Latest / Off You Pop! / Fire, Ice and the Avalanche of 2026: Castle Peak and Basin Peak, CA

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Fire, Ice and the Avalanche of 2026: Castle Peak and Basin Peak, CA · Off You Pop!

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is Off You Pop, the podcast for hikers and adventurers who want to be epic in just one day.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Castle Peak and Basin Peak rise along the Sierra crests like two volcanic siblings, shaped by the same ancient forces but carrying entirely different tempers.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: They stand above the high country with a kind of sternness, as if they remember every storm, every freeze, every avalanche that's ever tested their slopes.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they do remember.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Mountains always do.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Castle Peak is the sharper of the two, a crown of volcanic brechia and fractured lava, all battlements and couloirs and cliff bands.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like a fortress built by fire, then abandoned to the weather.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Basin Peak, just to the west, is its quieter counterpart, a broad volcanic shoulder softened by erosion, shaped by threes four cycles, and carved by the long patience of ice.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Together they form a kind of gateway to the crest, a place where geology speaks first, weather speaks second, and everything else falls in line.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: The volcanic rock on the foot tells the story of the Miocene eruptions that built these summits.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: The bowls and saddles tell the story of the Pleistocene glaciers that sculpted the terrain, and the silence tells the story of winter storms that have buried these ridgelines deeper than any human history.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is Castle Peak, and this is Off You Pop.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Long before storms, huts or railroads, the Sierra Crest was a line of fire.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Castle Peak and Basin Peak are not granite summits like the high Sierra to the south, they are volcanic.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: They were born hot, built from eruptions that tore through the crust during the Miocene, when the Pacific Plate was dividing beneath North America, and the Earth responded with molten argument.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Castle Peak is the clearest expression of that violence.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Its summit ridge is a crown of andesitic volcanic brechia, a chaotic mixture of shattered rock fragments welded together by heat.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can see the banding in the cliffs, alternating layers of brechia, lava flows, and pyroclastic deposits, each one representing a different eruptive pulse.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: These layers called at different rates, fractured differently, and now weather into the castle-like architecture that gives the peak its name.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: The towers are real geological structures, vertical ribs of resistant lava standing between weaker brechia that erodes faster.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: The battlements are the horizontal ledges where harder flows cap softer layers.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: The couloirs are the spaces where frost wedging and gravity have pried apart the volcanic bands over thousands of freeze four cycles.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Castle Peak looks like a fortress because it was built like one, layer by layer, eruption by eruption, fracture by fracture.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Basin Peak just to the west tells a different volcanic story.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Its slopes are composed of more erodable volcanic flows and tufts, laid down in broader sheets that weather into gentler terrain.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Where Castle Peak breaks into cliffs, basin peak rounds into bowls.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Where Castle Peak fractures into couloirs, basin peak softens into saddles.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: The volcanic layering is still there, but time has had more leverage.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Freeze for cycles cracked the rock.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Periglacial processes smoothed the contours, and during the Pleistocene small alpine glaciers carved the basins and left behind the broad amphitheatres that define the peak today.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: The glaciation here was subtle but decisive.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Cirques formed beneath Castle Peak's north face, where shade preserves snowfields year after year.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: These cirques deepened into bowls that now collect winter snow in thick, quiet drifts.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Moraines, low ridges of glacial debris, still sit below the crest, marking the edge of ancient ice.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: On basin peak, the glaciers were less aggressive, but still present, carving shallow basins and smoothing volcanic ridgelines into the terrain we see today.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: This combination of volcanic layering and glacial sculpting created the avalanche terrain of the modern crest, steep north aspects where volcanic bands form hard bed surfaces, wind-loaded couloirs carved by frost and gravity, deep bowls where glacier basins collect snow, shaded faces that preserve weak layers long after the sun has healed the south, and hard lava caps that allow slabs to propagate across the entire slopes.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Avalanches here are not just a product of weather, they're a product of fire, the angles it created, the fractures it left behind, and the glacial talls that sharpen those angles into modern terrain.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Every winter storm is a negotiation with ancient geology.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Every weak layer forms on rock that once flowed like liquid.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Every slab sits on a surface shaped by ice thousands of years ago, and every avalanche begins with a volcanic decision made millions of years before anyone stepped into this landscape.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: This crest is a place where fire built the stage, ice shaped the set, and snow writes the script.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Humans arrive halfway through the play and hope they understand the plot.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: In summer and early fall, Castle Peak and Basin Peak feel alive.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: The forests below the crest crackle with chicories, Douglas squirrels, sprinting along red fir branches, scolding anything that moves.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Chicories are the loudest creatures in the Sierra pound for pound.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: They defend their middens, their carefully curated piles of conifer cones, with a ferocity that borders on comedic.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not comedy to them, it's survival.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: A chicory's entire winter depends on the cones it caches in the fall.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Higher up on the talus fields, peekers squeak from between volcanic blocks.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're relics of that ice age, tiny lagomorphs that build hay piles in summer and spend winter sealed beneath the snow, relying on insulation and luck.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: They don't migrate, they endure, but they endure by disappearing, by dropping out of sight the moment the snow arrives.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Above the tree line, Clark's nutcrackers move across the crest in confident arcs, cashing white bark pine seeds in thousands of locations they somehow remember months later.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're architects of the forest, planting trees unintentionally through forgetfulness.