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The Summit That Teaches You What “Remote” Really Means - Mt Tohakum, NV · Off You Pop!

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is Off You Pop, the podcast for hikers and adventurers who want to be epic in just one day.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And this is Story Pop, where the mountain isn't a checklist, it's a memory.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're heading into Nevada's Lake Range to climb Mount Tehokum, the highest point of the ridge rising above the Black Rock Desert.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: A 10.5 mile out and back with 4,500 feet of gain, topping out at 8,182 feet on a summit that once stood above the shoreline of the ancient Lohantan Sea.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's no trail, no shade, no water, just volcanic rock, desert wind, and pronghorn moving across the plier like ghosts.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Tohokam isn't a famous peak, it's a quiet one.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: A mountain built from fire, shaped by uplift, brushed by ice age waves, and surrounded by old mining scars and pyote history.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't a pop.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't a guide.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is a story about a remote Nevada mountain, a long climb, and the way a place with no crowds and no fanfares can still leave a mark.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go to Tohokum.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now off you pop.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's walk Mount Tohokum together.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, start with the preparation.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: In order to climb Mount Tohokam, you're gonna need a permit from the Pyramid Lake Reservation.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can go online and find a permit.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's$25.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just make sure you have your license plate details ready and you print it out before you trip.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's one other important thing to note about Mount Tohokum, this is not a beginner's mountain.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is a mountain that requires navigation, grit, psychological determination, and the ability to understand how to move through desert environments.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're somebody who's only hiked on trails and hasn't hiked mountains off trail, this one is probably not for you, at least not now.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so the day begins at 4 a.m.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: You get up, you drive from Reno, hour and 20 minutes, and that's how my day began.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Up at 4 a.m.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Across to the local gas station to pick up some snacks, fuel.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: You are in the middle of nowhere, make sure you got a full tank of gas.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then the long drive up into the northern desert.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh from Reno you can take the I-80 uh and then take the junction off Osworth and take the 447 up.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thought Nixon and Gerlat.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: For those people who've never heard of these places, uh, you may have heard of Gerlach because it's the place of the Burning Man Festival that happens every fall.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's about another 30, 40 miles past where the hike occurs today, but it is the route up to that location.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so driving along, get off the I-80, onto the 447.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's the end of it.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: No more people, no more cars, just the big, wide, empty desert.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes about 40 minutes to get out to the trailhead at Nugent Canyon.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And nothing.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not another living soul.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now on the way you'll pass through the small town of Nixon on the reservation.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll make sure you slow down.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: On the way back from the hike, I was feeling a bit tired and wasn't paying attention and was going a little bit fast coming into the town.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a police officer on the side of the road, flashes lights, pulled me over, gave me a talking to.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I apologized, and he let me on my way without a ticket, thankfully.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, just be mindful, there is one town between the freeway and the mountain, and I like to make sure that people don't speed through it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think they get a lot of tourists on their way up to Pyramid Lake.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it's worth noting that Pyramid Lake is a location to the west of where we're climbing, and it's quite popular for camping and fishing and boating, and so there's quite a few tourists out on the south side of the Lake Pyramid.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're going way north to the north end of Lake Pyramid, and we're climbing it not from the lakeside but from the opposite side on the east.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So here I've at New June Canyon.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: New June Canyon is not a signposted road.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I recommend you type it into Google Maps and just pay close attention.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a sort of little side road that you need to take.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you drive in off that side road, I don't know, maybe half a mile.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not particularly uh rugged, so any car will get you there.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And as you come into the foothills, you're gonna come across a gate that blocks the road, and that's where you want to park up.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh park up your car, get your gear, get ready for the day.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I arrived, I got there right in the blue zone, the real sweet spot.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: That spot right before dawn, it was about 54545.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can just see on the Nightingale Mountains on the other side of the Winnemaka Lake Bed to the east.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: The sun was just creeping up, you were just getting a pinky orange tinge coming up across the mountains, and it was just starting to illuminate the lake range, and Mount Ahokan behind you, looming up behind you.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I got my stuff ready.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like super hydrated, up in the mountains, the air is dry, wasn't hot, can catch it, it was kind of chilly.