Mt Whitney Zone Forums Trip Reports Youth tackles a non-Sierra peak

I originally posted this on the San Gabriel board, where it actually belongs. I was tempted to use the title "Father disowns son for ditching him on Iron Mountain", but that would not be very accurate. My son Eric and I had hiked Iron Mountain together 8 times since he was 11 years old. It is one of those places that seems to motivate people to keep track of their trip times. So, both of us have gotten to be increasingly curious about what he could do if he took off up the mountain on his own, especially now that he is a college cross country champion.

Saturday was a perfect day for it because Jay Olsen (another 50-something) was also on the hike. Thus, Eric felt no guilt about leaving his poor old man slogging it out alone. It was also perfect because it was cloudy (at least below 4000 feet or so) and cool. I had told Jay we should pick a cool day in June and we managed to do that -- temperatures were between 54 and 76 for the entire outing.

So, the three of us started off together at 6:15. Jay and I walked the whole thing and made the summit in 3:24, which I think is pretty respectable for two guys in their late 50s. Eric started running from the parking lot and we next saw him on the summit. Even though he was wearing boots and carrying 3 liters of water, he was not dawdling. I recall commenting to Jay when we hit 6000 feet that I hoped Eric was on top. He was, having hit the summit at 8:30 -- 2:15:30 after starting out. So, Eric has done Iron Mountain 9 times now and still has a weakness for the place.

I know that some people prefer a "stop and smell the flowers" approach. There is room for discussion on that topic. However (a) we have smelled every flower on the Iron Mountain route many times and (b) no one can possibly fault another hiker for getting the job done quickly on that particular hike -- "it feels good when I stop,"

I would not be surprised to learn of a Rick Kent Iron Mountain outing in the next couple of weeks.

Pictures

Way to go Eric!

Alan, what are the elevation specs on the trail? Does Rick Kent have a best time posted anywhere?

Rick ascended Iron in 2:37 on 11/10/07. Ze (from the San Gabriel board) hit the same mark on 1/9/10. Eric definitely had those times in mind. And he realizes that Rick is likely to pay another visit to Iron soon.

I do not know what the best time up Iron is. I recall Scott McKenzie mentioning some sub-3 hour times a few years back, but those messages are lost with Richart Piotrowski's old message board.

2:37 down to 2:15! Knocking 22 minutes off will take some work.

Eric might keep that record for a while.

You didn't say what the elevations are.

The trailhead is at 2000' and the summit is at 8000'. The "roller coaster" parts add another 1200' to the total climb, out and back. The net gain on the last 3 miles to the top is 3600' or so.

So that's 6600 vertical feet on the way up! In 2:15!!!!

That's 49 vertical feet PER MINUTE, 2933 per hour!

That's why Jay and I did not see Eric between the parking lot and the summit. I thought we were motoring along pretty well to be covering over 2000' per hour for much of the way.