Worthless Trip report

[Dan_Petersen]

Mountain Epiphany

So the geezers finally get their act together to attempt the West Ridge of Sherpa. With work and vacations and family obligations, it has taken all summer. We plan our trip based on an estimate found among these pages that the climb can be done in a long day from the Ingalls Trailhead. This estimate is for fit people, as we discover, and not overweight 50+ has-beens (or probably more appropriately, never-weres).

That should end the tale.

I’m sitting on a rock alongside the Ingalls Creek Trail getting wet in a brief shower that seemed to come out of nowhere to make me more miserable. I can’t really get much wetter, because the humidity is about 110 percent. I’m fretting about my feet (and this is BEFORE I get to read the bloody sock debate here), and my general lack of fitness, which can be attributed to sloth, beer, beer, and sloth, in that order. Me, me, me, it’s all about me.

Then I realize I could be home mowning the lawn (thanks, Alpine Tom). I can look forward to Longs Pass, because “that which doesn’t kill me will make me stronger” (thanks, Will Strickland, although I heard it somewhere before, I think from a drill sergeant). I can spend my time on that lengthy Longs ascent planning what I will say about the trip, which is sure to get me labeled a “bonzo” by the Captain, and I don’t even know what that is, and I am afraid to ask. Whoa, suddenly this is a way better trip than it was a minute ago. Thanks, guys.

Just don’t ask for beta, ‘cause we didn’t get within a thousand vertical feet of anything technical. We did find the way trail and I got some sun, though. Oh, and we gave the rope and hardware a nice backpack trip.