Descend Into Madness

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It began innocently enough. Long ago when I first moved back to LA I began perusing guidebooks of local mountains that I had been too busy racing my bike to pay attention to the first time I lived here. And, those who know me know that I love a challenge, and that if you tell me something is really hard you'll make me want to try it even more. When I read that Iron Mountain was "the hardest climb" in the San Gabriels, I was totally in. Just a matter of when.

But life happens, and there are many, many other adventures to be had. Also, the route I wanted to do required a shuttle (I was pretty sure--and after having done it you have no idea how grateful I am that I didn't try to do a yo-yo) and I usually end up going solo on my rides and runs. However, my time to pull up stakes from SoCal is really drawing nigh, and I've been making a real effort to cram in all I can while I'm still here. At June's ortho class I brought maps and such to dinner with my friend Steve, who thought it sounded like a good enough time. We made the plans for after I got back from Colorado.

I at least had the presence of mind to set an early start time, which is good because I ran a little late, then the car shuttles took longer to set up than planned, etc. But we stepped off the chair at Baldy around 10:30 and thought we'd be fine. Off we went up the rude beginning that is getting onto Devil's Backbone. Every time I do that route I see how people get themselves into trouble in winter--windy, icy, and dangerously exposed, sometimes on both sides. We clambered onto the top and discovered the usual hordes at the summit--fortunately, Baldy has lots of stone windbreaks to accomodate them.

We didn't tarry long, and we struck out for West Baldy which we could see. I missed the use trail to the summit of West Baldy and I'm glad I stopped a hiker coming up when things didn't seem right--turns out we were headed down to the Village via Bear Flat. That would not have done. We turned right and scrambled straight up the hill onto the top and looked around. On the map it seems fairly obvious which is San Antonio ridge. In the field, in retrospect, it was decently clear, but we wanted to be dead sure--ending up on the wrong ridge would have been worse than ending up in the Village and having to hike 4 miles up the road. There are no trails from West Baldy, so we were on our own. We scrutinized the ridge to our left, and shot bearings off what we thought was Baden-Powell (it was) and at least I still remember how to do that...

Still not 100% certain, we agreed to hike to the first peak on the ridge and turn around if it seemed...not right. As we started down the steep shale slope, we found a faint use trail, and as we continued slipping and sliding down we began to see cairns and figured we must be on the right route because there was nothing else out here to get to. We had a bit of trouble keeping to the ridge to find the saddle because we kept having to dip below the edge to avoid thick stands of pretty vicious chaparral. We were averaging about 1 kph, and figured we'd get to Iron around 6 or 6:15. We downed some chow and set off again. The chaparral was harder to avoid in this section, and after crashing through a short stretch we decided to don pants--stinging nettle my ass, we saw none. But I'm oh so glad I thought there might be and insisted be both bring pants.

We kept making our way along the undulating ridge, and finally around 4:30 found ourselves staring at Iron Mountain's fabled arete. If you don't know an arete is a rugged, rocky knife edge in mountains. It was class IV for sure, but even if we had ropes the rock was so loose and crumbly it wouldn't have held. We eyed it and got spooked--it looked sketchy. We discussed alternatives: we could try to go back the way we came and suffer back up all the loose crap and chaparral we descended, we could try and descend into the Alison Gulch drainage and find the old mine trail to the car, or we could try and descend into the drainage on the other side and pick up the Fish Fork canyon and hike out via the narrows to the car. All of them involved hours of grueling work we didn't have, and only bail-out #1 was a known quantity. We gulped, took deep breaths, and decided to try the aretes and hope it looked better on the other side.

The rock was loose, but if you were slow and careful and tested all your holds before weighting onto them, it was ok--not quite as scary as it looked, but a screw-up would have meant serious injury or possibly death, so it was a little tense for me. Even while it was tense, it was still kind of fun--I pretended I was Jamie and thought of how much fun she would have been having. It took a while, but we finally made it to the top at 6:30PM. What a relief! I signed the register, we had a quick bite, and 10 minutes later we were headed down an obvious use trail down the south ridge. The light was beginning to turn golden, but I figured (based on what I know about my pace) we would be at least down onto the properly built trail that made up the bottom 4 miles to the car by 9, if not at the car by 9. Unfortunately, I didn't figure Steve into that. Poor Steve!

