The Club hike has a quota, and so I find something else to do.
Kamiloiki, which I often do alone, has two side valleys to the west: the upper one was done by me in 1984. It had tall grass and is probably impassable now. The lower one was done by me in 1994, and then I tried it in 1996, and could not find the original way.
So went up, and halfway up the ridge, there is this thing that looks like a jeep road coming in from the left. It probably is a jeep road that goes all the way to the bottom. The top section has a good road-bed but is overgrown. It switchbacks and so I abandoned it for the ridge, which is easy to get through and I cleared it on previous occasions, with some cuts still identifiable.
Then it gets to a grove of trees, an idyllic camp spot. It is occasionally used for that purpose as there is a fireplace on the ground. Fortunately the people have not been too bad, and there is no rubbish in sight.
Sat down for lunch, and then continued down a faint swath down the valley. The routing is indistinct and the valley direction does not look very attractive: severely overgrown. Well, supposedly there is a jeep road in the valley, and in 1994 I mostly succeeded in following it all the way to the bottom. But I figured that I don't have to do it.
There is swath to the right, getting back to the ridgetop, and so I followed it. The route is quite reasonable, and I made good time, and so I decided to just follow the ridgetop.
About 2/3 of the way down, the valley splits, and one branch actually cuts through the ridge I am on. So I had to descend and cross this valley (I could follow the valley out, but I decided to leave it for some other day).
The path was fairly obvious, and I marked it with ribbons. I descended and then ascended, and then reached something that looks like an overgrown jeep road. I followed the jeep road to the right and down the main valley.
The jeep road petered out, or it may have continued down the low middle of the valley, which does not look attractive. Somehow I must have deviated from the jeep road and stayed at mid-level along ledges of the ridge to the right. The ledges are reasonably clear and fun, and I kept going as much as possible, probably too far. For now there is a 20 foot dropoff below me to the valley, and I wanted to go out the middle of the valley, having done that before, while the right ridge might get steep towards the end.
So I searched, and then did find a weakness in that dropoff, and eased myself down a chute. Here I found a faded ribbon, of the striped kind and definitely not mine. Looks like somebody else had the same idea.
This was within a few hundred feet of the end of the valley, and the overgrowth was not bad (remembered that in '94 the valley path was quite overgrown). Eventually I emerged on a closed-off street, and realized that I was more to the right side of the valley than in '94, which is why the path this time is better.
I walked on the road to the right to check out the bottom of the right ridge. It looks definitely doable, no vertical dropoff at the bottom. In fact there are several faded ribbons indicating the best line. Well, some other day.
Wing
Author: wing@lava.net (Wing C Ng)
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