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: But even they leave the highest ridgelines when winter storms begin.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: The crest becomes too exposed, too windscoured, and too unstable.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: In the shadow forest, American Martin slip through snow tunnels hunting voles and raiding chicory middens.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: They are ghosts of the subalpine zone, fast, silent and perfectly adapted to cold.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: But even Martin avoid the open bowls beneath Castle Peak once the snowpack deepens.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: The risk of collapse, of slab, and of trapment is too high.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is the pattern.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: In summer the crest is full of life.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: In winter the crest empties.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not because the animals are weak, but because the mountains are strong.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because Castle Peak's volcanic battlements catch wind like a sail, because Basin Peaks bowls collect snow in drifts deeper than a house.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because the geology creates terrain that is beautiful in summer and lethal in winter.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Sierra Crest is not a place where life persists through winter, it's a place where life withdraws, strategically, instinctively, and with the kind of wisdom humans often forget.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: When the storm comes, the animals leave.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: When the snow layers stack, the animals leave.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: When the wind begins to load the north faces, the animals leave.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Human ambition has always tried to leave its mark on the Sierra Crest, sometimes with railroads, sometimes with names.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Castle Peak and Basin Peak are volcanic siblings, but their names tell a story about how people have tried and mostly failed to impose meaning on mountains that already had their own.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Castle Peak was named by early surveyors who looked up at its summit ridge, a crown of volcanic breccia and fractured lava, and saw architecture.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: The peak spanded layers form natural towers, battlements, and parapets.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Frost wedging, carved couloirs between the ridges, hard lava caps sit atop soft brecia, creating ledges that look like defensive walls.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is a geological fortress, and Castle Peak fit because the mountain looks like a castle built by fire.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But for a time, Castle Peak was renamed Mount Stamford in honor of Leyland Stamford, railroad magnet, governor, and the president of the Central Pacific Railroad.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was a gesture of industrial pride, a way of stamping human achievement onto a volcanic crown.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: The name appeared on maps, in railroad documents, and in early Sierra Club literature.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: But the mountain didn't care, and neither did the people who actually travelled through the area.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: The name never stuck.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually it reverted back to Castle Peak, the name that described the mountain rather than the man.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a small story, but it reveals a larger truth.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Geology outlasts ambition.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Mountains keep the names that fit their shape, not the names we try to keep them.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Basin Peak, by contrast, was named for its geometry, its broad bowls and glacial basins.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was never named for anyone, it never carried a political legacy.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was simply mapped, described and left alone, a practical name for a practical peak.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: These naming stories, one metaphor, one map maker shorthand, one failed attempt at industrial branding, sit beneath the larger confrontation that defined this part of the Sierra, the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: When Leyland Stamford and the Central Pacific Railroad pushed eastward, they confronted the Sierra Nevadas that rise abruptly with ridgelines built from granite intrusions and volcanic crowns, like Castle Peak and Basin Peak.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: The slopes are steep, the storms violent, the snowpacked deep enough to bury entire forests.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Stanford wanted a railroad through it anyway.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: The engineering challenge was staggering.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Surveyors faced granite walls that had to be blasted inch by inch, volcanic ridges that funneled wind like a canyon, slopes prone to avalanches that erased work camps overnight, snowfall that was measured in yards, not inches, and temperatures that froze steel tolls to bare hands.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: To build the line, Stanford hired thousands of Chinese laborers, whose skill and endurance made the impossible merely brutal.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: They drilled and blasted tunnels through granite using black powder and nitroglycerine.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: They carved ledges into cliffs while suspended from ropes.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: They shoveled snow for hours just to reach the previous day's work site.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Their labour was the backbone of the railroad's ascent.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the Sierra had its own counter argument winter.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Storms dropped ten, fifteen, twenty feet of snow in a single cycle.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Winds sculpted slabs on volcanic faces.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Avalanches roared down gullies with the force of collapsing buildings.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: The railroad camps were buried, dug out, and buried again.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Tracks vanished beneath drifts, tunnels filled with ice, and work stopped not because men were tired, but because the mountains insisted.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Stamford's solution was audacious.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Snow sheds, miles of wooden tunnels built over the tracks to shield them from avalanches.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: These sheds turned the railroad into a protected corridor, a wooden spine running across the crest.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: They were built from heavy timbers, angled roofs, and reinforced walls, designed to deflect snowslides and withstand the weight of entire winters.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: The sheds worked, but they came at a cost.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: They required constant maintenance.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: They trapped locomotive smoke, they turned the railroad into a dark, echoing tunnel for miles.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But they kept the line open, and that was all Stamford cared about.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And above it all, Castle Peak, once briefly renamed for Stamford, watched from its volcanic battlements.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: The name, Mount Stamford, faded.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: The railroad endured.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: The geology remained unchanged.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Peter Grub Hut sits in a clearing north of Castle Peak, just beyond the forest line, where red fur gives way to open snowfields.