He was strong the whole way to Iron, and was doing better than me on the arete being a better climber. But by the time we got to the top he was out of water (we both were) and tired, and had blisters on the pads of all his toes which made his descent pure and slow misery. Add to that that while the "trail" was better than nothing, it was steep hardscrabble in many places and studded with yucca onto which you could impale yourself if you weren't careful. I agonized over our slow pace, watching the sun drop lower and lower and the light turn redder and redder until it was going, going, gone. I forgot to pack my headlamp--I never dreamed I'd need it. I didn't think Steve had one either and was getting really nervous because we were still on that shitty trail in the dark. There was a point at which I squatted down on my heels and "glissaded" down that way. It turned out to be the safest and most expedient way down in many places. I tried to keep my panic at bay and told myself that we were ok, we were safe, we were on trail and headed down, all we had to do was keep moving, even slowly and eventually we'd get to the car.

Fortunately Steve had a headlamp and fortunately (did I also mention it's about new moon time so that was no help?) the trail was still fairly easy for me to see in the dark, with no confusing forks or treacherous sections. I also happened on a white manzanita bush as it was getting dark and flashed on when I went to ecology camp in 5th grade and they taught us that if we were thirsty we could suck on a manzanita leaf (the white works best since it's bigger) and it would help us salivate and feel less thirsty. Damn if that shit doesn't work! Thank-you Whiskeytown Environmental School!
I kept leading the pace, and I could hear an occasional moan or mumble from Steve behind me. I felt wretched--I know how much he was suffering and it was all my fault (I warned him that this was an untested route and anything could happen, but still...it's my nature to feel responsible). I have been in many an adventure race and felt just like him--blisters, thirst, hunger, nausea, exhaustion, etc.--just wanting to curl up and not move another inch for a week. It's then that you rely on your teammates, and I tried to be a good one. Towing was not an option, and he wouldn't let me take his pack. So I tried to keep calling out our elevation as we dropped to try to keep his spirits up. Every time I checked in with him he quoted the episode of the Simpsons where Homer becomes a missionary and shouts "Get me off this damn rock!".

By this time we were at least onto better trail, but around 10PM we came to a clearing and Steve lay down and curled up like a shrimp. He was officially miserable. I ticked off our options: we could both stop and sleep in the dirt, I could leave him and hike to the bottom to get water and hike back up, or we could keep going. They all sounded pretty hideous, but Steve opted for the last and hauled himself up. He kept telling me how hardcore I was but really, he was. I know how hard it is to dig beneath that suffering and keep going when every fiber of your being is shouting "Fuck this!" and wills you to quit. And for the record I was better off than he was, but I was pretty done too.

At last we saw the lights of the campground below, and popped out. We headed over to the nearest one where people were still up (it was nearly midnight) and asked for water. An older man was nice and gave us some ice and his last small bottle, but this younger sketchy dude walked up to a tree in front of us and pulled out 5 knives that had been thrown into the trunk, and then crawled into a tent and made some strange crashing noises. Steve and I thanked the nice man and headed out the last half mile to the car. 12:15 was the official finish time. Except that we still had to drive up to the ski lift to get my car. 1:30AM then. That bottle of gatorade that Steve left in my car for the finish sure tasted good. I led him down the mountain and onto the 210 while I took the 10 and jesus h. christ on a raft that was one of the scarier parts of the outing. I drew a grateful breath as I exited onto Cloverfield. I hobbled into home and texted Steve I was home safe. He did the same. I had to extrasuperduper scrub myself to get all the grime off--it was like patina! I think I crawled into bed at 3:30 after drinking another pint of water.

And damned if I was just wired! Could not sleep. Decided to get up and go to review class with Kirsten (it was pretty excruciating) like a good kid. I drank another pint on waking and it was still a few hours before I had to pee. Cripes. Today my quads are screaming at me and my whole body is so tired it's hard to concentrate, but I'm still glad we went and did it. I got my wish. And even Steve agrees. Yes, he's still talking to me and seems like he still wants to be friends. We survived the gnarliest hike I've done outside of racing. Fair play to you, Steve.