Scoutcraft Academy

Sunday, February 26, 2012

I never thought for a moment that we could really be that far out of shape, especially me. I work in a physically demanding job and am otherwise active throughout the week. I am not overweight at all. Despite all this, Jakob and I nearly died of exhaustion today while climbing Kwaaypaay, the smallest of the five peaks in Mission Trails Regional Park. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but by the way Jakob and I were sucking wind, you'd have sworn we just ran a full marathon.

We started out by parking the truck on Friar Junipero Serra Mission Gorge Trail.

The parking lot at Padre dam and the one across from Kumeyaay Lake Campground on Bushy Hill Drive were both packed full, as was both sides of the street all the way up from the dam to well past the Campground turn off, so we parked almost all the way up by Mission Gorge Rd. If I ever go hiking in Mission Trails again, it will most definitely not be on a weekend. Mission Trails regional park marks the end of the city of San Diego to the east and contains five of the highest points in the entire city, visible from most anywhere in San Diego. It is a well established, maintained, patrolled, and most importantly, funded trail system and park which includes plenty of history, a campground, a lake, and, as I said, five of the highest peaks in the city of San Diego.

Climbing Kwaaypaay was the first in our Summits Series. When I asked the boys what their goals were with regards to climbing, they said that they wanted to climb Everest by the age of twenty. Such a lofty goal requires years of preparation and training, building up to something so huge. So I asked them how they planned on attaining that goal, what steps they were going to take. After looking at local nearby mountains as a starting place, we discovered The San Diego 12, the twelve highest peaks in the city of San Diego. Now out of these twelve, three are not climbable, plus if you're going to climb Cowles Mountain, you might as well continue on to Pyles Peak since they share the same trail, and the same can be said of Mt Fortuna's North and South Peaks, so I guess that leaves us with The San Diego 7. Take a look at the list below...

San Diego City 12

1. Cowles Mountain 1593' / Pyles Peak 1379'

2. Black Mountain 1556'

3. Mt Fortuna, North Peak 1291' / South Face 1094'

4. Kwaaypaay 1195'

5. Mount San Dieguito 1118'

X. Lake Murray Mountain 851' (Not climbable because a neighborhood is built on top of it and

the Summit is in the dining room of 5158 Overlake Ave in Del

Cerro =)

6. Miramar Hill 840'

X. Mt Soledad 808' (Not climbable because a neighborhood is built on top of it.)

7. Torrey Highlands 432'

X. Cabrillo 423' (Not climbable because there is a National Monument built on top of it and a

military base surrounding it.)

It was decided that we would start by climbing the toughest mountains in our city, then make a list of the toughest mountains in our County (we discovered there are eighteen that we would like to climb). We would then move on to chose seven mountains in our Region (Southern California), which includes such giants as Mt San Gorgonio and Mt San Jacinto, and finally we would select seven challenging summits in North America (The boys have thus far been eying Whitney, Elbert, Rainier, and Hood, with an eye toward something in the Black Hills or Appalachians and a couple 16-18k beasts in Alaska. Only then, they say, will we move on to the seven summits, the highest mountain on each continent, ending, of course, with Everest. I pointed out, of course, that we must find some way to become independently wealthy and not have to work anymore before any of this will happen. I don't know if I should be a little bit frightened that the boys think they have the solution to this problem, but won't tell me about it. Anyway, its a good goal, though I doubt if they'll ever make it all the way due to lack of funding, but the least I can do is help them get as far as they can with what we have. This means climbing Kwaaypaay today.

Joshua decided that he didn't want to hike this week and so Jake and I hit the trail, just the two of us. Turning off the Friar Junipero Serra Trail, we were immediately confronted with our first challenge. Kwaaypaay's first hill is pretty steep, and it's just out there in front. No warmup, no gentle incline for a while to lull you into thinking its going to be easier than it is. BAM there it is, just out there, mocking you, almost as if the mountain is flaunting it, warning you not to try to climb it. I asked Jake if he was ready to quit and go to Beef N Bun for a milkshake. He said no.

We made our way up the first hill. About 200' in a quarter mile. Not bad, but not good either. The best part was that we were now nearly as high as the top of the Sea World Tower over the Trailhead below. We stopped for a good long while to take in the scenery and film some scenes, then we packed back up and started on the second hill. The second hill was a good rest in itself (at first). It descended forty feet and then flattened out for a while before beginning its climb. Then it climbed 440 feet in elevation over two-thirds of a mile before flattening out again in a clearing with breathtaking views of some of the cliffs in the gorge and an awesome panorama of the Mission Trails Grasslands to the north. Mt Fortuna actually looked bigger as we gained elevation.

When we reached the flat clearing at the base of the Summit Push, the last hill, we once more took our packs off and rested. The temperature never rose above 70F, but early on the sun was keeping us pretty hot. Just before we hit the last hill, however, the sun disappeared behind some overcast that was growing as the afternoon dragged onward toward evening. On top of this the wind picked up as we got higher, chilling the sweat on our bodies. It was actually pretty pleasant.

