OneDayWhitney TrainingHike#2 7Pines to SJPeak

Training Hike #2 for one-day Whitney hike.

5.5 miles outside of Idyllwild, enter campgrounds for Dark Canyon and beyond to get to Seven Pines Trail. Take a long and winding road to trailhead. About half the road is unpaved, but didn't require 4 wheel drive at all.

Now I know why this is the most unused trail... it was steep, not well marked, lots of fallen trees, easy to lose the trail, tough and long, 10 hours. It was really fun though! We were tired when we finished, that's for sure. This Seven Pines to San Jacinto Peak hike made the Tram to SJ Peak hike feel like a walk in the park.

The rangers told me the permits for this trail almost never fill up. We saw only 2 other hikers on this trail all day (Sunday, Father's Day).

I kept worrying about slowing people down, I need to get over that, if people want to go faster, they can, I need to stop worrying about disappointing other people. My main hiking partner said he wouldn't have gone any faster than I was already going. It was not a safe trail to do alone
unless you had navigation skills, not a clear trail.

It was steep, I had computed feet/mile elevation change for all the training hikes. This one was 702 feet/mile. the Tram to SJ Peak was only 489 ft/mile, and jeez what a difference. There was fair amount of 30% incline.

It was gorgeous, we crossed a heavily flowing stream 9
times, could have got tons of water, just beautiful. We want to go back sometime just to hike the first 4 miles up, nobody is there and it's awesome with the little waterfalls and pools.

The map said it was supposed to be 13.2 miles, and that is what I was set for mentally and physically. The State Park says it was 13.2 miles, but the National Forest says it was 14.2 miles. At 6.7 miles we still had another .4 miles to the peak and it was steep, and I was DONE. I don't think my legs could take any more climbing without making us finish in the dark, I got scared about causing us to finish in the dark and we didn't have our headlights. I made the guys go to the summit without me. My new hiking partner didn't want me to leave me alone or be upset later for not summitting, but I had just been up there 2 weeks ago with my original hiking partner, so I just wanted to rest so I could even
finish the downhill without killing myself. Those guys went up to the peak while I slept on a rock. Thank god I did because I was completely slap-happy on the last few miles of the downhill. So I did 13.4 miles, the guys did 14.2 miles.

I computed the elevation gain incorrectly because I only used the base elev and peak elev. But we did more elevation change because of the up and down. I computed it was 4634, but it came out to be 5200+ because there was more up and down.

Nobody had altitude problems, other than the expected lower oxygen causing exertion issues. That's probably to be expected at below 11,000 feet,

It would have been better if we started earlier than 10am. That way we could have taken longer breaks, played around in the stream ponds to rest, I think I would have not been afraid to summit due to time constraints that way. (I'm better if I can play a bit, the mental aspect breaks me down.) We got to the car after sunset, 10 minutes before darkness.

Lessons learned:
- always bring the Steri-Pen! So much cold fresh water available!
- make sure camelbak compression straps fully open to completely fill water bladder
- take and bring Aleve!!!!!!
- ALWAYS bring headlamps, even if you don't use them, less stress about time constraints
- bug repellent, so surprised there were biting flies and mosquitos there
- start earlier in day
- go slower if I need to (don't have to keep up with Mario :)
- leave a note on the car stating start time, expected finish time, if no permit check-out/check-in
- duct tape on climbing poles for 10 essentials
- get better wicking layer socks
- get better shorts
- get Mario's wife's chocolate chip peanut butter oatmeal cookie recipe