This is a photo of the southeast ridge of a mountain called Sentinel Peak, at the north end of Lake Hawea in New Zealand:

The guy in the photo is my friend Martin. I took this photo on March 6 on our way down from the summit of Sentinel Peak, because, I mean, look at it.

This is a photo of my brother-in-law, Tim:

He’s Australian but has been living in New Zealand for eight years now, after he and my sister-in-law, Whitney, got married. When I got back to his house after coming down from Sentinel Peak with Martin, Tim said something like, “Well, now you should do Corner Peak.”

This is the previous photo of Martin, cropped:

(Corner Peak is the one with the yellow highlights above it)

This is a photo of my current favorite coffee mug:

It’s been my favorite coffee mug since last April, when I bought it. Or maybe since August 2023, when I saw it for the first time but didn’t buy it.

This is a Google street view of Spielman Bagels & Coffee on SE Division St. in Portland:

It’s kind of an institution in Portland, supplying more than 50 wholesalers with bagels, and operating four locations throughout the city. I didn’t know that when I walked over from our Airbnb to get a bagel. They had a bunch of coffee mugs for sale and I thought, hey, maybe I should buy that one, and then thought, nah, we have way too many coffee mugs. Then we drove home. The mugs were designed by Raf Spielman, artist, musician, and son of Spielman Bagels’ founder, Rick Spielman, but I didn’t know that at the time.

This is the elevation profile of the hike up Corner Peak:

As you can see, it gains a bit of elevation.

This is a photo of Jay, our little guy, at the National Transport & Toy Museum in Wanaka:

By the time I started poking around the internet looking for info on Corner Peak, we had already had a very full trip to New Zealand. I had run the Motatapu Ultra, and then had a couple days of hiking some steep peaks with Martin, and some nice trail runs, all while juggling childcare with Hilary, trying to work, and getting our taxes done. We were starting to think about our trip home, but had a few days left.

This is a photo of the playground down the street from Tim and Whitney’s house, which we visited just about every day because Jay loved it:

Also there was a food truck at the north end of the park, where they sold large orders of french fries for $11 NZD (about $6.25 USD). You can see Corner Peak from the playground. I told Tim he should hike the peak with me, since he hadn’t done it before, and he was tentative but seemed maybe into it enough to go with me.

This is a photo taken from the beach at the south end of Lake Hawea:

That’s Hilary’s head poking out of the water. She loves to swim in cold water. Jay did not love watching her swim in the lake, especially when it was windy and there were big waves. As you can see, Corner Peak is quite prominent on the east side of the lake.

This is a photo of the road from Wanaka to Lake Hawea:

We drove this road many times, coming back from the grocery store in Wanaka, and the Wanaka skate park (which Jay loved), and the playground in Wanaka where they have a giant slide shaped like a dinosaur (which Jay also loved). At certain points, the gap in the trees above the highway feels like it’s filled with the southwest ridge of Corner Peak.

This is a rendering of human rhinovirus 14, one of the viruses that causes the common cold:

Tim and Whitney’s 14-month-old daughter caught some sort of bug, and then Whitney got it, and then Tim got it, and the morning we had decided we’d do Corner Peak, he was definitely not feeling good enough to go. It was also quite breezy in Lake Hawea, which probably meant it’d be windy on Corner Peak. I decided I’d go up by myself and see, and if it was miserable and/or dangerous, I’d turn around and come down.

This is a photo of our cabinet of coffee mugs at our house in Missoula:

It’s basically one-in, one-out at this point. It is very hard to make a case for buying yet another coffee mug—as you can see, we could probably each use a different coffee mug every morning for two weeks and still not run out of mugs. (This is not including our extensive collection of travel mugs, none of which we have ever paid for)

This is a photo of the sign for the Corner Peak route:

From the trailhead, you hike/run some singletrack, then take a two-track road, and after about 0.8 miles, you get to this, and the route starts climbing on STEEP singletrack. It would have been nice to have Tim to hike with here, but I also remembered that he kept saying he wasn’t in great shape right now (14-month-old kid, full-time job, just moved into a new house, etc.) and that I’d told him he could use my trekking poles.

This is a photo of some sheep:

It is a unique feeling to toil in earnest chugging up almost 2,000 feet in 1.5 miles and find hundreds of sheep just chilling there as if they wandered over from the tiki bar on the other side of the pool. At this point, I was quite happy Tim had decided to bail, because he’s a great guy and all, but holy fucking shit was I glad to have trekking poles. And I wasn’t even halfway to the peak yet.

This is a photo of Corner Peak:

(It’s the pointy one in the middle, under the cloud shadow.)

This is a photo I took 12 minutes after the previous photo:

The route is marked by these orange-topped posts, which gives you a bit more confidence that it goes through there somehow. Sort of.