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was built in 1938 by the Sierra Club's Clare Tappan Lodge Crew, a group of volunteers who hauled lumber, beams, and roofing up the mountain by hand.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: They built it as a winter refuge, a place for skiers to rest, warm up, and shelter from storms that can turn the crest into a whiteout in minutes.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the hut carries a deeper story.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was named for Peter Grubb, a sixteen-year-old boy from San Francisco, who died in 1937 while climbing in the Alps.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was strong, talented, and full of the kind of youthful ambition that mountains tend to attract.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: When he fell into a crevasse and died, his friends and family wanted something that would carry his name forward, something that reflected the wilderness he loved.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So they built a hut in the Sierra, in a place where winter is honest, and mountains don't pretend to be safe.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Peter Grubb Hut is not grand, it's not large, it's not fortified, it's a simple A-frame with bunks, a wood stove and a porch that looks out towards the volcanic battlements of Castle Peak.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: In the summer the hut is quiet, visited by hikers, backpackers, and the occasional chicory who decides the porch is part of its territory.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: But in winter the hut becomes a node in the backcountry network.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Skiers arrive from the trailhead, shake snow from their jackets, and step inside to warm up before heading towards Castle Peak's north face or Basin Peak's bowls.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: The hut is a waypoint, a refuge, a pause between the forest and the high country.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it sits in a landscape shaped by geology and sharpened by storms.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Those volcanic layers of Castle Peak that rise above it like a crown.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Peter Grub Hut is a place built for winter, but not built to withstand everything winter can do.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: It has seen storms that drop ten feet of snow in a week.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's in winds that snap trees like matchsticks.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's in avalanches on nearby slopes that roar through the forests with the force of a freight train.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Winter in the Sierra doesn't arrive all at once, it builds itself layer by layer, storm by storm, decision by decision, and every layer carries memories.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: By February 2026, the snowpack around Castle Peak and Basin Peak had become a kind of geological diary, recording weeks of weather in fragile crystalline handwriting.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: The setup began quietly.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: For more than a month the crest sat under high pressure, cold, clear and dry.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Nights dropped well below freezing.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Days stayed bright but frigid.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: On the shaded north aspects of Castle Peak, where volcanic battlements block the sun, the surface snow began to facet, transforming into angular, sugary grains that don't bond well.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Near surface facets are beautiful under a hand lens, but they are dangerous under a slab.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: They are the weak layer that waits.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then came the rain event.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: A warm pulse of moisture brushed the crest, just enough to create a thin rain crust below about eighty six hundred feet.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: It froze hard overnight, a slick, brittle layer sandwiched between old snow and the facets forming above it.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Crusts are double edged.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: They can stabilize a slope, or they can become the perfect bed surface for a future avalanche.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: In February 2026, the crust did the ladder.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: After the crust came the storm.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: From February 15th to 19th, the Central Sierra Snow Lab recorded over 111 inches of new snow, nearly 10 feet in four days.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: The storm arrived with cold temperatures, high moisture and relentless intensity.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Snow fell fast enough to bury tree trunks and erase landmarks.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: The bowls beneath Basin Peak filled like basins designed for exactly this purpose.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: The volcanic couloirs on Castle Peak became funnels for loading.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then came the wind.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Winds at Palisades Tahoe averaged 75 miles an hour with gusts reaching 125 miles an hour.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hurricane force.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: On Castle Peak's north face, those winds sculpted slabs with architectural precision, depositing dense cohesive layers of snow directly onto the facets and crust below.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: The volcanic ribs and battlements acted like wind vanes catching snow and stacking it into thick, connected plates.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is how avalanches are made, not by one storm but by a sequence, not by chaos but by structure, not by surprise but by memory.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: The snowpack now had a persistent weak layer of near surface facets, a slick rain crust acting as a bed surface, ten feet of new snow sitting on top, wind slabs thick enough to propagate across entire bowls, cold temperatures preserving instability, and a north facing shade preventing healing.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was a perfect recipe, not for skiing but for failure.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Avalanche forecasters saw the signs, snow scientists saw the structure, and the mountains felt the tension.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the wildlife, they were already gone.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: The trickeries had retreated to their middens, the nutcrackers had moved downslope, and the peakers were still beneath the snow.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Martin were hunting in the trees.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that lived here had stepped back, because the Sierra Crest was no longer a place for life.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was a place for snow, and the snow was ready.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: On february seventeenth, twenty twenty six, a fatal avalanche occurred on the north facing slope of Perry Peak in the Castle Peak backcountry.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: It involved two guided groups returning from the Frog Lake huts.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: There were fifteen people in total.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: The group was travelling through terrain commonly used for backcountry travel in the area.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Approximately 11 AM, a soft slab avalanche released above them.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: The crown was roughly 400 feet wide and the slab propagated across a section of the slope that had been heavily windloaded during the storm.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thirteen people were caught and buried.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Rescue efforts began immediately.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Members of the party initiated companion rescues using transceivers, probes, and shovels.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Additional responders from nearby huts in the region arrived quickly.