We were not the only ones resting up before climbing the Summit Push two other groups of people came along while we were there and, though we stayed and rested an ungodly long time, probably twenty minutes or so, they were still there as well when we finally picked up our packs and decided to challenge the worst Kwaaypaay had to throw at us.

The Summit Push was very, very steep. It was so steep that some nice person decided to haul a whole bunch of logs up the mountain to build a staircase.

The Summit Push ascended 200' elevation in the first 700', then we were at the top. Well, by top I mean, past the staircase.

We kept ascending for another nearly quarter mile after reaching the top of the Summit Push, but during that quarter mile we only gained 40' elevation or so, and though it was obviously uphill, it seemed almost like downhill compared to that third hill we had just come up.

The entire top of the mountain was covered in thick brush and anything off the main trail is a protected off limits area with signs and fences posted everywhere. I saw an old trail leading off to the southeast and looked down it longingly, catching a glimpse of boulders at the end of the trail no more than forty feet off. It was at this point that I first realized how close we were to the cliff face at Mission Gorge Rd Pass. I wanted to go have a look but I am a good rule following peace loving citizen who would never want anyone to think he would break any rule in any way or make any trouble for anyone in authority, so I kept walking onward along the designated trail.

There were about a dozen people on the lookout point when we arrived. The lookout is a clearing at a high point on the western side of the summit about 17 feet below the absolute high point of the mountain (which is in a protected area and inaccessible due to thick brush). We sat down on some boulders and ate some Mainstay 3600 rations for lunch, drank some water, and chatted a little, hoping that, given time, the place would clear out.

While we waited, I listened to some of the conversations and even joined in at one point. I am not a proud man when it comes to knowledge, experience, and ability in any area. I know only too well that no matter how good you are at something, how much you've done it, or how much you know about it, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in the world who are better than you, more experienced than you, and know more than you about any subject on earth. I never presume to know more than anyone about something, but try to learn whatever I can from everyone. I've been hiking, backpacking, and adventuring on a virtually continual basis since I was a kid. All the way through Boy Scouts and on into adulthood. I've been a lot of places, yet the guys up on the summit of Kwaaypaay were talking about a trail I had heard of, but never been on. I got some good recon. They mentioned the fact that lately the USMC was more actively patrolling the border where Camp Elliot meets Sycamore Canyon to stop hikers and mountain bikers from crossing over into Oak Canyon to the west. I thanked him for the information and wished him a safe trail.

I remember watching Ray Mears specials years ago, Les Stroud's Survivorman from the first episode in 2004. I watched all of Bear Grylls' Man vs Wild shows, and have been subscribed to dozens of YouTube survival and outdoor channels for years. I enjoy going out into nature and I love to pass that on to my sons. I am a ever learning and perpetual student of outdoorsmanship. Scoutcraft Academy? I don't know if you've noticed yet or not, but I am not the teacher in this Scoutcraft Academy, I am a student just like my boys are. I have raised them to seek knowledge and how to think independently, to seek out and learn things for themselves so that they have no need that anyone teach them because they are actively seeking out the information themselves and then going out and practicing it on their own. I think that's what this blog and YouTube Channel is really about, researching and learning things on our own and then going out and practicing them on our own. The cameras are only along to show other people that they need to stop sitting around playing video games all day and do something in the outdoors, that they don't have to be a great outdoorsman like a Mears, Stroud, Grylls, or Canterbury to get out there, have fun, and be in the great outdoors. They don't have to be in a life and death situation. After all, look at these Scoutcraft Academy guys, they're not all that good at this stuff, and they're having fun.

Anyway, that said, I'll return to the top of Kwaaypaay and continue =)

We hoped that there would not be a steady stream of climbers reaching the top. Our patience was rewarded when, after only fifteen minutes or so, we had the entire top of the mountain to ourselves. We shot our scenes, finished our lunch, got some awesome footage, and chatted a bit about various things. All in all we had a great time.

We got down a lot faster than we got up. The trail was full of loose dirt that made it very slippery, however. We took the fork back down, following the trail back toward Padre Dam, rather than the one we came up by Grasslands crossing. After mingling with the mob at the dam for a while (and letting Jakob climb on the dam and get the shots he wanted to get) we headed back up to Friar Junipero Serra Trail and walked back up to the Truck.

It was a great day and a great hike. The weather was nice, although it would have been nicer if it hadn't been so hazy. It was difficult to see Black Mountain and Mt Woodson, and I couldn't see Cuyamaca or Palomar at all. I was bummed that Josh didn't come. And next time I go, I think I'll go on a weekday. I hear that the park is almost totally empty on weekdays. Well, its been awesome sharing our Summit with you all. Summit stats are below. Keep watching for the YouTube videos when the boys finally get them finished. Please like us on Facebook if you haven't already, Subscribe to the YouTube Channel, Follow us on Twitter, and soon you can visit our website at scoutcraft.tv (if you go there now it will just take you back to our blog). Thanks for reading Scoutcraft Academy, we'll see you on the trail.

~Richard