Hitting the Trail

"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too."
William H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition, 1951

It didn't seem like an ambitious undertaking when my dad and I decided to hike up Mt. Baldy, a 10,000-foot peak in the mountain range ringing Los Angeles. After all, the trail head was quite high, so we wouldn't need to gain much elevation to reach the summit. As we studied the map, we did notice that the trail led over several unnamed subsidiary peaks between the parking lot and the summit, but we dismissed these peaklets as pimples on the elephant's back, too insignificant to slow down an eager teenager and his unsuspecting father.

Ten hours later, with the sun already below the western horizon, the last pimple between our tired bodies and the car had been transformed into a peak of Himalayan proportions. Never again would we neglect to add up all the elevation gain along our proposed hike instead of just computing the difference between the starting point and the summit. Each of those "peaklets" had added some 500 feet of elevation gain to both the outbound and the return trips. They had turned what we had thought would be a romp into a late-evening ordeal. By the time we were able to call home and tell my mother we were fine, she was almost ready to alert the search-and-rescue squad.

Next Page: Planning a Hike - Topographic Maps

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