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was about 28 degrees when I started the hike, and so got big puffy jacket on, realized pretty quickly I needed some glass to put some light glass on and stashed the poles, I would say, and when I needed them.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I gave it just five more minutes just to get a little bit lighter so I didn't have to waste a headlamp and just to make sure I could navigate a little bit more easily.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I will say this is the third time I've tried this mountain, and so it may seem like I made the navigation at the bottom look easy, but it is far from easy.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is a complicated network of canyons, and if you don't take the right route, you're gonna find yourself having a really hard day.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get lost, you're gonna get cut out, you're gonna find yourself needlessly traversing over various ridges.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are spots where there are large can uh ravines and large outcrops with drop-offs can really make for a hard and miserable climb just to get to the first part of the mountain.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna try and walk you through the best way to navigate through the mountains.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say, my way is a little bit different from some of the other routes that you're gonna see on Pete Bagger.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason it's a little bit different is because I've learned my lesson three times in about the best way to get up to the base of the mountain without burning a bunch of calories, having to hoof up and down a bunch of different canyons.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, I finally figured out the best way to get to the main climb.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so what you do is you start out from New Zealand Canyon as I did, and you climb over the gate, and you're getting into a bit of a ranch pasture.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as I started off on my climb, I hear this mooing off to the south, and sure enough, across a short little canyon, there are about half a dozen cows, and the the ball was giving up the I'm the man, what you're doing here, look.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but they trotted off to the south and up a ridge line, um, just as I started out.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you climb over the gate and you're following a little trail, well it's more of a a little dirt road, an extension of the dirt road, and it sort of roller coasters just a little bit, very slightly, and as you get into it, it starts to curve off to the north.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at the very point that it's curving off to the north, you'll see this little ridge line in front of you.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what you want to do is get up on that ridge, and so you do that by sort of taking a northwest trajectory and try and connect with the ridge so that you're going up it in a general way.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: What you want to do is you want to connect with a barbed wire fence at the very apex of the ridge.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you can follow the barbed wire fence up along and sort of see the trajectory you want to take.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of rocky here, uh, it's not much in the way of foliage, but you're just gonna be kicking rocks if you're not where it's watching where you're stepping.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It can kind of hurt a little bit, especially if you keep doing it repeatedly.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So just mind your step.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as you get up to the ridge and you connect with the barbed wire fence, you're gonna find there's a big rock, and the barbed wire fence is a little bit lower, and it's very easy for you just to step over the barbed wire fence, and that's why you want to take this route rather than trying to navigate or army crawl under the fence at a different point.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then what I did, you don't have to do this, but I thought it was great for the time of day, is I followed the ridgeline up to the peak, and when I got to the top of the peak, got some real great early views of the vast expanse of the desert as the sun is continuing to rise above the ridgeline, and also got a better view of Mount Ahokan.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, you don't have to really climb this little knoll if you like.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can continue down the other side.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're there the time of day I was, and you want to get an even better sunrise view, then definitely nip up this little ridge, just follow the ridgeline up, and you'll pop right up.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's a little can at the top, and you can spend a few minutes uh basking in the glory of the early morning and the view of the desert stretching out behind you.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then traverse down off of the ridge into a little saddle, and this is where you get yourself in a world of mess if you don't think carefully about how you're navigating.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what you want to be doing is heading sort of northward, but following the contours of the land.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be some big ridges right in front of you, and that's the direct route up the mountain, and it feels like you need to go up and over, and you don't go up and over.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: What you want to do is start heading north and try and follow the contours of the land.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna cross a saddle, you're gonna see a lot of cow tracks and cow when you are you're heading in the right direction.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the contours across the plateau, and then you'll go through a little gap.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: There'll be a little saddle you'll see.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you're gonna follow some pretty well-marked animal tracks.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, maintain your elevation, keep heading in a north, sort of north-northwest direction.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to maintain the same elevation level.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you start climbing, you're going the wrong way, and you're gonna come up through a gully, through another saddle, and then you're gonna see another huge ridgeline in front of you, directly between you and the mountain.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the temptation is I need to get up and over that ridge.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Don't try and get up and over that ridge.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'll tell you why in a minute.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: What you want to do is you're gonna see a little valley heading downwards.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna head into that valley.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Try as much as possible to side hill the valley so you're not losing elevation.