Mt Price Backpack

This weekend I, along with my usual hiking friends, made a backpack trip into the Desolation Wilderness (on the east side of Lake Tahoe) with the intent of climbing to the top of Mt Price and scattering the ashes of Paul’s dog Millie from the summit. Millie was a great hiking dog (here are some photos of her in her prime) and had made it to the top of Mt Price a few years earlier so the honor seemed fitting.

It had been a while since I had backpacked and I had forgotten how uncomfortable and exhausting it is schlepping all that gear around on your back. I think it is time to spend more money on new gear that is even lighter than the perfectly good stuff I have now. Nevertheless the rewards of the effort were significant and, that evening, camping at Twin Lakes with a near full moon was quite wonderful. It was a shame about the wind flapping the tent mercilessly all night though.


The hike up to the summit of Mt Price (9,975 ft) on the next day was quite challenging, there being no real trail just a lot of steep accent over boulder strewn slopes with some nasty loose scree at the top. What is more the summit approach is not very spectacular, the view from the summit is amazing, but the actual summit itself is unremarkable, it is just one heap of rock that is a bit higher than the others around it. It’s always better to hike to something significant and obvious I think.

Anyway, Paul got to scatter some of Millie’s ashes, as you can see below, and it wasn't even the anticipated Big Lebowski moment where we all got to ingest the ashes. Paul tells us that he has a lot more ashes back at home, but there didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm in the group for scattering them over any other peaks. At least not right now, we are too tired.



Here are some more photos from the trip on my SmugMug site.

Sicko

Last weekend, I went to the theatre/theater/movies/cinema (not sure which is correct anymore) to see the latest Michael Moore film, Sicko. It’s about the sad state of the American Health Care system, and the apparently wonderful free health care enjoyed by our European and Canadian counterparts. The US Healthcare industry is easy to poke holes in and Michael Moore makes a nice job of pointing out its shortcomings while taking a few jabs at the Bush administration at the same time. Quite frankly it made me angry at the direction this country has taken in adopting for profit healthcare. Too many people fall through the cracks.

But that’s wasn’t the most worrying thing that evening. As I approached the cinema box office, I asked for two tickets for Sicko – the young lady looked at me and said, “Is that two ordinary tickets?” I was puzzled for a while, until I looked up and saw the price list – Adults, Students and the dreaded - Senior Citizens. Obviously she mistook me for a much older person. She didn’t see the spring in my step and the youthful gleam in my eye. After my protests, she said that she asked everyone the same question – I don’t think so.

Oh well, I suppose these occasions will become more and more frequent, until I just breakdown and accept the cheaper rates.