Death Valley: Telescope Peak 11,049' 4/5/04 Renata, Skyler, Lance and
                                            Jack Kerrebrock

Our Spring Break trip.  Nancy had to do her student teaching, but
her dad joined in on this adventure.  We drove via South Lake Tahoe,
with the kids watching DVDs on Renata's iBook.  We stopped
at Hot Creek and Crowley Hot Springs.  Reached the end of the road
campsite 8133' at 10pm.

After breakfast, we started the 7 mile long ascent at 7:30am.
A party in the campground said they had retreated due to too much snow, so
Jack and I were not sure how far we would get.  But we figured we would
just go ahead and find out.  The trail started with a small snowbank,
and the first snowfield was soft, fairly low angle with kicked steps.
Then plenty of dry trail for a long ways to the saddle on the south
side of the peak with the antennas.  Here the snow was continuous
as the trail crossed to the west side of the ridge to skirt a subpeak
on the ridge.  This was the scene of an anxious moment, as one slope
was fairly steep with a long runout below, and the snow was not very
soft.  Renata was concerned for awhile, but we kicked better steps and
talked her through the safest route.  Soon the trail was dry again,
with Lance continuously in the lead.  At the next saddle we had to
gain some elevation again, and we were tiring slightly, with Jack
looking a little more tired, probably due to jet lag and our late
arrival at camp the previous night.  Lance didn't like the idea of
a turnaround time, but we calculated that 1pm was right, and it was already
after 11:30 with a 1500' snow ridge above us.  It was at this point
that Jack realized he was not goint to be able to keep up, so he
took a rest and waited for us to return.  I cached all
my water and the kids' warm jackets I had been carrying in a dry
saddle before the snow got continuous.

The kids kept up a brisk pace on the ridge, sometimes sinking in,
with only occasional signs of previous steps.  We were also now
in the shade of a cloud, which was nice, as most of us had forgotten
sunglasses.  At the base of the last semi-steep section,
I judged we wouldn't need the 80' rope and 2 ice axes,
so we all cached our packs and headed for the summit.
Lance reached the top of the ridge first, although
he was a little disappointed that it was a false summit.
He headed to the next peak, while I led Skyler across a traversing
trail to the 3rd peak, the true summit.  Lance was first there, at
12:20pm.  He was very pleased to find the summit register,
and we all signed in and took a summit photo.

On the way down, Skyler's boots were getting very wet, so we
paused briefly to wring water out of his socks and tighten up the
tops of the boots.  We met Jack at my water cache and enjoyed lunch on
the dry rocks.  Fortunately the sun came out here, so we dried
off our feet and partially dried some wet socks.  Skyler even got a
few winks of sleep.  I swapped boots and socks with Skyler,
since mine were dry.  This plan worked well, as neither of us ended up
with blisters.  We headed down the long descent, returning to camp
before dark, with me a bit behind the main group.  The 14 mile
roundtrip was the longest hike the kids and I had ever done.