This is a photo of a section of the sheep fence:

The fence winds up and over and through what feels like very improbable terrain (and probably really annoying for whoever had to hammer in all those t-posts—I assume a helicopter delivered them up here somewhere because if not, WOW). It’s funny, thinking humans (or maybe just me) exerting all this effort to get to this spot in search of some sort of meaning or self-actualization, and you’d have a hard time convincing probably 99 out of 100 human beings that coming up here is “worth it,” and YET. They have to build a fence up here to keep sheep out, in case, you know, they amble over here in the middle of lunch.

This is the sign that lets you know you’re crossing into Hawea Conservation Park:

It also says there is “No poled route to Corner Peak” and “Suitable for very experienced parties only.” At this point, I had about one more mile and 1,000 vertical feet to go—pretty much 80 percent of the way to the summit.

This is a photo of the Beaufort Wind Force Scale:

[Ldecola/Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beaufort_wind_scale.png#Licensing ]

About halfway through that last mile, the route crosses a saddle, and at that point, the stiff breezes I’d been feeling were funneled into a steady blast across my path, not quite enough to knock me down (70 mph) but definitely strong enough to turn my steps into a stagger and make me cautious about the cliffs 10 feet to my left. So maybe “Strong Gale.” Also enough to make me wonder if maybe I should turn around? But the summit was right there. I had trekking poles for balance, and I was an experienced party (wasn’t I?).

This is a drawing representing one interpretation of a human life.

There are no numbers for age on it, because lives are different lengths and I think people evolve differently. The idea is: That life is divided into two periods—the first, when you think you’ll have time to come back to a certain place again in your life, and the second, when you think you might never have time to come back to a certain place again in your life. It could be halfway around the world, or with a friend at a breakfast place a mile from your house. Depending on the situation, this idea can be a motivator, or dangerous.

This is a photo of the other side of my favorite coffee mug:

About seven months after the first time I saw this coffee mug in Spielman Bagels & Coffee, I happened to be back in Portland for a book event. I was in a hurry to get back to Missoula (it’s an 8.5-hour drive), but I made time to swing by the bagel shop. I ran in, bought the mug, no bagel, no coffee, just the mug, and drove home.

This is a photo of me on the summit of Corner Peak:

It was a little less windy up there, and the view was incredible.

This is a photo facing the other direction from the summit:

I mean, look at this place. If you lived 7,800 miles away, like I do, you might consider yourself lucky to get here once in life.

This is a photo I took later that afternoon:

That’s Jay riding his strider bike in front of the aforementioned food truck at the aforementioned playground near Tim and Whitney’s house. Corner Peak is over there on the right.

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Trip Report.

I had planned our trip to have a day to explore most sections of the national park to see as much as possible in our limited time. Our third day was designated to exploring the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. If we had time we would make a side trip to Smith Peak lookout on our drive back to camp. This area of the park is located in the north western corner. It required leaving and re-entering the park, so it set us up well to visiting a fire lookout just outside the boundaries. The access to the Hetch Hetchy area is off a steep and narrow road with limited trail options. It seemed like most trails were utilized for access to longer backpacking routes. I settled on sticking to the classic hike along the reservoir to Tueeulala and Wapama falls. The biggest downside to visiting Yosemite this late in the season was most of these waterfalls were dry. The trail follows an old railroad cut that is relatively flat, but offers little reprieve from the sun. Despite Strava only calculating this hike at 4.80 miles with 585′ of elevation gain the heat made it challenging. Our energy was tapped by the time we made it back to the car.

I wanted to head straight back to camp afterwards, but we decided to continue to the Groveland Ranger station to buy a map of the area. Garnet was interested in looking at the routes to other fire lookouts, but they were completely out of the map we wanted. After some debate, we decided to continue on to Smith Peak. The access road was located just behind the ranger station and we were already there. We followed the paved road to the Pines Campground and turned into it. The road turned to dirt and continues beyond the campground. We debated parking here and walking the road since it was close enough, but ended up continuing on for the same reason. If we found the road inaccessible we could always turn around. There were some minor hazards to avoid if you are driving a low clearance vehicle but it is passable. After driving for a mile and a half we reached a 5-way intersection. We parked in a pull out here since we figured the remaining distance to the summit was behind a gate. It was not immediately clear which road led to the summit from here. We took a guess and headed left based on which road looked the most used and angled towards the summit. It was confirmed we made the right selection when we reached the gate farther down the road. From where we parked to the summit was less than half of a mile. Strava calculated this at 0.95 RT with 174′ of elevation gain. If we had decided to park at the campground, the hike would have been closer to 4 miles RT with 680′ of gain.

Our biggest surprise after we reached the summit was meeting the lookout attendant onsite. We figured even if it was still staffed the person would have already been done for the season or have had left for the evening. He invited us up to chat, but not all the way on the catwalk. The view from the ground was about the same as it was from the stairs. Unfortunately neither of us can recall his name, but we chatted with him for awhile about lookouts and the surrounding area before heading back to camp for the night.

History.

