Kaweah Run Amok At Alabama Hills

April 20th & 21st, 2013
Alabama Hills, CA
[Flickr]

We're currently in the lull between the end of the 10 week Wilderness Travel Course (WTC) and the start of the 3 week Advanced Mountaineering Program (AMP) both of which I help out with and enthusiastically sacrifice weekends to.

Usually the unclaimed weekends between these two classes are spent in a series of mad dashes out to remote areas of the desert car camping and grabbing all manner of peaks raining from impressive and enjoyable to nondescript and painful with large blazing campfires and much fun had by all.

Every now and then I like to throw in something different and so this weekend was an open call weekend for anyone in Kaweah to come join us for a weekend of sport climbing out in Alabama Hills.

Spectre Peak DPS and Mt Lowe HPS With Not A Lot Of Sleep In-Between


What:      
     Spectre Peak (4,482')
     Mount Lowe (5,603')
When: April 13th & 14th, 2013
Where: Joshua Tree & Altadena, CA
Who: Matthew Hengst, Jen Blackie, & a bunch of others on Sunday
Pictures: [Spectre] [Lowe]
GPS Track: [Spectre]

By all outward appearances this should have been a much easier weekend than the average long haul desert climb. Instead of driving all the way out to some remote spot in California or Nevada we just had to make it out to the mountains north above Altadena for a day hike followed by a quick drive out to Joshua Tree to camp then grab one of the relatively near desert DPS peaks called Spectre. Easy stuff.

Unless you say misread the email about your friends provisional, wake up at 3 something am Saturday morning, and drive all the way out to Altadena only to realize said friends provisional is actually on Sunday. Oops.