March 2006 SCREE

General Meeting

Date: March 14

Time: 7:30 - 9:00 pm

Program: Climbing Denali

(aka Mt. McKinley)

Presenter: Tim Hult

Tim Hult will present a multimedia show on climbing to the top North America's highest peak (20,320 ft). This is the story of Tim's 3rd, and successful, attempt on this massive Arctic peak where logistics and good planning count as much as stamina, and pure climbing ability toward putting together a successful summit bid. With photos from 3 of the participants documenting their 3 weeks on the mountain, this show is as visually absorbing as it is filled with stories of massive loads, frozen stoves, stormy days, sheer exhaustion and one very long continuous descent day. Whether you are planning a trip to "Big Mac" in the near future, or just enjoy being an arm chair adventurer, come spend an hour tending this show.

Location: THE NORTH FACE

Directions: 217 Alma Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301

From San Jose (Northbound Highway 101): Take the University Ave Exit and turn left (south) going toward Stanford. Turn right on Alma Street.

From San Francisco (Southbound Highway 101): Take the University Ave exit and turn right (south) going toward Stanford. Turn right on Alma Street.

PCS Trips

PCS trips must be submitted through the Scheduler (see back cover for details).

Freel Peak

Date: March 25-26, 2006 (Sat, Sun)

Peak: Freel Peak, 10881', class 2, winter conditions

Leader: Tom Driscoll, 650-938-2106,

TDriscoll@eooinc.com

Map: Freel Peak 15 min

A terrific, late-winter backpack, on showshoes, to the high point of the Tahoe Basin. On Saturday we'll cover 5 or 6 miles and snow-camp above Fountain Place. On Sunday we'll try for the summit and descend. Total distance is about 14 miles with 5000' of climbing/descending. Meeting point will be in the town of Meyers, 7 AM on Saturday morning. Call leader if interested.

Classes

Basic Wilderness First Aid - 8 Hours

Date: Sunday, April 2

This 8 hr class will teach you the skills to deal with a wilderness first aid emergency. It is FUN and you will feel a lot more confident in yourself. You can make a difference!!!! This class focuses on practicing skills and covers wilderness first aid topics: patient assessment, shock and bleeding, head and spinal injuries, wounds, musculoskeletal injuries, heat and cold illnesses and
much more. A three year Basic Wilderness First Aid certification is available upon successful completion of this course and passing a written wilderness exam. There are pre-class reading assignments.

Class will be taught by Bobbie Foster of Foster Calm. She has been teaching wilderness first aid in the Bay Area for 12 years.

Pre-requisites: None

Cost: $45

For sign up information, please contact Bonnie Ruesch at bruesch@att.net or (408) 391-8323

Trip Reports

Location: Junipero Serra Peak, 5862 ft, Class-1

Date: February 19, 2006

Leaders: Ron Karpel and Arun Mahajan

Ron Karpel and I, Arun Mahajan, had organised this trip,
just as we have been doing for several years in running now. We had six other participants, Ted Raczek, Bob Suzuki, Toinette Hartshorne, Chris Prendergast, Joerg Lohse and Scott Kreider.

The weather had been inclement on the days leading to this hike and snow levels had dropped down quite low, almost to 1500 ft and sure enough, as we approached the trailhead inside the Fort Hunter Liggett military outpost, we were greeted by a winter wonderland. There was snow even at the trailhead! We walked in the snow and cold till the first two-mile marker and after a short snack break there, continued on to the next marker about two third of the way to the top. We were constantly brushing against the snow covered branches and were getting cold and wet as a result of the snow falling on us due to this brushing. Despite this discomfort the snow covered scenery was amazing. We got to the summit in about four hours and after a hasty lunch at the top since it was cold and covered with deep snow, headed down.

It was quicker going down and in most places below the two-third marker the snow had mostly melted away. Periodically the sun had made its appearance during the day but it was never really warm.

We were back to the cars at 5pm or so after having started at 10am. However, the presence of this much snow and that too, right from the trailhead and the beautiful scenery as a result and the enjoyable company of all the participants more than made up for the cold on this snowy winter's day.

Some excellent trip photographs by Ron Karpel are here: http://www.karpel.org/Ron/HTMLTrips/20060219_01_JSP.html

-- Arun Mahajan

Ramblin’ and Rockin’ Warren Storkman

Many of you know Warren from his many trips and treks to a variety of peaks in Nepal, Aconcagua in South America, Kilimanjaro inTanzania, but, did you know it all started over 30 years ago? When Warren ventured to the now infamous northeastern section of Afghanistan and over the Khyber Pass (1080m)? “I spent a month over there and I came home awful sick, but that was my first taste of going overseas. We had an army guy with us part of the way, then he picked us up on the way out,” reported timeless traveler, Warren.

To begin at the beginning: “I guess it all started in the Boy Scouts. [During] all my years in the scouting program, I loved to put groups together for hiking. I spent nearly 30 years organizing 50+mile hikes in the Sierra.”

Warren began hiking with the Peak Climbing Section back in the day when the Backpacking Section was morphing into ‘tougher and harder’ trips, or, aka peak climbing. Spoke Warren, “Frank Spivey is one name I remember. His backpack weight was about 9 lbs and I wanted to model myself after him. About two or three nights out, all he carried was 9 lbs and that’s it! I got down to 9 1/2 lbs. No stove – eating cold. We had sleeping bags. We took a small ‘peanut’ can and built a squaw fire to heat water for tea. I guess the peak climbing came in the early ‘70’s. “ Warren led PCS trips for many years and usually 3^rd Class. At this juncture, Warren opined, “The PCS has gone beyond the scope of what they were supposed to do. They weren’t supposed to go beyond 3^rd Class. After that [3^rd class], everything fell under the Rock Climbing Section, but, then I don’t think we have that section anymore. The Sierra Club, I guess like everything else, gets sued no matter what and scares people away.”