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Despite rapid action, burial depths were significant, in some cases more than eight feet, and the debut field was dense and consolidated.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nine people died as a result of the avalanche.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was the deadliest avalanche in California's recorded history.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Castle Peak and Basin Peak sit quietly above the forest, shaped by fire, carved by ice, and tested every winter by stow ons that don't care who's watching.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Their volcanic layers, their glacial bowls, their wind loaded faces, all of it forms a landscape that's beautifully dramatic and deeply consequential.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: The wildlife knows how to move through it.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: The chicories defend their trees until the snow gets too deep, the nutcrackers cash their seeds and head downslope, the peakers disappear beneath the drifts.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Everything adapts, everything responds to the season.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Humans respond too, but differently.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: We build huts, we carve trails, we name peaks, we lay railroads across ridgelines that were never designed for tracks.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: We try to understand the mountains by studying them, travelling through them and sometimes by simply standing still and listening.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And every so often the mountains remind us that understanding is not the same as control.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: The avalanche of February 2026 is part of the long story of this place, a story written in geology, weather, and time.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't define Castle Peak or Basin Peak, but is now part of their biography, a chapter that deserves respect, accuracy, and memory.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: These peaks will continue to rise above the crest.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: The storms will continue to arrive, the snowpack will continue to build itself layer by layer, and people will continue to come here to ski, to climb, to learn, to feel small in a way that is strangely comforting.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what the Sierra does.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: It shows you the scale of things, it shows you what lasts and what doesn't.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: It shows you how fire builds, how ice shapes, how snow decides.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get on the pop.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: So my plan for the day is to hike Basin Peak and then Castle Peak.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the rationale for this is that I've climbed Castle Peak before.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've gotten to the top of Castle Peak and been quite tired and looked over in the distance at Basin Peak and said, forget it.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Today I was going to commit to climbing Basin Peak and I'd have no choice but to hike across the ridge and also tag Castle Peak.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I got up at five o'clock and drove out to the trailhead of Castle Peak, which is a little bit past Truckee, just off the I-80, and it has its own highway intersection that's labelled Castle Peak, so you can't really miss it.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you get off the freeway, you turn right and you're immediately heading towards the Castle Peak itself.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: When the tarmac ends, there are a number of cars already parked there.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's just getting light, it's a crisp cool morning.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I decide to park right here at the end of the tarmac with the other cars, even though I realize there is a dirt road that my Jeep could quite easily handle, and I kind of regretted it on the way up to the peak that I didn't just drive a little bit further.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you're at the start of the Castle Peak area.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is a gate that's open.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you go at another other times of the year, the gate won't be open.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a pack-in-pack out sign just to remind you to take your garbage with you if you are going to be traveling in this area.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I see a couple of guys hanging in at the parking lot.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're waiting for their buddy, and they're gonna hike up to Castle Peak, and I have a little chat with them, and then I say my farewells and say I'll meet you at the top of Castle Peak because I'm going to do Basin Peak first.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that was probably a little bit optimistic on my part, thinking I could do two peaks in the time that they did one.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's what that's the way it goes.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a nice cool morning, and the road itself is not particularly rugged.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Most people could probably pass it if they've got a four wheel drive, probably even a two wheel.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Drive.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you drive to the actual trailhead, you'll save yourself about a mile of walking or two-mile round trip.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a pleasant morning and it's not particularly rugged and it's not particularly steep.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of gently starts climbing up into the mountain.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And as you are moving closer and closer up into the mountains, up in the distance through the trees, you start to see glimpses of Castle Peak, this turreted fortress of a mountain that's looming up above the alpine valleys.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite an impressive sight to see from a distance.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know you're going to be up there and climbing at some point.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: But as you're traveling through the valley, there are other people who have driven on the dirt road and they're camping out here.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really popular camping spot right here at the top Castle Peak.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't blame them.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's plenty, plenty of places just to pull off the road and park up, pitch a tent, and you're just standing in this beautiful cool valley.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's really an easy, easy access off the road and an easy place to camp.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is wild camping, so there's not any campsites per se.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually you get about a mile in, and off to your left is a trail called Hole in the Wall Trail.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you can take that trail up to Andesite Peak.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very nice peak to do as well.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's got some beautiful views.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't want to go up to Castle Peak or if you want to add another peak to your hike of the day, certainly you can take that and then you can come off the back end of Andersite and connect with the ridge that will take you up to Castle Peak.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: But that wasn't my mission today.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I already climbed Andesite Peak as well.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I I'd shrung together Andesite Peak and Castle Peak the last time I came out here, which was why I was too tired or felt like I was too tired to go over to over to Basin Peak.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I get to the actual end of the road, there's another couple of cars parked there, and the trail begins.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't begin too dramatically.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can see there's a short ramp, maybe three or four hundred feet, to get you up to the initial ridge.