Not Iron Man

I may have found the answer to the reason for my decreased appetite. I did my final blood test on Monday after the hike and found out today that my anemia is probably related to iron deficiency, in turn caused by a hormonal imbalance. Iron is the precursor that the body needs to form hemoglobin. Hemoglobin, in turn, is the oxygen carrying molecule contained in red blood cells.

Fatigue and weakness are symptoms, because the body's tissues aren't getting enough oxygen. Apparently, decreased appetite is also one of the symptoms of iron deficiency anemia. So this may be the reason why I've been having to force myself to eat while hiking.

How annoying that this happened right before our Half Dome hike!

I thought it was weird that I couldn't keep up with Duane last Saturday. I have never been unable to keep up. I'm usually in the lead. I wasn't having a problem during our final conditioning hikes, though I wasn't at as high an altitude either.

Feather Falls is somewhere around 2900 feet elevation. Black Mountain is at about 2800 feet. Saratoga Gap is lower at around 2400 feet. Mission Peak, which we did earlier in the Spring - twice in one day - was 2517 feet. We did the Panorama Trail down to Happy Isles last June and I had no problem at all and had plenty of energy left at the end of the hike. I was at the front of the pack the whole way. During our Half Dome hike I was anywhere from 7200 feet elevation at Glacier Point, down to about 6000 feet at Nevada Fall, and back up to 7300-7500 feet elevation where we finally turned back.

The only surprise for me is the relationship between iron deficiency anemia and appetite. I expected that the anemia could be a problem. I'm nevertheless annoyed.

Saratoga Gap

We dropped our son off at school at 8:15 am this morning and by 8:45 am we had reached the trailhead for Saratoga Gap. The trailhead was a little ways past the junction of Skyline Boulevard (Highway 35) on Big Basin Way (Highway 9). We hiked from Skyline Boulevard down about 2.7 miles down to the junction of the Table Mountain Trail and then continued for a few more miles to the Canyon Trail. Much of this part of the trail was a chapparal microclimate with plenty of manzanita scrub and followed along a ridge line with views of the opposite ridge before descending into the valley.

From there we turned left onto the Grizzly Flat Trail and hiked down a series of short switchbacks to Stevens Creek. Here we found signs that the trail was closed - when flooded! The creek was down to only a trickle now, but it was still gurgling along and we found a nice log to sit down. We ate our sandwiches, some trail mix and drank some Gatorade before continuing on.

We hiked out of the canyon continuing along the Grizzly Flat Trail for 2.5 miles before crossing Skyline Boulevard and walking over to Long Ridge Open Space Preserve. From there we took the Peters Creek Trail along a ridge line just South of Skyline Boulevard. While along the Peters Creek, we had some nice shade, but before and after we were hiking in open grassland and it was pretty hot, though not as hot as it would have been had we hiked last weekend as originally planned.



As with last week's hike, Spring's wildflowers were pretty much gone, with the exception of some tired looking Farewell-to-Spring blossoms and one group of beautifully large thistles. We continued on reaching the junction with Long Ridge Road, where we turned left for .1 miles before turning left onto Ward Road and the last .75 miles back to Skyline Boulevard. It was another .75 miles along Skyline Boulevard before we reached the car once more, around 2:30 pm and after having hiked approximately 12 miles.

Are we more ready for Half Dome?