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get into the mouth of the little valley, you're gonna see at the bottom there's a big ridge with this very dramatic-looking cliff escarpment.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna head towards that.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go as much as possible if you can side canyon, you're gonna prevent yourself having to go all the way down into the cow into the canyon and then climbing back out.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna try not to lose elevation here.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what I recommend is you get onto the west side of that little gully.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's not really any trails on the west side, there's some cow trails on the east side.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you're confident moving through the grass and skipping through the rocks, you can navigate it pretty well.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're getting towards the bottom of the gap valley, keep side hilling, maintaining your elevation.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be getting up and above the bottom of that little valley.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: What you're gonna do is you're gonna navigate around that huge ridge you're you're at the bottom of, and uh just follow it round, it will head to it west, up towards Tehum, keep side hilling, and you'll come into this little maze of canyons.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you get round the other side of this little ridge, you're gonna see a canyon heading directly west, and you're just gonna keep staying on that same ridge, doubling back almost on yourself and following a canyon that heads south.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It gets a little bit steeper on the back side of the ridge, but you're gonna look up and you're gonna see exactly why you didn't want to go straight up and over the ridge.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: On the backside, there's some steep outcroppings and cliffs that you're gonna come across and you're gonna find yourself in a world of herd.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And not only have you burnt a bunch of calories hoofing it up that ridge, but then you have to navigate these steep drop-offs and try and figure out a way to get down the very steep backside of that ridgeline.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so as you're moving up this little side canyon heading south, hopefully you can see some cow tracks that you can sort of navigate.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're moving up here, you're gonna start seeing Tehokum again to the west, and uh you're gonna see this huge grassy plateau, which is the way up to the mountain.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can see it plain and clear.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've got a couple of options.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's a little canyon that leads directly west, um, that you can see.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few little rocky outcrops to the south of it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little gully, more than a canyon.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can keep heading south, and you can see you can go round and up another gully, but you end up in the same place on this big open plain of grass heading up towards Tehoton.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is where I chose to drop off of the ridge into this little gully and then climb up out onto the plain.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's a little gap in the rock outcrops you can cut through, and then you're on this big slope basically.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where the climbing really begins.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started, dropped off the little canyon into this little creek, and have been this way before, and it can have a little bit of water in it depending on the time of year that you you're there, but not too difficult to navigate.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And once you get on the creek, poles out, the hiking is gonna begin.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so you start climbing up the slope.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's about a 30-degree grade, but it's relentless and it's upward, and the sun is starting to come out.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's full daylight, I've got my big puffy jacket on.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Again, uh a good way up the slope.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've been zigzagging and starting to sweat.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I got the big puffy jacket on.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: That was a mistake.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I also have a couple of layers underneath it, so I got to the rocky outcrop and I rested.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I took off my pack, I took off the big puffy jacket and my hat.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I could feel it, I was dripping with sweat.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I tightened, uh, rolled up the coat in a small ball, threw it in the sack.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I took on some electrolytes.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just stood there for a bit, you know, sort of wafting my clothes, trying to uh dry off a little bit from the sweat.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Big mistake, big, big mistake.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get out on the mountain and get sweating.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's a recipe for hypothermia later on in the day.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I did take just a little break just to really try and call off.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't call off as much as I wanted to, but at least I recognized the problem early.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's got to try and solve it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, pack back on again, continuing up the ridge.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can see there's a very definite end point to this part of the slope.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's a little rock you can see at the top of the horizon.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Made my way up and over that, and it opens up into a flatter section.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: You see these big grassy ridges, and there's a particular one at this point right in front of you, booming between you and Tehokum.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this is the one that you want to be taking.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people uh will take a more direct route, a little bit to the south of where I've come in, but I'm pretty sure it's a little bit more elevation gain, and I think I know the route that people are taking into a canyon.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So the canyon is a little bit more loose rock underfoot, a little bit more treacherous, but it does, at least on the face of it, look a little bit shorter and more direct.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: On my path, I've just walked up a lovely grassy meadow.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so they're gonna take this ridge a little bit to the south of you, coming up a much steeper slope because they are in this canyon floor, and so it's a bit more of a uh booth out of that valley uh than this way, since we've already made a bit of elevation game.