One of Warren’s favorite peaks is Tenaya Peak and here’s why: “I led a group of Boy Scouts up Tenaya Peak in 1941 over by Mildred Lake.” Another favorite which became a ritual climb and yearly event was Mt Clark: “Mt Clark turned into my birthday hike. [We’d] start at 6am, go over Twin Bridges to the Point then go straight up to Mt Clark, returning by Mt Starr King. About 12 hours is the fastest we’ve done that. I used to do this with Steve Eckert, Dave Ress, and other hikin’ buddies. “ Dixie, Warren’s life companionJ and guardian angel, interjected at this point that she would hide a couple of Clark’s bars in his backpack.

Overseas trips “…sort of mushroomed a bit. It started with friends. My first climb of Aconcagua [was when] one of my former Boy Scouts called me and asked me if I wanted to go climb it and I said sure. I went down with him and I didn’t make it that first time, but made it the second time.” Warren’s organizational and financial acumen have made his trips popular and affordable among PCS’ers and amongst friends-of-friends-of-trekkers. When asked if politics ever stopped him from traveling, he answered with a resounding no: “As a matter of fact, this coming May, with the problems with the Maoists over in Nepal, we’re going to Mt Kailash and we’re taking a group to the western part of Nepal. We have to go right through the heart of the Maoists and we’ve been told they’ll be asking for trekking money. We’ll plan for that cost.”

I asked Warren for other special spots and he gave me his four favorite cities in the world. They are: San Francisco, CA; London, England; Kathmandu, Nepal; and Cape Town, South Africa. “South Africa is a very exciting place to go. If you’re a wine connoisseur, it’s the best place to go.”

If you’d like to consult with Warren regarding ways to make your trip overseas infamous and inexpensive, please feel free to contact him. Warren (&Dixie’s) email address is: dstorkman@aol.com

Bon Voyage Warren and thanks for the interviewJ

---- Deborah Benham

Private Trips

Private trips are not insured, sponsored, or supervised by the Sierra Club. They are listed here because they may be of interest to PCS members. Private trips may be submitted directly to the editor.

For the following trip listing, please contact:

Arun Mahajan, 650-327-8598, arun.mahajan@att.net

George Van Gorden, gvangord@mhu.k12.ca.us

·Date: March 19, 2006

Roundtop Peak (10381 ft). Skis with skins/snowshoes needed for the approach and ice-axe and crampons for the summit area.

For the following trip listing, please contact:

Warren Storkman, 650-493-8959, dstorkman@aol.com

·Date: May 2006

Mt Kailas in Tibet, or, Meno Nani (7728m) in Tibet

For the following trip listing, please contact:

Bob Suzuki, SuzukiR@sd-star.com

Bob Evans, 408-998-2857, robtwevans@email.msn.com

·Date: Sat. 7/22 - Sun. 7/30 (9 days)

Kern Pt (12789 ft, class 2), Picket Guard (12,302 ft, class. 3) Whale Back (11717 ft, class 3), Glacier Ridge (12,416 ft, class 4) For obsessed peak baggers: at least 60 miles and 15,000 feet.

Possible bonus jaunts to Milestone or Triple Divide.

Elected Officials

Chair:
Tom Driscoll / pcschair2006@sbcglobal.net

2149 Junction Ave #3, Mountain View, CA 94043

650-938-2106 home

Vice Chair and Trip Scheduler:
Bill Kirkpatrick / pcs2006@earthlink.net

28 N. First St #100, San Jose, CA 95113

408-497-2957 work

Treasurer and Membership Roster (address changes):
Landa Robillard / kellylanda@sbcglobal.net

408-378-5311 home

Publicity Committee Positions

Scree Editor:
Joerg Lohse / JoergPCS@gmail.com

1233 Elm Lake Ct, San Jose, CA 95131

408-452-1406 home

PCS World Wide Web Publisher:
Rick Booth / rwbooth@comcast.net

237 San Mateo Av., Los Gatos, CA 95030

408-354-7291 home

Publicity Chair:
Paul Vlasveld / pvlasvel@yahoo.com

789 Daffodil Way, San Jose, CA 95117

408-247-6472 home

Scree is the monthly journal of the Peak Climbing Section of the Sierra Club, Loma Prieta Chapter.
Our official website is http:// lomaprieta.sierraclub.org/pcs/

Email List Info

If you are on the official email list (lomap-pcs-announce@lists.sierraclub.org) or the email list the PCS feeds (pcs-issues@climber.org), you have a free EScree subscription. For email list details, send "info lomap-pcs-announce" to "listserv@lists.sierraclub.org", or send anything to "info@climber.org". EScree subscribers should send a subscription form to the Treasurer to become voting PCS members at no charge. The Scree is on the web as both plain text and fully formatted Adobe Acrobat/PDF.

Rock Climbing Classifications

The following trip classifications are to assist you in choosing trips for which you are qualified. No simple rating system can anticipate all possible conditions.
     Class 1: Walking on a trail.
     Class 2: Walking cross-country, using hands for balance.
     Class 3: Requires use of hands for climbing, rope may be used.
     Class 4: Requires rope belays.
     Class 5: Technical rock climbing.