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Leaving work on
Friday, I was dreading the standard haul through the
Livermore Valley and out over Altamont Pass.
Having driven most of the Bay Area trouble spots, I
think I can safely say that there is no worse traffic
conflagration than I-580 east on a Friday afternoon.
And it doesn't get much easier once you get out to the
Central Valley, because traffic is usually stopped
from Tracy all the way into Manteca. It
astonishes me that some people choose to live in these shitbox towns. An irrigated wasteland with
stifling heat, an abundance of jacked up pickup trucks
(none of which is without at least two Oakland Raider
stickers), bad fast
food and
Richard Pombo is your congressman. Man do we need
an east-west bullet train in this state!
As much as I hate the
580-205 corridor, there really isn't much of an
alternative to get to Yosemite. But I was so
sick of the Altamont drive that I was willing to
experiment. I drove through the Caldecott Tunnel
from Berkeley and wound my way through the Diablo
Valley to Highway 4, intending to follow its twists
and turns through the delta
(another lovely place to lay down roots). In
Shitsburgh -- er, I mean Pittsburgh -- I hit an
absolute standstill which persisted pretty much until
the freeway's end in Antioch. It took about an
hour to travel 10 miles -- about the same rate as the
580/205. But once past Antioch and Brentwood, I
flew along the rural roads -- first in the delta
country, then in the farmland of the central valley.
I snaked my way down several backroads with no
traffic until I popped out onto Highway 120 right
before Oakdale. Despite the Pittsburgh snafu, I
figure I saved nearly an hour. I rolled into the
Saddlebag campground near Tioga pass around 11pm and
promptly crawled into the back of the wagon for some
shut eye.
5:30am was the wake
up call. I rolled out of the car, rubbed the
sleep out of my eyes and downed a banana. I
walked down to the main parking lot and found about
ten people milling about and fiddling with various
items of hiking and climbing gear. This must be Bob Burd's group. Who else would convene a 6:00am
assembly and be so chipper about it? I
introduced myself, there was about five minutes of
chit chat, and then the group was off to the races.
6:10am departure time. Pretty much right on
schedule.
Because I still
wasn't totally comfortable soloing fourth and fifth
class rock, I decided to accompany Bob and several
others on their climb of North Peak first. The
NW ridge of this peak is supposedly rated 5.3, but
prior reports put 99% of the climbing at 3rd and easy
but exposed and fun 4th class. The 1% of 5th
class climbing can be avoided by some
artful routefinding and dropping below the ridge.
I figured this would be a good shakedown for the north
ridge of Conness. If I wasn't comfortable on
North Peak, I'd simply reverse the route and do some
more moderate hiking instead.
We started hiking at
a brisk but comfortable pace along Saddlebag Lake and
through the gorgeous Twenty Lakes Basin. I hung
near the back of the pack and chatted up Tom and
Michelle from Oakland. Michelle planned to do
the entire Sierra Challenge while Tom was along for
first couple of days. Near Wasco Lake, they
peeled off to head up directly to the North Ridge of
Conness. I hung back and then hiked for a ways
with Sam Mills, whose many posts and photos I had seen
on Summitpost.
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