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you look at the ridge in front of you, it's directly between you and Mount Hokum.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if you head just to the north and start taking the ridgeline, you're gonna be tempted to take a little canyon that just to the north.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like an easy route.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't take that, you end up in a world of hurt.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the way to go.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you want to get up on the elevation.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as you start to cross this plateau and you begin to climb up the ridge, you're super lucky.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: What you're gonna do is you're gonna connect to this beautiful trail.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure this is not a cattle trail, it's a trail that's been there for thousands of years that the indigenous people have been using to traverse these mountains as part of their hunting and navigational trips.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's too well compacted and not turned up, but wow, it's beautiful.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Takes you up and along the ridge and then pops you right up onto this second vast plateau of grass.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just makes for a nice day after you've been off trail.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: You just get this beautiful grey straight up the ridge.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when you pop up, just a nice flat plateau.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: But in front of it, another another slope.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Similar sort of angle, actually a little bit sleeper.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm coming over the plateau, and not really a lot of rocks, not a lot of overgrowth.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I stop and I see them up on the slope.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Two pronghorn deer.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you can tell they're pronghorn deer by the shape of their horns and the white patches, particularly on the rear.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a little look online about the types of creatures that were going to be in these mountains and heard about these deer.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And these deer are the fastest land animals in America.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: They can run at 60 miles an hour for a sustained period of time.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: But there they are, the two of them, standing short distance apart, parallel to the mountain, just staring down at me.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: They probably spotted me miles ago, or smelled me at least.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm staring at them and they're staring at me.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, you know, maybe if I'm quiet enough, maybe if I'm discreet enough, I'll be able to get a little bit closer and get a better shot.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I make my way across the flat plateau towards them and start coming up a little bit closer, but they're having none of it off they trot, just nice and casual up the slope.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: It just happens to be the best way to get up that up the mountain is the way they're heading.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so they start traversing up the slope, reconnected to another another trail, and if you find this trail, it's gonna make for easy going.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of on the south.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Southwest side of the plateau, so close to where the canyon falls off of the plateau on the south side and the apex of where the slope begins.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can connect with that trail, it's a great way to get up the mountain.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a little broken in places, so you know, don't pay attention for a second and suddenly you're off of it.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: But trust me, it does go a good deal of the way up of this slope.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I come up over a little ridge and there they are again, at the same distance away, haven't gotten any closer.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: But they're standing there, sort of on the top of this little outcropping, staring down at me, and I'm staring down at them.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I start moving towards them, off they go again, disappear into the horizon.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see them again, but wow, what a great sight.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Never thought I'd experienced that.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe never will again.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm following the trail.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, it's not too steep.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's steep enough that you're working your legs, and you have to navigate the trail up.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you eventually keep following it.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: You come up to this big, huge outcropping, and you're definitely traversing off of this ridge into another little side.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well not a canyon, really just a vast sort of plateau.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're definitely crossing out of one environment into another, and you're heading northwards.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so as you cross into this new environment, got this big huge rock outcrop.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had a little stop there for lunch because well not lunch, but a little snack and a banana.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I knew what was coming.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: What was coming was the smoke from hell, the never-ending despair.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: The treacherous trek through grass and fireweed and rock.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's just relentless.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted to steal myself for the inevitable.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the one that will break you.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is the point in the height where you gotta dig deep.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: The trail is there, but it heads way north.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't go up the slope.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if it ever does switch back, because I've never taken the trail this way.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, straight up the slope.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's got a little steeper here.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's more like 35 degrees.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: But you're going through the undergrowth.