In 1931, Smith Peak was selected as an administrative site to build a lookout tower. A wooden 2-story tower was built shortly after it’s selection. Old archive pictures show this structure was reminiscent of a national park style cab with slight variations. It is mentioned that the site has been utilized for fire detection as early as 1910 given it’s proximity to the ranger station. The wooden structure was replaced in 1952 by a metal lookout tower and garage. This burned down in 1987 during the Stanislaus Complex fire and was replaced by the existing structure in 1988. This site continues to be actively staffed every season and is one of only two remaining staffed in the Groveland Ranger District.

Trip Report.

I felt we were able to get a good overview of Yosemite National Park by spreading out our hikes in each area. We spent our fifth day in the main valley collecting souvenirs and our sixth in Tuolumne Meadows hiking to Cathedral Lakes. We really only missed the most southern section with the Mariposa Grove. Though I hope the next time we get to visit the park will be via backpacking in their expansive backcountry. After our long travel day to the park at the start of our trip, I was happy we opted to take two nights to head back to Oregon. This broke up the drive and allotted us to make some exploratory stops along the way. I thought about trying to squeeze another short hike in before exiting Yosemite, but we both agreed we needed to make progress on our drive time. Especially since we opted to take the scenic route back via HWY-395.

Bald Mountain lookout is just south of where HWY-120 meets HWY-395, or where the eastern exit to Yosemite National Park spits you out. This is a unique stand alone mountain that rises up out of the valley to offer 365 views of the surrounding area. Though we passed on any additional hikes, we figured it made sense to make a small detour here before heading north. Especially since we do not make it down to this area often and this fire lookout stands out by itself from others. Heading south on HWY-395, we kept an eye out for the left turn since we would have to cross traffic and were not sure if it’d be obvious. The road was labeled as 1S05 on the map, but was Bald Mountain Road from the highway and on GPS. There was thankfully a turn lane to avoid blocking any traffic and allowed us to wait for a safe crossing. From there the road turns to a mix of gravel and sand – I was a bit worried about how our car would handle the sand. We followed the main use road and any signs that pointed us towards Bald Mountain. It felt pretty straight forward to us but there are junctions were one could get turned around if not careful.

The road was passible to our car up until we reached the gate. There were some squirrely sections in the sand prior, but if you keep your momentum and don’t get too close to the soft shoulders you will be fine. I’d recommend parking and walking from the gate if you are in a low clearance vehicle. Garnet was driving this time and wanted to see if we could drive the remaining distance. This would end up being one of our bigger mistakes visiting a fire lookout. The road started out fine, but it is rocky and narrow. It does not offer room to pass if you meet another vehicle except in an area right before the summit. Unfortunately before we reached that larger pull out the road got worse and I wanted to bail out. We probably would have been fine if we had committed to making it at this point, but instead we tried to turn around to avoid backing all the way down. This area was rockier than the rest of our drive, but it was still a mix of soft sand. Given those conditions, I’m sure it’s no surprise to read that we got ourselves stuck. Not majorly but enough to be concerned about how we were going to get ourselves out. Our wheels were having a hard time finding purchase and we tried adding rocks under the tires to help build traction without digging ourselves deeper. There was potential for high-lining our car or at least cause significant damage to the undercarriage. Eventually someone was driving down from visiting the summit and they stopped to help. They were able to assist Garnet in giving us a good push from the back, while directing us in the front areas we couldn’t see by ourselves. We were extremely thankful and embarrassed at the same time. Once we were back on the road we had to back down all the way to the gate to let them pass. We parked in a pull out just before the gate and walked the rest of the road, as we should have from the start.

It was only a 0.8 mile walk from the gate to the summit with 382′ of elevation gain. Strava calculated the total round trip distance at 1.77 miles, but the additional was due to walking around the lookout. We were greeted by a friendly attendant named Karen that invited us up to take a look around. She told us she was a volunteer from the San Bernadino area and that this lookout was staffed on a rotating basis of volunteers. It was cool to see a new program in action from the efforts of the FFLA to help keep this lookout in service. Karen used to work on Keller Peak LO and was the first woman to repel down El Capitan (so cool!). She told us how we just missed some other visitors that were worried about meeting cars on the road during their drive down and that she had seen a car heading up at the same time but was unsure what happened. We were too embarrassed to tell her that was us, or that we got stuck, or that they had to help us. I felt even worse to hear that we became their worst fear. There was not much we could do about it now except look back and laugh.

History.

Bald Mountain is one of only two fire lookouts still standing in the south-eastern Sierra and the only one left in operation on the Inyo National Forest. The original structure was built in 1943 by the Civilian Public Service (an agency that followed the CCC and was staffed by conscientious objectors of WWII). There is still a log cabin onsite that is believed to be part of the original buildings from this era and is still used as a warming hut for skiers in the winter. In 1963, the current 16′ x 40′ concrete block lookout with 10′ x 10′ steel cab was built. This unique structure includes living quarters, two garages, and a storage room. It was actively staffed by the Forest Service into the 1980s. It was not until recently, in 2024, that it was brought back into service via a volunteer partnership between the FFLA and the Mono Lake Ranger District.