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a fairly straight shot, there's no switchbacks, and it doesn't take a lot of effort, but this is the first piece of climb for the day.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when you come up over the ridge, you hit a cairn that somebody's built and a crossroads, and then you can feel like you're in the wilderness.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's no more road, there's no more valley.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're on a little ridgeline.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: To your right, you can see Castle Peak.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: To your left you can't see it, but up that way is Andeside Peak.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the distance you can see Basin Peak.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then below you is this beautiful Alpine Valley.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this crossroads where you're standing, if you want to go to Castle Peak, you you turn right.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to go to Basin Peak, you start to get onto the PCT, the Pacific Crest Trail.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that was going to be the way I was going to go.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: But just for the moment, I was just catching my breath and just enjoying that view of Castle Peak with its jagged turrets and then this sort of odd basin-shaped triangle in the distance along a ridge that was Basin Peak.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very interesting.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can see Castle Peak and then this very long flat ridge and then basin peak at the other end of it.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: The next step for you, if you're going to do Basin Peak first, is that you will start descending the PCT.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to do Castle Peak and then Basin Peak, go up to Castle Peak and then over to Basin Peak.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you begin getting into thicker bits of forest and the trail starts to descend.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: The PCT starts to descend a little bit at first, and then as you're getting deeper and deeper into the forest, it starts to switch back and starts to really climb down into the valley.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's not dramatic and it's not steep, it always feels nice and gentle.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a cool morning and you're getting into thick forested trees.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there are no other people around but the sounds of a few birds and a few chicories.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually you flatten out into the bottom of the valley and you start skirting around this meadow.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now I imagine the summer this is a beautiful flower-filled meadow, but at this time of the year, in mid-September, the cold is starting to take its grip and the undergrowth is grow is dying back, and so the grasses are yellow and orange.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: There are a few red patches of foliage that are clinging to some of the rocks in the meadow.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you start to make your way around the meadow, and eventually you come to Peter Grub Hut, that ski lodge that was built in the 1930s.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I am just shocked at how well preserved it is.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: It could have been built five years ago or 10 years ago, not nearly a hundred years ago, but it's beautifully well maintained.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's sort of a big A-frame.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: On one side, there's a ladder that will take you up to a place where you can sleep.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm imagining in the winter when you come here, there's 10 feet of snow, and so you're probably just walking-that's that's the snow level, you're just walking into the hut.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: And on the back side of the hut, there's another entrance to a lower place where you can sleep.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just coming up to the hut and I'm coming around the side, and I see this large white, hairy labrador sort of loping towards me, and its owner is putzing around by an outhouse.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I see that the owner is preparing to go to the bathroom and she hasn't seen me.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I sort of say hello, but she's ignoring me.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the dog comes up and I say hello and let the dog sniff me and whatnot.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I I go around the other side of the building because she's gone into the outhouse.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: The person's gone into the outhouse and has left the bathroom open, the door open because they don't see me, and obviously they probably don't want the smell.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I just you know finish admiring the hut and then decide to leave and get back on the PCT.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a few signs just passed there on the PCT that tell you this is a protected meadow.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: And while it's tempting to cut across the meadow to make the ascent of the basin, we do try and stick to leave no trace principles, and so decided to stick to PCT itself rather than risk damaging any flora in the meadow itself.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so continue along the PCT, it's still flat, you're coming to the other side of the meadow.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to figure out the best way to make the ascent up to Basin Peak.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's the best place to begin that ascent?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I can see there's sort of a long ridge or the tail of a ridge coming off the west side, coming up to reach the PCT.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I decide I'm gonna keep going until I'm almost directly west of the peak.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I can hit that, that long ridge, and just ascend up that.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: On the last edge of the meadow, there is these two giant, very dead pines that have that sort of white, stark white outline, and they just frame Castle Peak right before you.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: So there's one dead tree on one side, Castle Peak, and another dead tree on the other side.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a beautiful little view if you can if you can stop and notice that.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit past the sign about the meadow.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you'll start slowly switchbacking as you get closer to Basin Peak.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not again not dramatic and not difficult at all, but you do notice you're going up, and you're going up into that sort of ridge that you eventually want to connect to and climb up.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: As you keep going on the left, you'll notice this big rock outcropping, big rounded, open rocks, and the world seems to be open out behind them.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can't see behind it, they're just high enough to block your view.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I just went off trail to the left and made my way up these very rounded boulders, and there you can see rolling before you the Sierras out to the west and out to California.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a nice little place just to stop and rest and take some water and take stock and enjoy the unexpected view off the PCT here.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I turn around and I reconnect to the PCT and keep going up the switchbacks, and I'm getting to the bottom of the ridge and trying to make a decision where to where to ascend and get into the into the climb itself when suddenly I hear this very shrill chirping, and I look behind me and a couple of chicories racing around the tree, chasing each other, and then one stops, and it stops facing dead upright, looking up the tree, and it starts chittering furiously, and I stop when I'm looking at it.