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's much rockier.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: You've tried to pick your way through.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it is just relentless.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: It seems to go on forever and ever.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you can see the ridge up there, you can see the top of the mountain.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so you just keep going.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is the point in the trail where it's head down.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just keep going.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Up, up, up.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And be super careful not to drift south.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you drift south of this slope, you're going to find yourself on the precipice of a very steep canyon gully, sort of right beneath Mount Dohokum, which is a little bit treacherous.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: So just keep heading straight up.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see a big outcropping on the ridge, you're heading up towards that.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So at some point you're going to reach a little boulder field where you'll see this deep volcanic rock.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's really where it switches from these beautiful grassy, almost savannah plateaus into alpine.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell the difference as soon as you step into it.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: As you get up there, you're going to connect to a trail.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the trail you want to follow up to the ridge.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So as soon as you hit that trail, you'll be able to tell it's solid.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's again probably one of these trails that's been there for thousands of years, and it'll head directly south and up onto the ridge line.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: So eventually you make it up below the ridge.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can pop up onto the ridge here, but I wouldn't, I'd stay below the ridge just for a little bit longer.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Say that big view when you're a bit closer.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And by staying a little bit below the ridge here, you're making it easier work for yourself.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can sort of traverse across just below the ridge, and you stay a little bit out of the wind, which is nice.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: The trail will eventually sort of peer out, but now you're really up on the ridgeline, you're in this big open space, and you'll see these little gnarly trees sort of at the apex in front of you.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Navigate towards those little trees, they're dead trees, maybe there's one of them's alive.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: You want to come up past that, and as soon as you get through those trees, there it is, the view.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can see Lake Pyramid below you, deep blue, stretching out, the Sierra Nevada's snow capped in the distance, and then behind you you see the full glory of the range of the desert, the Great Basin and Range stretching out for miles and miles and miles, these jagged mountain range lines.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just unbelievably beautiful.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so once you've topped out, you're going to continue along the ridge and you get to this point where you feel like you've made it to the top of Tohokan.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so before you is this rugged, sawtoothed ridge.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it seems like it's impossible.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you get to this point, what you need to know is this is not the top of Tohokan.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that ridgeline is impossible.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the point where you have a little break and steal yourself for the real beastie, the summit block of Tohokum.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: You look at it, it looks so intimidating.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jutting out of the ridgeline, hundreds of feet above you.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then this ridiculously gnarly ridge to get there.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this was the second time I failed Tohokum.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I got to this point.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: There was a fair amount of snow.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: The wind was whipping.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: We've been climbing for hours, and we're stuck right in front of this rugged, jagged, sawtooth line with no way forward.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we decided that was it for the day.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been doing my research since then and trying to figure out how do you navigate across to the summit block and how do you climb that gnarly piece of rock into the sky.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so what you have to do is turn around a little, head back, not too far, and drop off the west side of that ridge down towards Pyramid Lake.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: You get maybe 80, 100 yards down, and you'll see this path that heads south behind the back of that gnarly ridge through some rocks.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a path, it looks kind of faint, but you can see it and you can follow it.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: What you want to do is go down and hug the base of that ridgeline.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Really steep, dramatic cliffs from that west side, but hug close to it, watch out for falling rocks, and follow it along the ridge, and eventually it'll open out into a little saddle, and you'll see why you didn't want to traverse along the ridgeline.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's a huge drop-off, which would be pretty gnarly to climb down and highly dangerous.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so once you get past the end of that outcrop, what you're going to see is this spine of rock leading up to the summit block.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm standing there on the spine looking up at this massive summit block.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just thinking about the route I've just taken behind the outcrop.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: This loose, crumbly, volcanic rock that's been exploded and spat out on the earth, and it's just challenging to navigate, solos.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then the bits that are stable in the shadow of the outcrop have got this veneer of frost over them, so you have to watch every step in case you lose your footing and fall on that jagged rock.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: But in front of me, the very nature of the rock has changed.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's these big angular boulders.