Summer Trip - Day 2 - Mt. Langley

Our second day dawned with a deep blue sky and a slight chill in the air. I was excited to get rolling so I got up first, retrieved the bear canister and started the coffee. We have discovered Starbucks Via instant coffee and it makes the best backpacking coffee. A little brown sugar and milk powder and we're ready to go. We packed up as the sun started to rise over the Eastern horizon, lighting up Old Army Pass. We started out in our wind jackets and hats as the sun hadn't heated up the granite yet. That lasted about 30 minutes. As soon as we started to climb our internal furnaces heated all of us up enough to stop and shed our extra layers. Old Army Pass is not a maintained trail anymore. Because it holds snow longer than New Army Pass, The Old Pass was left to return to its natural, loose, state. Most maps now show only the New Pass. With all that said there was a use trail on the Old Pass that worked just fine to get us to the top in about an hour and a half.

Once we arrived at the Pass we shed our packs and bid T-Funk adieu. She was saving everything for Whitney in two days so she just continued on at a leisurely pace, knowing we would catch up to her in about 5 hours. So we loaded our day packs up with food and water and started up the mountain. The first part of the climb is really just slogging up sand and rocks until you get to the cliff band about a mile from the summit. We started up the middle of the cliff band and Christi was not happy with the class 3 route we had chosen. Funk continued up and Christi and I traversed to the left and found linking gullies that led up to the summit plateau. From there it was a little more sand and rocks, but before we knew it we were standing on the summit. Mt Langley is one of the three easiest 14ers, White Mountain and Mt. Whitney being the other two. Christi was stoked to be standing on top of her first 14er and I was happy to add another to my list.After signing the register we turned downhill and surfed the sand back to our packs. We made pretty good time with a three hours round trip from the top of the Pass. We loaded our packs up and munched on some ProBars and headed north to catch T-Funk at Soldier Lake. We found her lounging on a rock waiting. We stopped and had lunch at Soldier Lake which, of course, was very beautiful.

We shouldered our packs with full bellies and heavy legs. We wanted to make it to Rock Creek as there is a bear box here and we have a bit of, lets say 'overflow', out of our bear canister. We can load all our stuff into the park provided bear boxes and sleep soundly. So the final few hours of the day we walked and talked our way to Rock Creek. Christi and I arrived first and scouted for a place to sleep. There was a guided party that had taken all of the spots close to the bear box. So I crossed the creek and found a pretty sweet spot on the other side. I had Christi go clean up while I set up the tarp and went back to make sure the Funks found us. As soon as I crossed the creek, they popped out of the forest. Perfect timing. We had a mellow dinner and the mosquitoes were not as bad as we expected. Its a rare Sierra evening that the mosquitoes aren't annoying the crap out of you. A great day in the mountains! We were out by 9pm as usual.