Attempted Climb to 8000 feet

This is a relatively short blog entry with just a few photos showing our attempt at making it to the summit of Garfield Peak at an elevation of just over 8000 feet.  Just 300 vertical feet short of the summit, we made it to 7700 feet where my health forced us to make our way back down this rather treacherous peak.  

I should also point out that this was during our first few hours at the higher elevation of Crater Lake and an unexpected road closure prompted us to change plans.  We were simply "looking around" and exploring the area right around the lodge and found ourselves on the beginning of the trail to this summit so we figured, "Why not?"  Our thought was that if this proved to be too much for my health (or for any of us), we could always just turn around and head back to the lodge.  So, we pressed onward toward the summit.

The photo below shows the rim trail near the lodge.  Near the lodge, the rim trail is asphalt to minimize trampled ruts.  The lodge gets far more visitors each day than just those who are staying at the lodge so there is a lot of foot traffic near the lodge.  We continued wandering to the east toward Garfield Peak which is that giant peak in front of us.  

The photo below shows Sheila, Adam and Joi approaching one of the many switchbacks on the way to the summit as we climbed higher and higher.  No matter where we were on this trail, the drop-off was always steep!

The photo below shows a view toward the lake that we came upon at one of the switchbacks.  This part was a narrow path along the ridge of the mountain with significant drops on both our right and left...

No matter where we were on this trail, any misstep, or stumble, or slip off the trail would likely be fatal.  The drop-offs were extremely steep and threateningly deep!

I handed my camera to Adam so he could capture a rare photo of Sheila and I together...

At one spot, we caught a picturesque view of Wizard Island through a break in the trees...  the trees framed the view of the island very nicely...

Whenever we caught a glimpse of Crater Lake, we stopped so I could capture a few photos (and catch my breath).  For most of this climb, the view of the lake was blocked by the mountain we were climbing.  Our view was to the right, away from the lake, toward the east and southeast.  Sometimes, however, we would come to a switchback that would put us on a narrow ridge overlooking the lake.  By now, we are thousands of feet above the surface of the lake.

The red arrow, below, shows the approximate point where we decided it would be best to turn around.  We were just 300 vertical feet short of the summit which is that highest point in the photo to the right of the arrow.  Even though we were that close to the summit, we made the right choice.  My breathing was very labored once we hit around 7000'.   I had to keep stopping to use my inhaler and take a gulp of oxygen from the O2 canisters we had brought with us.  I was a bit dizzy and the constant steep drop-offs at the edge of our narrow trail were giving me a bit of vertigo.  In my active younger days, extreme heights never bothered me in the least.  In my poorer health these days, any bit of height gives me vertigo.  Even a short step ladder! 

At 7700', in addition to worsened breathing, my left leg had stopped cooperating with my brain.  These types of neurological issues occur occasionally and it had already happened once or twice previously during this journey to Oregon (once on the train and once in Manhattan) so I wasn't completely caught by surprise.  I did know, however, that this is a serious sign (potentially of impending doom) that shouldn't be ignored so I took some extra medications, rehydrated a bit, used some more O2 and then we started on our journey back down.  At this point, "pushing my body onward" toward the summit would have been careless, thoughtless and rather stupid so we made the wise choice to turn around once my health was feeling a bit more stable.

Considering we had not planned to tackle this peak and we never made it to the summit, we had a great time and the views were spectacular.  It was a nice last minute change and I managed to get back down this peak with no significant problems.  Well...  it was good that I still managed to come back down under my own power and my health never fully crashed.  The lower the elevation, the better I felt.  

I have a lot more photos of this climb that I will share in future blog entries.  

EDIT:  I had published this blog entry this morning and just realized that I should have included my reference panoramic image as a reference.  

This peak was climbed, Garfield Peak, is at #5 in the reference panorama below..