Telescope Peak 2009-01-09 to 2009-01-12

A lot of people have asked me how this hike was. In short, it was one of the hardest things I've done. Not just the hike itself, but the training in preparation. In fact, I was depressed when it was over, because I had lost the motivation to train. I had lost the thing I was looking forward to, thinking about, and preparing for over the last 6 months. The long story? I'm not sure yet. I know I had a great time with le Marc and Boris, and I"m really happy to have done it. Will I do it again? Maybe, but certainly not soon. I also know I need cheaper hobbies. Anyways, I may put up more thoughts later. I'll send out pictures separately given that I don't want to post the location of my photo server on a public blog.

No we didn't make it to the very summit. Yeah, when I know how I feel about that, I'll write about that as well.

I want to thank le Marc and Boris for coming on this journey with me, and especially le Marc for motivating me throughout my training and during the hike.

Mistakes:
- Did not get a 4WD vehicle, so there was an additional 6 miles to hike into the canyon
- Took too long to break camp on Sat morning, on Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon
- Stopped too early on Saturday
- Underestimated how long it would take to do final ascent
- Took too little water on final ascent (no knowing how long it would take)
- Did not eat properly during final ascent
- Took the wrong route on one of the climbs
- Too slow on the last few climbs
- Under-estimated how much snow would slow us down

Notes:
- Looking up at the moon as we were climbing near vertically on the snow covered face of the mountain, it looked like we would be able to reach up and touch it. It was beautiful.
- On the hikes I took this year, I realized something: not a single advertisement. It wasn't just the lack of civilization, it was the lack of advertising. No billboards, no slogans, no logos. Of course there were the labels on our clothes, but if you weren't looking down there was nothing. I've hard that you see 3000-5000 ads a day, on average. Combine that with every logo on every product you use or see on an every day basis. Being in a place where it wasn't there for a while. It was refreshing.