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: For 30 seconds it constantly chittered, and then I s I hear in the distance another chittering, another chicory.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: The chicories aren't happy.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're not happy I'm here.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: They are fierce defenders of their food stores, and we are getting close to go time for full-on winter.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're probably about four or five weeks out, so I'm sure they're diligently trying to stash all of their cones.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this this one isn't very happy with me at all.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Barely did it stop to breathe, and it continued chittering, sitting there rigidly against a tree, just really, really mad.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I just stopped and I took in this little creature's furious chittering.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was really an interesting sight.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And after I'd had enough of being told off for being there, I just continued just a little way further along the trail, and I found a little faint gully that I could see went up to the ridge that I needed to take up to Basin Peak, and I decided this was going to be the put-in point.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I just took a little break just to catch my breath and take on some water and decided to make the ascent up the ridgeline.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, now we're off trail, there's no trail from the PCT at this point up to Basin Peak, but it is the way that you make a circuit.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I began going up the gully, all the foliage has sort of died off, except for some hardier low-lying scrubs, but most of it is sort of dead and receding back into the earth.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I followed up this ridgeline and began making the climb.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a little soft underfoot, so it's slightly taxing on the legs, but it's not difficult terrain to navigate, and you can clearly see where you are going.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: My goal is to get up high on the ridge and then head directly up the ridge.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And on my left, I see this sort of large outcropping that is distinctly made of the same volcanic pyroclastic flows that make up Castle Peak.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's sort of a little preview of Castle Peak, and it's a little out of place because it's sticking there towards the bottom of the trail, almost abutting against the old alpine landscape of the Sierras, those old rounded granites, and sitting here on this ridge is this bit of pyroclastic flow that's over time made its way off the crest itself.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I eventually make the crest, and now I'm starting to head up toward the mountain.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: I start hearing these voices off to the left, and maybe two, three hundred yards away on the on the other side of this broad ridge, I see a couple of people heading down the mountain.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: They don't see me, but they're clearly uh having fun, and they must have already done the circuit of castle on Basin Peak, even though it's pretty early in the morning.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they didn't see me, I didn't wave and holler, I just let them go on their way and continued my slog.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's a bit of a slog, I would say.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably about half a mile to a mile to go up to Basin Peak.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what you're doing is basically going up this very, very broad ridge through this sort of loose but consolidated mixture of dirt and rock that doesn't really shift very much.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: It just your feet just sort of sink into it just a little bit.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're going up, about halfway up, you'll come into this pine forest, and the sun is starting to come up at this point.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably about four from four miles into the day, maybe an hour and a half, two hours into the day.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's about 8, 8:30 in the morning, and the sun is really getting in your eyes a little bit.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's making it a little difficult to see if you look directly into the into the sun.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so these trees give you a nice little cool down moment, a little chance to breathe.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're like me, you'll be breathing heavily and sweating quite a lot at this point because we've been hiking up this slope for a little while.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you start to see the peak itself, peaking between the trees.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where you have to make some decisions on how you're gonna ascend the summit block itself.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: It looks a little bit more gentle to the south side, so I start continuing up the climb, but also making my way to the south side to make an ascent.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that sort of rang true for me because those other hikers were way further south than I was on the ridge, so I assume that's how they had they'd come off the summit block itself.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as you get up close, this sort of wide open plain starts to narrow, and that soft, sort of rocky, clay soil gives way to rock.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you are standing right beneath the summit block itself, and you have to figure out how to get up there.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I didn't quite make it as far south as I was expecting, so I was almost directly facing the apex of the summit block.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't see it, but I could see a bunch of stone scramble that I had to do.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, good thing about this peak is that stone is is still pretty well consolidated.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little loose in places, but not much, and it's not particularly steep, it's a kind of gentle scramble.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's never really hands and feet.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can navigate it fairly well.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: But as soon as you make your way up to the peak itself and you pop your head up onto the peak, suddenly that wind comes slamming into you, and you can feel it like rushing across the Sierra Nevadas and hitting and slamming into this ridgeline.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: And part of that wind effect here is so dramatic because it's sort of the final stopping point for the wind as it's whipped off the Pacific, shot across California, and it hit this massive barrier.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the high point of the barrier, those winds are coming across, if you like, from San Francisco up to the peak here itself.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: And although this is not the tallest peak in the Sierra, I mean this is the tallest part of the ridge itself before it all drops down into Nevada and into the desert.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's sort of the highest barrier that these winds will reach between the coastline and then the desert.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so you sort of get the full force of the wind here.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing's impeded its progress from the ocean.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you can feel it.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And on the peak, it's not a dramatic peak, it's sort of a general peak, almost like a basin peak of sorts.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a little register you can fill out, and so I just stopped and filled out the register and started to admire the view.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have the view to the west back to California, which is very similar to that view at the bottom of the PCT in a way.