Colin in California

One of the advantages of California is the (relative) accessibility of big mountains. So, not wanting to waste any time, the last two weekends I’ve been to to them. The two trips were really different; here goes with a description…

Mt Brewer, 4136m. A rather big mountian deep in the Sierra, in Kings Canyon National Park. Some photos…

Now, I like mountians. This should not come as a surprise to anyone reading this (unless you are a random stalker, in which case see the about page). I like being in the mountains, climbing up mountains and so on.

So, it came as a bit of a surprise to me to find that going up Brewer was not a whole lot of fun, and that really, I would rather have not been there. In brief, the problems were these: someone in the group that I was with was slow on the way up and that way up was quite complicated (a lot of granite shoulders). So it was getting pretty late by the time we were near the summit. Then the penultimate bit of the ascent was up a steep bit with lots of loose rock. One of said bits of rock (dimensions approx. 2 by 3 feet) was not as well attached to the ground at the person in front of me thought it was. It landed on my foot. Fortunately, I have fairly hefty boots, otherwise I wouldn’t have walked out. Rather too close a call.

But positives: I did get to go up into the High Sierra, which is beautiful, and get a feel of what it is like up there.