High Sierra Topix

Interested in reading accounts of the first time you summitted a peak.

I was nine years old and living in Florida. I kept asking my mom to take me to climb a mountain. Not sure what the attraction was; just was fascinated by mountains and wanted to go climb one. She finally gave in and took me up to Stone Mountain, Georgia (closest mountain she could find to Florida ). Even though it was just a walk up, I was thrilled to be "climbing" my first mountain. A family road trip out to California the following summer was all it took. I was hooked.

Happy New Year!

Seven years old, living in SoCal, on my first camping trip. Went to the top of Moro Rock in Sequoia with my Dad and older brothers. A whole new world for me then, and it has never lost its magic.

I agree, Moro Rock is a real trip. The view of the Great Western Divide (um... that's what it is, right?) is absolutely incredible -- sort of sucks you up into the mountains!

I was 40 when I bagged my first peak - a little peak in the San Bernardino National Forest called Bertha Peak. That 3 mile hike with 800 feet gain just killed me and I just didn't know what those red cans with the notebooks full of names were all about.

I guess I'm a late bloomer.

My first peak was Mt. Lassen when I was 9 years old. Our family used to rent a cabin at Lake Almanor. One day my older sister and I climbed Mt. Lassen. I was a miserable punk that day but still made it.

Vic

Gee, my parents used to rent a cabin at Almanor, too, but I never managed to climb Lassen. Too young, I think -- they probably moved on to other things by the time I was 8 or 9 (and they weren't peak-climbing types, anyway -- my dad's favorite vacation pastime was to get a good mystery story and take it out in the middle of the lake on a boat to "fish").

Back in a Catholic high school, early 70’s, we had one of the brothers there who organized a summer JMT trip for any interested students… he broke it down into five one-week segments. Never having backpacked before but somewhat intrigued, I reluctantly (what did I know,) signed up. We all drew straws for what week and for assignments, and I “won” a place on the first week’s trip...as a designated leader too. We all pre-paid before June…10 kids to a week and 3 brothers, with the designation that each week, parents would shuttle us up, the “new” hikers would trade packs and sleeping bags with the preceding week's, and continue on down the trail. The next week’s food cache was long-before boxed and rationed, brought up with the parents and new hikers…, it was organized nicely. The brothers had pre-assigned us particular duties on each trip…leaders, wood gatherers, cooks, clean up, etc for each week…as I mentioned before, it was highly organized. That first week I led this rag-tag group up Half Dome…my first peak of note.

Well, a week later, at Red’s Meadows, only 7 or 8 kids showed up for the next subsequent segment, and since it was all paid beforehand, and the food parceled into 13 blocks, they asked at the trailhead if anyone from the first week might want to continue on for the next section…free…as it was already paid for anyway. The third week, the same thing happened…not a full crew showed, and they asked again who might want to go on - by now, I was hooked.

Somewhere along the way, in Evolution Valley, we took a scheduled layover day, and some of us did Mt. Darwin…my first off-trail summit. To make a long story short, all told, I was lucky enough to do all five segments, only paying for the first, and thus, my first backpacking adventure was the entire JMT. Needless to say, I also did Whitney at the finish, camping at the top overnight…truly amazing.

Five weeks later, even though I did 3 weeks of pot scrubbing...the worst duty possible, I was now a seasoned backpacker…and I never looked back.

When I was almost 8-years old my Dad took me on my first backpacking trip with two of my brothers and an older sister. What an adventure! We backpacked for a week, starting at Whitney Portal, made it to the top of Whitney, down to Guitar Lake, and then back up and over to the Portal again. We took our time… we actually fished on that trip – real “Huck Finn” type of fishing gear, and we had a great time. That was the first of many trips.

Bagged Baldy and Gorgonio at 14, but the real first "trip" mirrored Rosabella's description of her first trip, we were out for 10 days, sears work boots, canvas knapsack and dehydrated foods, the fish would bite on just a hook dancing on the water.
After that trip I would sit in class at school and daydream of days in the Sierra.

Wow, this jogs the memory. I'm guessing my first fully self-propelled peak bag would be Black Butte (volcanic cone above Weed) when I was 6 in 1965. I hiked part of Lassen that year, but much of that hike was on my dad's shoulders. My first Sierran peak may have been Mt. Hoffman--I forget whether that's 1966 or 1967 (probably the latter). I was fortunate that my dad was an avid peak bagger. He always had an outdoor bug, but he really didn't start going to the mountains (at least in this country), until he started taking his family up (he was 37 years old in 1965). I'm "retired" from peak bagging now, but I may "unretire" in the future if my son (now 4-1/2) or my daughter (1) develop the peak bagging urge when they're older.