Mt. Baldy, which is the local name for Mt. San Antonio, stands at 10,064 ft. The Whitney Team (minus Tina, who could not go on this hike) planned, prepared and addressed the mountain on Saturday morning with celebratory PBJ sandwiches in their packs for the summit. Here is how the summit looked that day:
What's that you say? The summit appears to have tiled floors, dining chairs, and air conditioning? Why, you're quite right. This is not really the summit of Baldy. This is the PX at Fort Irwin, California, which is quite a long hike from the start of the Baldy trail. At approximately 8am on Saturday morning we received a phone call from Litos :
who said that he had permission to receive visitors that day. Litos is shipping out to Iraq soon and this was a rare chance to visit with him. (He is regularly stationed at a post in faraway Missouri.) The hikers immediately changed plans and began a trek out to Ft. Irwin instead. Mike especially enjoyed all the road signs that said "tank crossing", but we did not see any real tanks.
Juliet and The Baker actually hiked Mt. Baldy and made the summit. If the Fates are not kind on July 10, they will be the only hikers to actually summit Whitney as well.
Zeke also made the very long drive to Ft. Irwin, and we all nearly died. Being in the car seat is not his favorite activity. Let's just say we had to sing "The Wheels on the Bus" more than three times.
1 comment:
He's such a cute boy! Of course, I'm biased.
Yes, we were all sad to not summit Baldy, but we were very excited to be able to see Litos once more. I especially enjoyed talking to him, since I've spent the last few months reading brief reports of Army technology on Wikipedia and fancy myself to know a little about something. At least I'm excited about my job, eh?
Sadly, there were no tanks moving, but the base does have a few (likely decommissioned) tanks on display on the side of the roads. And a helicopter.
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