Climbing Mt. Whitney - The Mountaineers Route

If you have ever considered hiking to the top of Mount Whitney, there are basically two ways you can get there. There is the traditional route that is 22 miles round trip and then there is the short cut (i.e. the mountaineers route), which is the one we took. They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and while this route isn't straight, it's about as straight as you can get.

This is the third time I have done this event and I can say that the weather could not have been any better. Actually, I would have preferred for it to have been a little cooler. But given a choice of what we had on this trip and what we have had in the past, this was a blessing.

Exploring The Chasm of Doom at Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree National Park is considered by many to be a mecca for rock climbing and bouldering, and I would have to agree. There are rock structures over a hundred feet high, with climbing routes galore scattered throughout the entire park. It is a truly unique place. But my favorite thing to do at the park is explore The Chasm of Doom.

The Chasm of Doom is a talus cave structure located in the middle of the park climbing possibly a hundred feet from the floor. While it doesn’t take any rock climbing skills, to explore the cave you do have to do a little scrambling (possibly beyond what you may be accustomed to), some crawling, some squeezing, and some overcoming of claustrophobia (if you happen to suffer from this).

The chasm starts right out on your hands and knees and with headlamps on...