← Rex Walrond
Building

Field Notes

Trip reports and reviews from backpacking routes and dive sites — route conditions, gear that earned its weight, and whether a spot actually lives up to the photos.

The Ground Covered

Everywhere below, plotted. Filter by kind, or pick a marker to pull up the entry — the places still on the list are drawn hollow.

Backpacking & mountaineering

Four Pass Loop

First trip

Maroon Bells–Snowmass Wilderness, CO · August 2019

~26 midistance ~7,900 ftgain 12,500 fthigh point

Four passes over 12,000 feet in a single loop through the Elk Range — West Maroon, Frigid Air, Trail Rider, Buckskin. Each one drops into a different drainage and then climbs straight back out of it. The trip that started all of this.

Conditions — afternoon storm risk above treeline, four high passes, permit zone

Mt Rainier — Disappointment Cleaver

Summited

Mount Rainier NP, WA · July 2020

~18 midistance ~9,000 ftgain 14,411 ftsummit

A glaciated climb on a mountain big enough to make its own weather, run over several days with International Mountain Guides. Up from Paradise to Camp Muir at 10,080 feet, then higher again to Ingraham Flats at 11,400 to shorten summit day — a roped pre-dawn start across the Ingraham and up the Cleaver while the snow is still firm. First mountain I ever stood on top of.

Conditions — glacier travel, roped team, crevasse hazard, staged camps, alpine start

John Muir Trail — Clouds Rest & Half Dome

Yosemite NP, CA · June 2021

~40 midistance ~7,500 ftgain 9,926 fthigh point

Several days south out of Tuolumne on the JMT, with the two detours that make the trip worth it. Half Dome is the one people know — the cables, the queue, the photograph. Clouds Rest is the one with the better view: a granite spine you walk the length of with the whole valley falling away on both sides.

Conditions — cable route, exposed granite slab, permit required

Teton Crest Trail — extended loop

Grand Teton NP, WY · August 2022

~50 midistance ~9,000 ftgain 10,720 fthigh point

A traverse of the range's western side — Death Canyon Shelf, Alaska Basin, then over Paintbrush Divide to close the loop rather than walk out the standard finish. The Grand, Middle, and South Teton stay in frame for most of it, which is the whole argument for this route.

Conditions — exposed shelf traverse, snow lingering on the divide, bear canister required

Bowman Lake to Kintla Lake

Glacier NP, MT · August 2023

~32 midistance ~5,500 ftgain 7,470 fthigh point

The far northwest corner of the park, where the crowds thin to almost nobody. Bowman up over Brown Pass and Boulder Pass, then down the other side to Kintla. Grizzly country the entire way, and remote enough that the permit system does most of the work keeping it quiet.

Conditions — remote backcountry, grizzly country, limited bail-out options

Onion Valley to Whitney Portal

Sierra Nevada, CA · August 2025

~50 midistance ~12,000 ftgain 13,600 fthigh point

Fifty miles of High Sierra finishing at Whitney Portal — in over Kearsarge Pass to pick up the John Muir Trail, then Forester Pass and the long switchback climb to Trail Crest at 13,600 feet. The most sustained time at altitude of anything on this list, and the thin air is the whole story.

Conditions — sustained high altitude, 13,000 ft passes, long carry between resupply

Distances and elevation figures are published route numbers, not GPS tracks — close enough to plan against, not precise enough to argue over.

On the list

5 objectives
  • Zion National Park Utah Canyon country
  • The Matterhorn Zermatt, Switzerland 14,692 ft
  • Kilimanjaro Tanzania 19,341 ft
  • Mount McKinley (Denali) Alaska Range, AK 20,310 ft
  • Mount Vinson Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica 16,050 ft

Ordered by what each one actually asks for rather than by height — Zion is a trip you can book, Vinson is an expedition. Three of the five are Seven Summits, which says less about a goal than about where the list keeps drifting. Rainier, already done, is the usual proving ground for Denali.