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Looking up, you look just to the west, there's this big gully leading right up to the top.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like a feasible way to go, but it's filled in with snow.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I take my phone out and I look at the GPX tracks of a couple of other hikers that have done this in the past.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I see what they've done.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: They've gone straight up the spine, straight up that side of the block in front of me.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I stand there studying the very nature of the climb.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly I can see it.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can see the way forward.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can see the way that you picked your way up through the boulders.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now the only challenge is they're filled with snow.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: You see these patches of snow, patches of boulder.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I decided right then and there I could visualize myself getting up and over for the first time, staring at this thing, feeling like just maybe today's the day.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I follow the spine to the very base, the very first boulder, and look up, and I start figuring out my line.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the first step, step up, huge step up onto this first boulder, and my leg cramps.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can't believe it.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Come this far.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is my third time.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be defeated by myself.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't put enough electrolytes in.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've let it get away from me.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm cramping right at the crux of the climb.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just standing there, disappointed, upset.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I start pounding away at my thigh, trying to hammer out that horrible feeling of cramp.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And give it a minute, loosen it, waggle the foot around, and then gingerly, gingerly have another attempt.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And still a bit crampy, but I decide I'm gonna keep going until I can't go anymore.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the most important thing is this is just a hike.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't life or death.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you ever reach that point where you don't feel like you can carry on, like it's gotten too dangerous.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you're a couple of hundred yards from the top, like I am, to come back.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not worth it.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be there another day.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Come back more prepared, more confident, but it's just not worth it.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: But today, I felt like it was worth continuing until I couldn't.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I start picking my way up between the rocks, trying to avoid the patches of snow.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I reach this section, maybe a third up.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can't avoid the snow anymore.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: The only way around is to navigate through the snow.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I test it, it's solid, it's all but ice.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I kick at it, and sure it gives way a little, just enough to get a nice little foot hold in it, but not too soft that I would sink down into the unknown.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so at that point, much more confident the snow is just the right consistency to navigate through.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I do have the crampons, but because of the intermixture of this slip rock and the snow not being 100% covering everything, I don't put the crampons on, otherwise navigating the rocks will be slick.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I pick my way up all the way to the very top, and I get to the top, and it's sliding, and there, and then I realize I'm not there.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right in front of you is a little drop-off, and then you can see I'm measuring it in my eye.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: There is the top of the Hokum.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have to come back down off this little false summit up again to the true summit of To Hokum.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, look at the way down.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sharp gap between the rocks with a big drop-off, and you sorta have to climb it.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely a class 3 move.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I would say 30 feet down between this narrow chute.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: So close.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't know what to do.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do I stop here?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do I say I did it when I didn't?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: I decide to go for it.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I inch my way on my butt down through this little galley, valley of this little crate.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this weird little rock jutting up out of the side of the cliff that feels like it shouldn't be stuck at that angle.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I test it and it's solid.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: So stand on it, three points of contact, drop down onto a little saddle, and make my way towards the final little ascent.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Head toward the west, sort of back behind uh to Holcomb, to find a clear path, and there it is.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Little climb, and I'm finally on the summit, but I cannot tell you how excited I am.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, my third attempt, and I've made it, so I'm whooping and horroring, and you just suddenly you see the view, 360 views, degree views.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen anything like it in the world.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: To your west is this beautiful view, blue lake, pyramid lake, with these vast deep water, and behind it in the distance the Sierra Nevadas.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then to the east, just this endless desert.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Just this picture perfect view of the desert.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's no planes, there's no cars, there's no sound, there's just you and the wind at this spectacular view.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely the most spectacular view, and you just feel so small, so tiny in this vast landscape.