This entry details the events immediately following a 25 foot fall deep in the Sierra and my subsequent helicopter evacuation and hospital visit.

For the events of the 6 days 9 peaks leading up to the fall see here.

For what came after and my eventual knee surgery 4 years later see here.

[Pics] [Map]

This trip was planned as a 9 day clean-out of the Kaweah range area deep in the Sierra. It effectively ended on day 6 when I took a bad fall and had to be helicoptered out.

This will just cover the rather excellent climbing trip leading up to that event.

August 20th to 27th, 2011

Mount Kaweah (13,802')

Second Kaweah (13,661')

Black Kaweah (13,680')

Red Kaweah (13,720')

Lawson Peak (13,120')

Kaweah Queen (13,382')

Mount Stewart (12,200')

Lion Rock 12,360')

Triple Divide Peak (12,634')

[Pics] [Map]

For the story of the fall itself click here.

For the more on the long term effects and eventual knee surgery click here for the recovery diary

July 15th, 2011

Alta Peak (11,204')

Panther Peak (9,046')

[Pics] [Map]

I came out of a four day Yosemite trip Tuesday night and had three long days of working from home before I could disappear off to the wilderness again. Three days after a long period of being in Boise every week so there was the usual pile of things that needed my attention in addition to trying to remind several friends that I exist as something other than an overactive Flickr account.

Still, it wasn't all unpleasant.


Then it was time for the next adventure: a 4 day trip to climb Grand Teton out of Jackson Hole Wyoming. I had been invited out of the blue by Kathy Rich several months before and as it fell on an open weekend I said yes on a whim. Originally I was one of 6 climbers but after a few injuries we were down to Kathy Rich, Daryn Dodge, and myself with me as the lead climber.

July 9th  to 12th, 2011

Grand Teton (13,770')

[Pics] [Map]

What: 
   Mount Clark (11,522')
   Gray Peak (11,573')
When: July 2nd to 5th, 2011
Where: Yosemite, CA
Who: Matthew Hengst, Jack Kieffer, Lisa Miyake, Ted Lenzie, Agustine Barajas

Pictures: Unsuccessful, Successful
GPS Track: Track

This was the second attempt at the Clark ridge for Jack and I after a previous attempt in late October of 2010 ran afoul of the first big winter storm of the season.

Back then Jack and I had made the ridge below the summit only to find the storm that had swept in that morning had done a rather thorough job of coating all the rocks in ice making things impassable well before the reputed brief yet gee-you-should-really-pay-attention 4th class bit.

We retreated to camp and after about an hour and a half of concerted effort managed to light a well earned campfire despite nonstop rain that lasted throughout the night and the entire 6+ hour hike out to Yosemite Valley the next morning. All and all a memorable trip.

Clark was now a grudge peak so Jack and I scheduled another attempt for 4th of July weekend.  4 days, 4 peaks (Clark, Grey, Red, and Merced) and (hopefully) no ice.

June 10th to 12th, 2010

Muah Mountain (11,016')

Cartago Peak (10,480')

Olancha Peak (12,123')

[Pics] [Map]

This year’s Memorial Day Massacre hadn’t gone quite as planned. A slight bit of bad weather (on a Matt trip? Never!) resulted in Jen and I spending the night in a bush wrapped in the tattered remains of my tent while high winds and three inches of snow made the night rather memorable.

But on the plus side when we came out a day early and rather than do something drastic like head home and sleep we took the opportunity to dayhike the nearby Olancha Peak. It was so pretty back there

(Wow! It’s not snowing and the wind isn’t blowing hard enough to knock me over!) that I was compelled to do a nice relaxed backpack there.

So of course I planned a three day 53 mile traverse involving three peaks. Can you feel the relaxation?!

Ah winter / early spring. Nothing like looking back at what was supposed to be a tightly packed climbing schedule to see the scattered weather wrecked remains.

Admittedly I’d set out a rather optimistic schedule trying to fit in Snowcreek, Whitney Mountaineer’s Route, and Red Slate all within a one month period but hey, one can dream.

Snowcreek was canceled due to a large snow dump leading to dangerous avalanche conditions and instead I ran around the desert with James Barlow grabbing 3 DPS peaks and poking around a few mines.

Whitney MR was initially derailed at the last minute to an unpleasant cold front sweeping in. The forecast called for 40-50 mph winds with a low of 9 degrees and my partner Steve Eckert neglected to be blown off the ridge like a frozen mountaineer shaped kite. Not wanting to do something drastic like stay home I repurposed the weekend and ran up three 3rd class DPS peaks out near Las Vegas with Jen Blackie and Kim Breul.

When Red Slate rolled around I was eyeing snow conditions and not liking what I was seeing. Things were still unconsolidated with fresh snow falling just the weekend before. After chatting with Steve we decided to repurpose the weekend and go grab Whitney MR as the weather looked much more promising.

April 16th to 18th, 2011

Mount Whitney (14,495')

[Pics] [Map]

Telescope Peak is the highpoint of Death Valley towering an impressive 11,049' over an area which includes the lowest point in the US.

Most people do Telescope starting at Mahogany Flat where a trail runs 14 miles and 3,200' round trip.  That seemed a little pedestrian so we decided to do it the hard way and come up from the east where we'd start below sea level and climb over 11k in 24 miles.

Since going up is the fun part we made things a little more reasonable by planning to leave a car at Mahogany Flat so we could walk down the trail and save ourselves another 8k of knee killing descent.

November 13th, 2010
Telescope Peak (11,048')
[Pics] [Map]

September 25th, 2010
Boundary Peak (13,140')
Montgomery Peak (12,447')
[Pics] [Map]

Boundary and Montgomery are both on the Sierra Club Desert Peaks Section list.  Climbing them also has the added bonus of snagging you the Nevada State high point which ironically is the lower of the two due to the fact the California Nevada border runs between them.

Christine and I drove up to the east side for two days of dayhike.  After we were done here we drove down to the Chimney Creek area and did Spanish Needle (after failing on it during the Memorial Day trip) and Lamont.

This trip was led by Jack Kieffer and myself as a student experience trip the second year I was on staff with the Sierra Club Wilderness Travel Course.  I'd been interested in hiking up Convict Canyon since I'd been coming to the lake for years and spent countless freezing cold mornings fishing where the runoff enters the lake waiting desperately for the sun to finally reach us.

September 17th to 19th, 2010

We decided to do Laurel and Bloody which could have been reached more easily from the 4wd Laurel Lakes Rd but then I wouldn't have gotten to see the canyon.  Also doing it this side gave us a nice backcountry lake camp at Lake Genevieve without having to do a lot of backtracking.

It was a great trip though the crossings in Convict Lake were just as treacherous as advertised and it would likely be impassable early in the season.  Also we were suffering from the usual late summer smoke which reduced the views a bit.