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you look to the south, you can see Castle Peak.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now the views of Castle Peak are pretty spectacular.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: When you see Castle Peak from the highway, you do get the effect of the jagged towers and turrets that have been sculpted over time.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: But here from Basin Peak on the back side, you can see it much more dramatically.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because on the back side is where the glacier has sort of carved out the ridge and it's carved out the back of the mountain.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: So now what you're seeing is not only the turrets, but you're seeing this huge drop-off into the basins below, and you're seeing the banded layers of different volcanic material beneath the peaks themselves.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's really spectacular.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you look off of Basin Peak, you can look down off the ridge, and this backside is much steeper and much more dramatic than the side you've just climbed.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: The side you just climbed is fairly well graded and fairly gentle, and actually is really popular with skiers because it looks kind of like a ski run.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to get any other skiing done, you would end up going north of Castle Peak around the Frog Lakes area where the avalanche occurred because that also has pretty good grading for backcountry skiing.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Not straight off of Castle Peak or straight off the back of Castle Peak or straight off the back of Basin Peak.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's dramatic big cliff drop-offs.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can sort of see on the backside of the ridge a few outcroppings of volcanic material that are very dramatic and are very well banded, made up of sort of ash and mud and lahs and things.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a really beautiful view if you're into the rock and into geology.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I put the register back and I make my way over to Castle Peak, and you can see the way to Castle Peak.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty flat single-track trail between Basin Peak and Castle Peak.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really nice to like not be climbing and hiking upwards and just taking a fairly flat route.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the wind is still bashing you a little bit, but it's it's a pretty warm day, so it feels it feels quite nice, even though it's a little bit blustery.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're traveling across the ridge and you get closer and closer to Castle Peak, that banding and the drama of Castle Peak become more and more dramatic.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now I got halfway across the ridge and I I remembered about the the story about the avalanche and just took a moment to sort of think about those poor folks who'd lost their lives here.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just a little bit earlier this year, back in February, um, just to the north of Castle Peak, not exactly where I was standing, but maybe just a mile and a half, two miles away, they'd they'd come up here in the backcountry and come out with some guides and unfortunately got caught in an avalanche.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was big news up here in the Tahoe Basin.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: I even think it made the national news in the US, but one of the worst avalanche disasters in US history just happened right here.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that just gives you a sense of how dramatic the mountains are here.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, on a day like today, mid-September, beautiful fall afternoon, it feels like a gentle place.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like an easy hike considering some of the hikes I've done, but you forget that in the winter, these mountains are very different places and very dramatic places.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking snow that you measure in the tens of feet, winds 50, 80, 100 miles an hour.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is a place of wild drama just because it's that last stopping point of the wind and the weather that comes off the ocean.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if I've experienced anything this year, is that when you're climbing a peak that's close to the ocean, the weather is a whole different ball game.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: It could be the height of summer in a country, and you are standing on a mountain peak on the edge of the ocean, and that wind whips in, the fog comes in, the rain slams into the landscape, and it's really dramatic and it really changes the nature of the hike.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: But but not today.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Today was a gentle, enjoyable hike.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as you get closer to Castle Peak from this direction, it's actually not too dramatic of a hike because you've made most of the ascent when you go up to Basin Peak.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now you do drop off just a little bit, not too much to hit the ridge, which means when you get to Castle Peak, which is just slightly taller than Basin Peak, maybe 50 feet, you don't have all that much to climb.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm starting to climb up and I start to see a couple of hikers, and they're coming down towards me.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as I come up to them, and there's a woman there with sunglasses on, and she says, Hey Philip.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a a hiker that I'd known from the local hiking community going out for a hike with another member of that group.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just sat and chatted for a bit, and I said I'd probably catch them up on the way down, but I just wanted to go up and tag the peak.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I continue to make my way up to Castle Peak.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Castle Peak is a lot looser and more gravelly and a little bit more slippery than Basin Peaks.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be a little bit more careful on the footing, particularly as they were being come back down.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: But as you get closer and closer to the top of the peak, it becomes very consolidated.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's this very hard, compressed, ignomite sort of mash together pieces of rock and lava that are formed into very, very hard turrets, which is why they're sticking up above the landscape.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you sort of have to climb across them, and it they're very sort of spiky and jagged.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: So just be a little bit careful.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think you fall if you fall here, you're gonna cut something for sure.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: But it's uh it's short work to get over to the to the main peak itself.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as I've sort of rock hopped to the high point, there are three guys standing there embrying the view, and it's the three guys I saw in the parking lot.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, to my amazement, I had in fact done Basin Peak and Castle Peak in the time that they'd done Castle Peak.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in all fairness, I'd been coming across the ridge and I'd seen these three guys.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know it was the guys from the parking lot, but I'd seen them sitting there for quite a while.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't like they'd they'd just gotten there, they'd been sitting up there admiring the view for a fair bit.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I had a few words with them and then I, you know, said my farewells was going to catch up with the other, the other couple of hikers that I knew.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started to make my descent down off of Castle Peak, being careful on the jagged rocks at the top, getting back into the loose, slippery bit of the trail.