Went out on Saturday with this guy.
I started out from Bear Gulch and walked along the rim trail to the reservoir. Along the way I found quite a few beer cans, water bottles, etc. The reservoir was looking really low. Kind of makes you wonder what could be on the bottom. More bottles? Who knows.
From here I walked over to the Watchmen did the 4th class route and picked up some more water bottles.
View from the top of the watchmen
Next I started up the Deserted Valley. The stream bed was totally dry which made the walking pretty much brush free.
Along the way I picked up some more water bottles before I arrived at Maniacs Delight
I climbed the 5.7 route thinking that I was on the 4th class route. By the time I got to the move protected by the bolt I thought "hmm.this does not seem 4th class." Whoops.
Next I hopped on the 4th class route and then headed over to the Knee.
After poking around the base of the Knee looking for the bolts on the route "Blowing Chunks" I decided it was time to move on. Has anybody done this route lately? I could not see the bolts. Are they still there?
I did not find any more trash until I re-joined the High Peaks Trail near The UnMentionable. From here I walked down the trail to the Anvil. Along the way I found more bottles, TP, and this
my first used sanitary pad of the day! (later I will find one more and a couple of used tampons) By now the bag had a fair amount of stuff in it and many of the hikers gave me thanks for picking up trash. After chatting with the hikers I hopped on the Anvil and then headed up the trail to the cutooff for Pipsqueak Pinnacle. No trash to report at The Pipsqueak. I did" From the Center of the Earth "4th Class and then headed down to The Snout which I changed from 5.6 to 4th Class AO like this
From here I bushwacked my way down to the Condor Gulch Trail. From here the trash collecting resumed. When I got to the Don Genaro Overlook I chimneyed down the waterfall route and cleaned out a half dozen water bottles. The hikers were shouting down thanks.
Next up I did the 4th class descent route on Casino Rock. Then I continued on to the Squareblock to the 3rd class "Rabbit" route
From here the climbing pretty much stopped for the day and I went into full on trash collecting mode. My main objective was to remove as much or all of the visible trash from the Tunnel Trail. From talking to hikers along the way I knew that the soiled undies and TP that I saw a couple of weeks ago were still there. So now the moment you have all been waiting for..... I give you
and
and the piece doorepooped pants
Those bad boys got double bagged. Yikes!
From there I finished the Tunnel Trail and hiked back down the High Peaks Trail picking up more trash as I went along.
All in all, I got in some fun easy pinnacles in areas I had not visited, met a ton of nice hikers,and collected about a half a bag of trash. Did not see a single climber. I even brought an alpine harness just in case I could bum a TR out of someone. Here's my partner at the end of the day.
