Climbing by day, driving by night. Is sleep just a luxury? Are you safe?

A lot of people have been asking this.  When today my alarm clock went off to hike, I closed my eyes, and slept for four more hours.  Sure, I lost a hiking day, but it gives me a chance to write, which I almost enjoy as much. And it hurts a hell of a lot less.  So let’s jump into: Are my sleeping habits safe for myself and those around me?

Simple answer:  **** No.  They really shouldn’t get in the van.  It could almost be considered assisted suicide.  And I don’t wear my glasses anymore at night because it’s more comfortable steering through that nice soft blur of trees and high beams versus the tiring effort of focusing on all the optical inputs. My eyes do some horrible tracking jitters with lack of sleep.  But I digress.  Let’s run through the math.  As with everything, it is all about hiking.  Which means it’s all about the math.

I work from 3:30p to about 12:30a (depending how many bugs I really want to scrape off the shuttle van at midnight, which is trending towards zero).  So that gives me from X to about 2:30 to hike during the workday.  So let’s solve for X.

Well, as a general rule a person can hike at 2 miles per hour and/or gain 1,000 feet per hour.  Of course, there are a lot of variables. But you must start somewhere. 

Let’s take Matahpi for example. I needed to cover 10.8 miles (2 off trail) and gain 3650 feet.  So, I could roughly expect five hours going up based on miles, and 3.5 hours up based on gain.  I know the gain on the trail will be about 2k and will go pretty quick as I’ve been on it before. I expect the off-trail to be similar as nearby peaks like Piegan and Siyeh, which was pretty good scree and nice ridge running (probably good climbing/game trails). 

I’m thinking I should be able to summit in about 4 hours from the car based on miles, and the 3650 gain falls within that time window (1000 ft of gain x4).  I’d expect the down to be about 25% faster than the up, or about 3 hours.  So, 7.5 round trip with a little fudge factor and time on top.

Now the commute.  I’m staying at an RV park about 10 miles outside the Park.  It’s another 10 miles up to LML.  And then another 20 miles to the Pass.  Matahpi parking area is about five more miles.   From ‘home’ to the Pass is about 1.5 hrs.  Getting back depends on if I get stuck behind a tour bus or scared driver.  Looking at 3 to 3.5 hrs RT travel time.

This trip I’m now expecting to be about 11 hours end to end.  I’d like to be back an hour early to get ready for work and decompress a little which is 2:30p.  Less 11 hours is a 3:30a leave.  However, I cannot get less the 4 hrs of sleep. Even a finely tuned hiking machine cannot functional with so little sleep and will implode like a dark star.

So I decided to push the envelope and shoot for 10 hours roundtrip (maybe get back 3:00p on the return). That would provide me with a 4:30a leave.  But on the Matahpi trip, I ran into slow climbing conditions and bad rock. I really needed the 11 hours (maybe a little more). It should have been 12 hrs. to be safe.  I knew I was cutting it tight and should have saved it for a full day off, which is why I wasn’t surprised to have to turnaround before the summit.  I should have trusted the math.

So the 8–10 hour hiking/climbing window is pretty much the norm now. I have exhausted everything in the LMD area and forced to go to Logan Pass (and beyond).  Before that I could get by with a 5:30a or even a little later out of bed time. 

When I do find a hike for a 6–8 hour window, I still must leave at the 4:30a time to secure parking and beat the summer heat we were having.  So, 4 hours of sleep (during the work week) is the best I can get. 

My first ‘off’ day I still only get a 4-hour sleep, but I don’t have a fixed return time so do longer hikes/climbs.  The 2nd ‘off’ day is the sweet spot:  8 hours of sleep, early out, late return. 

And the 1st day of work week I get to sleep in and take it as a rest day.  Which is also a good time to do some weekly shopping and laundry.

Of course, I can only take the 4hr nights for so long.  So, I’ll generally do three in a row, rest day, then my ‘weekend’, then rest day.  On any short hiking days, I try to squeeze in a little nap before my shift. 

When I start getting drowsy in the van, I take one of the many pullovers you’ve heard me discuss in a different post, and walk around the van a couple of times. 10p-12p is the worst. But that is how I keep one foot in the land of the living and one in land of limited REM sleep.

Not really sure how this will work out when I’m back in the real world.  I’ll probably be out in the garage building furniture at 4am and then burning it in the afternoon so I can keep the cycle going.  One thing for sure is I’ve broken the habit of scanning 200+ channels on cable for an hour before giving up. 

What I’m really looking forward to is sitting on the back deck with my feet up on the hot tub and watching our new neighbors that moved in while I have been away.  Of course, no binoculars because of that damned marmot. At least I haven’t started foaming at the mouth yet.