend with - yucca and poison oak. Mark managed to skewer himself on one of the yuccas, the blood running down inside his pants to his socks. No skewerings for Bob. I believe we did a good job of identifying the poison oak, but we won't know for at least a day how we fared there. All clothes warn are scheduled for detox in the laundry. A post-mortem exam revealed numerous cuts, bruises and abrasions on the legs, with some blood loss. One small blister on the middle toe of the right foot.

Despite his claims, Mark performed remarkably, and did not drop until we returned to the car. His only weakness was his failure to climb South Ventana Cone with me upon our return from Ventana Cone. Look for pics and full story on the new Ventana Cone Mountain Page, coming to a theater near you.

I would have dropped much sooner except that snwburd pulled out the secret weapon: He had COLD BEER in the car!

It was a great hike (although my knees disagree this morning). The wildflowers are in bloom, no ticks were seen, and the yucca was quite painless despite the large quantity of blood.

My hat's off to the Ventana Cone Expedition! What a great tale of adventure! I'll have to check out your full report when it's up.

As for me, I wasn't able to respond in time because I didn't get back into town until Monday night after taking an unplanned day off from work . Instead of the planned hike off Whitney and drive home Sunday night, I ended up spending an extra night on the mountain bived behind a tiny rock with 80-100 mph winds all night. I didn't sleep a wink and several times I thought the wind would blow me, my sleeping bag, and bivy off the mountain. I had buried 2 snow flukes and used locking biners for both my bivy and my pack, but still refused to exit the bivy all night for fear of losing everything to the wind. I didn't really have to put down for the night, but my LED headlamp wasn't cutting it for route finding so I took advantage of the opportunity to do some extra gear testing instead of simply pulling out my halogen light. I'll have to update some of my gear reviews now

Congratulations again. Hopefully I'll be able to join you both on one of your future adventures!

Damn, John. Sounds like I picked the wrong trip to go on. Sounds like fun.

It was way fun Mark - well, I have to admit it's more fun talking about it after the fact than actually being there

Since the insides of my boots were wet from post-holing, I stuffed them in the bottom of my <a href="http://www.summitpost.com/cgi-bin/gear_reviews/product.pl?product_id=43">regular length bivy</a> to prevent freezing so I was pretty uncomfortable (couldn't lay flat). The previous time I was on Whitney I had a "long" sleeping bag and a friend's longer <a href="http://www.summitpost.com/cgi-bin/gear_reviews/product.pl?product_id=46">OR Advanced Bivy</a> so keeping stuff inside wasn't a problem.

Don't you wish you were there now? At least there weren't any plant nasties to deal with.

Now available for your "excuse-to-slack-at-work" pleasure, the Ventana Cone <a href=http://www.snwburd.com/bob/trip_reports/ventana_cone.html>trip report</a>. Thanks for coming Mark, that was a helluva fun day!

Wow, what a great and detailed report ... I think I'll actually have to print out that one to <i>study</i> Now that you've proved that it's possible, I'll have to head out there sometime now

Chris,

Glad you made it up Chew's Ridge for the sunrise! The views you mention make it sound like that this peak deserves a mountain page of it's very own? Up for the challenge?

Somehow I have it in my head that Big Sur is only for the winter. I guess night hiking is definately an option!