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: So stood here taking it all in.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just spectacular.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I drop off, the wind is howling, I drop off to the west side, get into uh a little bit of shelter, stop, refuel, take on water, take on electrolytes, and just circle back down to that ridge just to enjoy it.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: One last time that view of pyramid, the view of the desert, and then I realize I have to get back and renavigate back down that gnarly, gnarly summit block.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: I have to climb that horrible chute, but I've just come down.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I steal myself, get the confidence up, come off the little summit block, and uh there I am staring at the chute.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: It looks so intimidating, but rock is solid.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: I get behind it and I climb up and I climb out and I'm up on this on this full summit.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: I made it, the hardest bit is over, all downhill from here.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know where I'm going, I know what I'm facing.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: The intrepidation of the unknown is gone, but I still have to navigate off this huge summit block, and sometimes coming down is harder than coming up.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: So start picking my way down again through the snow, through the boulders.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, it's not too bad.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: I make it through and I make it back onto the spine of the ridge, looking back at the outcropping.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I must say, when you start scrambling, when it gets serious, I forgot to mention, put those poles away.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be a hindrance.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna need to have all of your limbs available to traverse some of these boulders, and you don't want to be dicking around with poles hoping for the best.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I make my way across the spine, and I start moving back behind the shadow of that intimidating saw-tooth ridge line.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we're making our way back behind the ridgeline across the loose volcanic towns.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there it is.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can see it.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: The path, the trail.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you return downhill, the animal trails and the human tracks become so obvious when you're looking down at them.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's so difficult to find on the way up.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we made our way behind the outcrops, regain the ridge, the wind blasting in your face, and there it is before you, the glorious desert opening out and stretching before you.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's your view the whole way down the mountain.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: This glorious view of the desert and the salt player.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then you drop off the ridge, you get back into the soft, dry grasses, and that feeling of the soft descent falls upon you.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: The stress of the climb, the anticipation, the intrepidness all washes away, and you can just enjoy a nice hike in the mountains, soft and gentle.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And as you descend, the air becomes warmer, the birds return, the wind dies down, and I come back down the slope, following the trail.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: I can see exactly where it goes, back onto the plateau.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm standing on the plateau, and I see the trail drop off into that gully where the other hikers go, and now I see why they do it.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: I look across the valley and I see the ridgeline.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's this big dash of pink volcanic rock at the base, and I see that ridge jutting up into the sky and then just dropping off.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was my first failure of Tahum.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: At the gate at the very beginning, I decided I was gonna go straight at the mountain.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: I turned south at the gate and followed the ridge straight at the mountain.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was gnarly, it was challenging, I got caught in canyons, I almost got bit by a rattlesnake, I went through fields of moral crickets, and I blasted my way up that seven and a half thousand feet, only to get dead-ended, staring up at Tohokum.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: No way to go, end of my day, but not today.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I carried on, I didn't go into the valley because I knew a valuable thing about coming out of that valley, and there was a bit of a steep ascent that you need to do on the way back.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get into the valley, you have to get out of the valley, and so instead I carried on my general descent down the slopes, and as I'm coming down into the second set and slopes, I look out across that little valley that the other hikers have been through, and sure enough, there I see it.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's this gully that I'm pretty sure most people are going up.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: The second time we came down off the mountain after our second failure.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: We took that route, and it is soft and loamy and steep and really burns the legs as you're trying to climb back out of the canyon back to the back to the trailhead.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, take my route.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: Go a little further north.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just enjoy these vast open plateaus.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of getting yourself into a hot, gnarly little canyon.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you in that canyon, side side hiking it, it is loose rock, it's dry, it's slippery, it taxes your cars after a long day.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, here I am strolling across a huge open plier, back down into that little gully, side hilling the ridge, back up this very little valley, not too steep, and coming back down, following the contours, back to the trailhead, and I've done it.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Mount Tehokan.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: What a day, what a glorious day.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a little bit more experienced, you're a little bit more familiar with navigating, you've done some off trail stuff, and you want to climb a mountain that nobody's ever heard of to see the most beautiful views America has to offer.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Mount Ahokam.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now off you pop.