Tom Grundy's 2018 Sierra Challenge Day 5 Mount George Davis

8-07-2018 I finally got enough sleep, so it was a pretty mellow morning in that regard. Today was to be a pretty "easy" day followed by a potluck at the Church of Grundy - so I needed to not dawdle all day. I was able to mostly hang with the lead group up to where we left the trail. There we split up a bit as various people opted for different routes. I started off traversing along the lake shore more than some others who went higher. For the most part my route seemed pretty good as we threaded our way through the Wonder Lakes and occasionally even found a use trail. I was hiking with a changing group of folks as we tried to optimize our ways. I definitely lost some ground as we started churning up the long talus slopes towards the ridge but kept a decent pace. I wasn't the first to the summit by a long shot, but I made it there for the first summit pic and before anyone left. I spent enough time on the summit talking, eating, and resting for a second summit pic.

Lower Lamarck Lake - about where we left the trail - the peak is just off to the right

following Iris, Michael, and Mason up towards the peak

360 degree view from near the summit of Mt George Davis
Humphreys is just right of center Piute Pass valley and Wonder Lakes basin are to the right, Lamarck and Mt Darwin are on the left
Piute Pass itself is in the center well below the horizon

summit photo number 1

summit photo number 2

I toyed with the idea of dropping down to the north and following the Piute Pass trail out, but the lakes on the way we came up looked inviting and I was a little scared of getting cliffed out. We managed to make much better time on the descent and even found some scree skiing. Once we got to the lakes there was quite a bit of swimming. I was in search of nice rocks in the sun with deep water to dive off of and I was not disappointed. I was joined by Renee and Liz who were both able to take a break from mother duties for an "easy" Sierra Challenge day. Others opted for different swim locations but most people jumped in at least one lake this day.

I swan dive into the lake (Renee took the pic)

Liz dives into the lake

Renee dives into Lower Lamarck Lake
Mt George Davis is above her

Lower Lamarck Lake

Once we left the lakes we made pretty good time down the trail and back to the vehicles. I stayed to chat a bit but then headed down to town to finish prepping the CoG (Church of Grundy - my home) for visitors. Luckily I had already done most of the clearing and cleaning ahead of time.

We had quite a crowd at the CoG and many people cooked or brought delicious things to eat and drink. It was nice to get to hang out and eat and talk. This was billed as somewhat of a contest and we voted on the top foods for who would win the "gravy jersey". There were many delicious things so it was hard to decide. Michael won with passionfruit panna cotta. The runners up were um, I can't remember, but all delicious - habanero steak? Cap sirloin? fresh porcini collected on the hike that morning... There was a lot of protein and we were able to eat leftovers for a few more Challenge days (as long as you made it back in time). There weren't too many dishes to clean up and I had a lot of help so things weren't bad. Then it was time to digest as fast as I could and pack up for the rest of the Challenge and head to the next trailhead to get some sleep for another day - this time a big one.

eating up at the CoG

a large number of delicious calories were consumed

Michael C sears the steak

Iris tallies votes

watching the votes get added up

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