Apparently insane was the name of the game this week. Linda had been feeling puny all week due to the remains of her Bronchitis, and I thought we'd just make a lazy Sunday of it at Big Rock Creek. Instead, after seeing the doctor on Thursday, and receiving a personal Nebulizer, about three hours later she emailed wanting to climb Mt. Burnham on Friday night. A bit surprised, but always game, I packed my pack for a moonlight ascent, an overnight at 9000 feet and cold camp (no campfire).
We reached the base of our ascent (shortly after Vincent Gap) at about 8:30 pm, just as the sun was disappearing and darkness was falling. Due to a fire in the Santa Barbara Mountains (many miles and at least one mountain range away), the smoke was drifting through and creating quite a fiery sky. So we strapped on our packs and proceeded up a goat path along the ridge. The moon hadn't risen so we had rely on the light of the stars and our headlamps to light our way. Due to the fires there was a constant sprinkling of ash. After about 2 hours, of often guessing and sometimes just plain getting off the trail (they call it lost), we made it to the top. What a view, we could see the lights from every side.
And then the moon started to rise... At first all we saw was this little red dot in the distance... and it got bigger and bigger, so we thought it must have been a fire. Finally it turned into this river of lava looking thing... of course none of us thought of taking a picture. That is until:
Moon rising through the smoke
Then we watched the Presides. Linda and Darin got see a fireball… I missed it… but got to see an number of smaller ones instead. So, after making some hot chocolate with the Jet Boil (awesome little tool), we eventually fell asleep next to the Manzanita bushes on the top of Mount Burnham.
Sunrise was absolutely spectacular
Sunrise over the eastern San Gabriel's
One lonely Star
Sun reflecting off the smoke trapped in the mountains
Smoke trapped in the Inversion Layer
Linda in the brambles, actual summit
We slept a few more hours after sunrise, and then made camp and began our trek back down the mountain. I wasn’t at the time, but now I’m pretty sure that it was a good thing that we ascended at night, that way I couldn’t see the steepness of the ridge.
We started down the same way we’d come, sort of anyway; When we came upon a trail. We had seen it last night when we came up, but hadn’t taken it, since the shortest way to the summit was UP. So we followed the trail, a nice super-highway of trails, which turned out to be the Pacific Crest Trail… but it wasn’t going to get us back to our vehicle, so we had to double back and then continue down our original “goat path.”
Linda & Darin on the PCT
Our “Goat Path” or maybe “Deer Trail”
I know… what trail? Trust me it’s there. And we made it up this thing in the dark?????
Don’t Step off the Edge of the World…
WEEEEEEEE
And so we continued to scramble our way down, looking for the red ribbons tied to tree which marked our decent. Every so often we’d lose the ribbons and have to asses our surroundings. Oh no… we had to look at the view (dripping sarcasm). It was just awful. Poor Us.
Look… El Mirage dry lake
There were even some Pinstemmen left blooming at the bottom, which by the way I was very happy to see, as we completely lost the trail for the last part of our decent and were forced to scrabble down the ridge.
Pinstemmen
We were very glad and super tired by the time we made it to our van. However, we were also very satisfied with our accomplishment. Who else would be insane enough to climb a 9000ft mountain in the dark just to sleep in the bushes and see the sunrise.
If you want to read more, check out Linda’s blog: hikingforhope.blogspot.com
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