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Last weekend (June 28-30, 2024), sixteen of us training with the Asha for Education, Silicon Valley hiking program hiked Mt. Langley via the New Army Pass. This was a target hike for the fundraising program! I’m happy to share that we successfully completed the target. The group trained for more than 8 weeks and 15 out of 16 reached the summit, but all 16 of us had a great trip (which is more important than the summit!). We had a diverse group with the oldest of us being 65 years old, and for 11 of us this was our first 14er!!
This post is a trip report to summarize not just our journey but also the training and motivation.
Additionally, i’m hoping this post encourages you to donate to and support Team Asha Hiking Program.
What makes this special ?
Why Langley?
We have done other 14ers like Mt. Shasta as part of Asha for Education’s Silicon Valley hiking program. The 14er is typically the first big mountain hiked by the participant. To make this goal accessible to more diverse beginner participants and also to enable it for later-in-life athletes, we chose Mt. Langley, sitting at 14,032 ft. The mountain is less technical without any glaciers but also a testament to the beauty of Mother Nature with amazing views and lakes. A perfect goal encompassing strenuousness and beauty!
Why Asha?
Asha for Education is a 501(c)(3) organization, with an audacious goal to enable universal primary education in India by 2047! It works with a network of 50+ chapters worldwide of primarily volunteers and no full-time staff to enable it!
What better way to combine these two objectives than via the Silicon Valley chapter’s Asha Hiking Program. This year the program, in addition to Mt. Langley, is providing options to backpack Hetch Hetchy or do high-altitude day hikes in Colorado Rockies!
Training Program!
With over 40+ participants in this hiking program training from Mar 23 till now over several weeks, a group of coords and mentors make sure they adhere to weekly hike goals and checkpoints. Most notably, every participant in the program going up to Mt. Langley did two progress checks (one with a heavy backpack) and also got familiar with overnight camping!
The elaborate training program made sure the participants are both physically and mentally ready for the hike!
We also made sure that participants are familiar with their equipment, and especially for Mt. Langley, they carry appropriate mosquito repellents and water supply. The photo shows what my pack looked like.
The Route
Based on quick melt and route beta from our planning research and other climbers, we chose New Army Pass to go up Mt. Langley. As you will see in the figure below, the traditional route from Old Army Pass is also possible, but it’s very steep and has not been maintained. We camped at Long Lake. Our Day 1 was about 8 miles with an elevation gain of about 1000ft, and on Day 2 we hiked 17 miles with an elevation gain of about 4900ft.
The Journey
The drive from Bay Area to Langley trailhead is about 9 hrs! Thanks to Shishir, I had great company on the way and we could share the drive.
Most of us camped at the Trailhead on Friday. Part of the joy of camping with a big group of Indians is amazing treats. Thanks to the participants, we had a fun bhel puri in the evening! Everyone seemed in great shape so we retired about 9pm to get some rest.
We started from Cottonwood Lakes Walk In Campground at about 8:45am, with a short circle of breathing exercises and lots of enthusiasm.
Approach Day
Well, the hallmark of the approach day was India playing the cricket finals! Thanks to our Garmin inReach, we had access to the score. About 2 miles in, just near a beautiful waterfall, we got the great news that India won the T-20 World Cup! The group celebrated with big cheers, which those of us in the back knew what it meant :).
We made good progress and the approach was fairly flat! We were at the lunch spot of Lake #2 at about 1pm.
Within an hour we got to Long Lake and were ready setting up the tents and enjoying all the amazing sights of the lake. We celebrated by having chai at the Lake and also made a decision that one of the participants had to stay at camp owing to cramps. Hiking can be challenging and with a diverse group getting in such fine shape to the base camp was already a victory and success.
The rest of the evening, we spent making sure everyone had fresh water from the nearby stream and having a hearty dinner! We were ready to wake up at 2am and do that 3am start.
Some of us were lucky enough to see the Milky Way in its full glory during the night!
Summit Day
After waking up at 2am and some hot breakfast (thanks, Shishir!), we started the summit bid right on time at 3am! Spirits were high and we had great weather so we made good progress and by 5am we were on top of New Army Pass after lots of switchbacks and a small tricky icy section!
We were close but now we knew that it would take a while of up and down and some scrambling to cover the rest of 2000 ft.
At about 8:30am, after a lot of rest stepping, we were at the summit. To my surprise there were no winds and we were able to enjoy the summit views and treats for almost an hour!
And some silliness….
The Trip Down
We started our journey down around 9:30 am and were at the base camp by 2 pm. We took an hour’s rest at the base camp and started our journey back down to the trailhead around 6:30 pm. On the way down everyone was super tired and as many said this was the hardest thing they had done in their life! But hey, we got everyone back safe and now remaining 50% of the mission of coming down (not just going up) was also complete!
What next?
The group is readying up for a hike of Hetch Hetchy this weekend and Colorado the next weekend! Wish them luck.
Additionally, we are super fortunate to have gotten a great education and be in the place we are — we are lucky, not all of us are that lucky. Please consider supporting Asha and donating to one of the climbers’ fundraising climbs.