New TR for Iron to Baldy Traverse

JMunaretto · Post by **JMunaretto** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:33 pm

A few hiking buddies did this 2 weekends ago in that terrible weather, as I mentioned.

http://www.summitpost.org/view_object.p ... irm_post=4

Would have liked to have done it, but not in that weather!

FIGHT ON · Post by **FIGHT ON** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:52 pm

dude!

DUDE!

Post by **Hikin_Jim** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:16 pm

Wow. Thank God they're all right. That could have gone very differently. To calculate the distance of a Thunderstorm to oneself, one counts the seconds between the lightning flash and the thunderclap and then divides by five. If, as they say in their write up, the thunderclap came about one second later, they were in the thurnderstorm. Not sure heading out on a gnarly hike with wx moving in is the #1 most recommended way to proceed but glad that it turned out well.

Tim · Post by **Tim** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:28 pm

Nice TR. They took some risks going in that weather but I guess we all have different risk tolerances. My tolerance is pretty low because of some of the experiences I've had.

I remember on my second hike ever, I took some friends to the top of Baldy during an August thunderstorm (yeah, not very wise). The cloud base was above the peak so the visibility was fine. There was thunder and light rain but no lightning in the area. Almost everyone had stopped at the Ski Hut because of the thunderstorms but we kept going. About 200' from the top we took a break. Suddenly there was a bright flash all around us and almost instantaneously a huge KABOOM!! We all hit the deck. That was the loudest thing I have ever heard in my life. No one got hit but that damn lightning had discharged right above our heads! I've never messed with a thunderstorm since then.

JMunaretto · Post by **JMunaretto** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:40 am

Hikin_Jim wrote:Wow. Thank God they're all right. That could have gone very differently. To calculate the distance of a Thunderstorm to oneself, one counts the seconds between the lightning flash and the thunderclap and then divides by five. If, as they say in their write up, the thunderclap came about one second later, they were in the thurnderstorm. Not sure heading out on a gnarly hike with wx moving in is the #1 most recommended way to proceed but glad that it turned out well.

wow, I always thought it was divided by one. lol. that makes a difference!

Post by **HikeUp** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:31 am

...sound can travel a mile in approximately five seconds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound

Post by **Hikin_Jim** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:51 am

JMunaretto wrote:
Hikin_Jim wrote:Wow. Thank God they're all right. That could have gone very differently. To calculate the distance of a Thunderstorm to oneself, one counts the seconds between the lightning flash and the thunderclap and then divides by five. If, as they say in their write up, the thunderclap came about one second later, they were in the thurnderstorm. Not sure heading out on a gnarly hike with wx moving in is the #1 most recommended way to proceed but glad that it turned out well.
wow, I always thought it was divided by one. lol. that makes a difference!

Uh, yep. When you thought it was 5 miles away, it was actually pretty much on top of you. When there's a one second or less delay and a thunderclap so loud that it's deafening, you're IN the heart of the thunderstorm.

I wish them every success, and I don't mean to be critical, but I get the impression that perhaps they are newer hikers. They're in excellent shape and very good hikers (they'd definitely out hike me) but they may not have some knowledge that might be beneficial to them. I wonder if they might benefit from something like the Sierra Club's WTC course? They're obviously enthusiastic, serious hikers, so they'd be good candidates. Even though I've been hiking for some time, I found the course had a lot of good content (as well as a lot of fun). They cover a lot of stuff like safety, proper gear, trip planning, snow travel, snow camping, navigation, risk assessment, basic rock climbing, etc. I found the navigation section alone worth the course even though I had an avid hiker for a dad, was in Boy Scouts, was in the US Army, and am a Sierra Club Leader. The nav section really brought some things together and offered some really practical advice even to me, and I used to teach map reading in the army. Just a good nav tune up if you're already knowledgable and an invaluable course if you're not.

BTW, Joseph, have you ever considered the course for yourself? I think you'd be a good candidate since you're a dedicated, serious hiker.

Also BTW, I don't have any financial investment or something like that in the course, I just think it's a really good course taught by some pretty knowledgable volunteers that is a steal of a deal compared to what you'd pay for REI classes or classes taught by guide services.

Whatever. Off my soapbox. You'd think I was on commission or something.

JMunaretto · Post by **JMunaretto** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:01 pm

No worries, sounds like a good course, especially when you get more serious. All I've been doing is most 'standard' trails, albeit hard ones. Some navigation skills would be great.

I'd say they are newer hikers, but two with several years of it. The one who wanted to go further is the one who is the least experienced. He's also the one who hiked C2C 3 out of 4 weekends followed by this hike the next week, which is just stupid. Of course he burnt himself out.

Some people don't know their limits.