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't come up Castle Peak, and it had been probably three years since I've been up here, so I didn't quite remember which way the trail went on the way down, and it was a little bit confusing.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: There are a number of different trails you can take, but I reasoned that I was heading out to the west and started to head in that direction.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm coming down off the mountain, I noticed the trail I'm on doesn't seem very well travelled.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's got a lot of pines in it.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sort of in this low-lying forest, and I would expect with the number of people that come up here, it would be a lot more trampoline as I'm coming through.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, you know what, I've dropped off the back of the ridge.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: I probably need to go back up and make the ridge again.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I find another trail that heads straight up to the to the ridge line, and I get up there and I'm heading out to the to the west, and suddenly I'm facing a dramatic outcrop.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of the very edge of the castle, if you like, and below me is these almost sheer drops off of the peak itself.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: And down below in the distance, I can see to my right is the trail that you should be taking.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I shouldn't have come back up to the ridgeline to get the high ground.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've sort of almost ridged myself out, but I noticed there's a gully, and it looks like people have been down the gully.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's pretty steep, but it looks like it's a place that people have trodden before.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I've decided I'll make my way down this gully and then reconnect to the main trail.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I start making my way down this steep gully.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's sort of places where you can step, it's almost like big stepping stones in a way, but as I get deeper into it, those stepping stones become taller and taller.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: And now I find myself at a point where it's really too deep just to step down, and I have to turn around and face the mountain, basically rock climb down to the next little shelf.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do a little bit more rock cockpit, I come to another point, turn around, rock climb down to the next shelf.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: About halfway down, I'm like, forget this.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking down the gully and I can see it's like this all the way.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's sort of semi-dangerous, you know.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely class three trail.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a trail that is gonna be you know smooth and easy.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's some risk of fall danger.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I see just off to my right, there's some scree and some some rock.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: It seems fairly well consolidated, it's fairly well packed.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: The rock's probably about the size of watermelons, and they're it's pretty easy to tell that they're not gonna shift under me.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I decide then just to take the scree run and do it, go directly right to try and reconnect to the trail.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I do, and it and I'm glad I did it in a very short time, less than a hundred yards, I'm back on the trail, and then I start making my way down the trail.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm starting to make good time, I'm starting to feel good.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's a trail.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is very loose and slippery and very rocky, which is a bit challenging since I've decided to take up the no pole mantra.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at other hikers coming up with their poles.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm semi-jealous, but also realizing in my head, you don't need poles.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I start picking up pace and uh making my way down the mountain, sort of hopping and skipping and jogging, and just being careful where I put my feet, making sure I'm not getting myself into a slippery situation where I fall on my butt, uh, which would definitely hurt with all the rock on the trail.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm coming down, there are more hikers that are starting to come up for the day.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just being respectful and mindful to avoid them as I'm as I'm running down.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: And as you come off the steep part, you reach a saddle and it flattens out.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can continue walking south, and there's a few little more interesting outcrops on the way.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to stop off and get other views, not from the peak, but from other outcroppings that will show you some wonderful views a little bit lower down.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're certainly worth a little bit of a side hike to get them.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I say side hike, it's like 20 yards off the trail.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, as I'm coming along, I catch up with the hikers I'd seen near the top of the peak.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we catch up like old friends and share tales of the trails, if you like.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not long before at the cairn at the beginning of the PCT section, and we're heading back down to the road and reconnecting with that very flat mud road that will take us back to our cars.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: The issue is that once you get off of the single track trail on your on the road, you realize, oh, I could have driven all the way up here, and now I've got to walk a mile, and the day's heating up as well, but it's okay.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to catch up with folks and share your adventures for the year that you've been having, and they're sharing their adventures.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's good bonding time with some other local hikers.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually made it back to my car and finished Basin Peak and Castle Peak.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: This one I would say is uh moderate, very popular.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of people come hiking here.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: I would definitely consider doing this if I was just starting out hiking.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't want to do a combination of Basin Peak and Castle Peak, that's fine.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: For me, the the Basin Peak Castle Peak was about eight and a half miles.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: The only off-trail stuff was really that ascent up to Basin Peak.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can avoid that if you go straight up Castle Peak and you go do it sort of as an out and back, go along the ridge to Basin Peak and then come back along the ridge.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you want a bit of a different flavor, you can also go up hole in the wall trail and do and a side peak, which I think is about 80, 800 feet or something like that.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: Easy three tag day if you choose to do it, or just a one tag day if you just want to go up to Castle Peak.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think hikers that I met at the end there said that they did about five miles that day instead of eight and a half.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, great, great, easily accessible hike.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you get an opportunity to go out there.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, off you pop.