My Team

Meet "My Team"...

Cathedral Peak and CW

First and foremost is my wonderful wife and best friend CW.  She is a great supporter of my crazy plans.  Most noteworthy is the amount of our time she allows me to spend planning and walking this hike.  She cooks my tasty dehydrated meals and adds sound advice on meal planning and gear choices.  Plus, she has helped sew some modifications to my pack and sleeping bag that will really help me each day on the trail.  And what most people don't realize is the mental time she expends watching over me while I am on the trail.  She has spent some time on the JMT in Yosemite too, and that adds credibility and experience to our planning sessions.

Family.  I have a great family.  I am very lucky and very grateful to all of you for the support I receive, and I am proud of how you support one another.




A new member of the family is my grandson Noah! Just like his wonderful parents, he is smart and good natured. Most of all he is a very determined little guy. I will take that as a source of motivation for this trip.  Here we are on a safari in San Diego.

My brother Don will once again play a key role in this year's hike.  He has taken some time off from work to meet me at his Family Cabin a few miles west of Echo Lake.  It will be great to finish this hike with his famous ribeye steaks and a cold Sierra Nevada.  Thanks Don!
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FROM 2013

My brother Don and good friend John played a direct role in my 2013 journey on the JMT.

On my travel day aboard an AMTRAK bus and train, Don traveled a few hundred miles to pick me up at the train station in Merced.  We then drove to Curry Village in Yosemite valley.

On day ONE, we hiked together from the valley up to Nevada Falls and then on to Little Yosemite Valley along the Merced river.  That was a great way to begin this trip.  From that point I continued on my way and Don returned to the valley and headed home.

On day 17 we met again!  Don drove several hundred miles to Independence CA.  John drove from LA and joined forces with Don in the Onion Valley campground.  The next morning they set off on the trail carrying the supplies for my final 4 days to Mt Whitney.  Together they climbed to the top of Kearsarge Pass at 11,700' over a distance of 5 miles.  We had a rendezvous plan that worked out great.  By 1:30 we were together near Kearsarge Lakes.  We spent one night in camp together before I headed back to the JMT and they re-climbed Kearsarge Pass and headed home.

One Hiker and two Hobbits. Thanks John and Don

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Don (18) & Dave (20) in Fairplay, CO. 1976

FROM MY PRE-HIKE BLOG:
This rendezvous will be just another chapter to an old book that is still being written.  In 1976, Don rode his bicycle from coast to coast for the Bike-Centennial during this country's 200th anniversary.  What an amazing accomplishment!  At that time I was a freshmen at a small men's college just north of Colorado Springs and I set off to find him one weekend without the aid of cell phones or the internet.  We found each other on a sidewalk in Fairplay Colorado.
If we can do it then, we can do it this August.

Thanks Team Ward!  



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From my 2012 Team BLOG...,  (See Day 13 of my JMT Blog 2013)

Hiking with Steve

They say that the most important piece of gear you should carry on a long haul like this is: WILL.  Truthfully, I must admit that the the task ahead of me does seem daunting at times and it would be nice to have someone along to boost one's "will' when it begins to wane.

So I am bringing the memory of my older brother Steve along with me for that boost when needed.  For those of you that don't know, Steve passed away 27 years ago at the young age of almost 32.  Too young.

When I was a sophomore in High School, Steve was a senior.  Senior Class President no less and Co-Editor of the Yearbook.  The Yearbook that year was green.  Every edition decades before and decades after were Cardinal Red.  But 1972 was a troubled time for our Earth and Steve took a stand, made a statement.  He also formed a club called S.T.O.P, Students To Overcome Pollution.  If there was a voice to be heard, it was usually his.

John Muir also formed a club, the Sierra Club.  The forests needed a voice back then and Muir was one of its loudest.  I am not sure if Steve knew about this fabulous trail I am about to discover.  But Steve would be proud that someone fought to preserve such a grand place.  And I am quite confident to say that John Muir would be proud of the way Steve was willing to step 4Ward and give a voice to a greater cause than one's self.

Steve and Dave

I am blessed to have a full life.  A wonderful family that is the real force behind my Will to accomplish this task.  I will bring my photos and stories back to share with them.  But when I need to get up in the cold morning and I need to cover a few more miles, I will look to Steve.  And when I finish this journey,  it will be great to know that he came along and helped me along.  That will be the best part of hiking with Steve.