Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Happy Father's Day is also Happy Hiking Day

SCOTT DICKENSHEETS' column will return Friday. Reach him at 259-4082 or [email protected]

AS YOU read this, I'm zooming across the big empty of central Utah, returning from a weekend of pressing family business in Colorado. I'm driving hard, trying to get home in time to salvage a little Father's Day action -- dinner in bed sounds good.

Because my brother and I departed Las Vegas in the wee hours of Friday, had a busy Saturday, and headed back in the wee hours of this morning, I'm tired and cranky. My mood could charitably be described as sour and my buns throb from too many hours in the driver's seat. And still, still, I'd rather make this trip than the one Branch Whitney embarked on this morning.

I don't need to walk a mile in Whitney's hiking boots to know I wouldn't want to walk a mile in Whitney's hiking boots. Especially today. As you read this, the author of "Hiking Las Vegas" should be well into a four-peak slog through Red Rock Canyon. By "peak," he doesn't mean the top of yonder hill. He and his girlfriend are tackling the four tallest peaks in the area: Juniper, Gunsight Notch, Rainbow and Mount Wilson. The odometer reading doesn't sound daunting by itself -- about 15 miles. But add the companion numbers: an elevation gain of 8,000 feet, the equivalent of scaling the Stratosphere half a dozen times. And it is the middle of June; sure, he'll be in the mountains, but it's still a desert. He expects 80 degrees or more.

"I like a challenge," Whitney says. And it will be one. "It'll take 12, 13 hours," he says calmly. "It's almost all scrambling" -- scooting up and down slopes without benefit of trails -- "and it's very up and down. You go up 2,000 or 3,000 feet, then down a thousand."

Why Father's Day? Take into account the day's meaning to the father of a 9-year-old daughter, and what might shine in her eyes as she looks upon him and his amazing achievement, and the reason is obvious: It's the summer solstice, longest day of the year, and the climbers will need every ray they can catch.

"The average person in Las Vegas probably couldn't do any of the peaks," he guesses. "For a seasoned hiker, any of these is an all-day hike."

Nonetheless, he's confident, fit, ready. "I feel real good," he says, a few days before the walk. "I can do the whole thing in my mind. We did two of the peaks last weekend." In fact, he's walked each of the peaks three or four times in the last month, designing the optimum route, and over the last two years, he estimates, he's put 2,000 miles on his boots in Red Rock. "You begin to recognize rocks, handholds ..." He's already stashed 15 bottles of water along the trail, minimizing the amount the two have to carry.

He admits it sounds a little nutty -- unless, of course, you can do it. There are gorgeous areas up in Red Rock, he says, and bighorn sheep you can sometimes creep close to. "It's just a great way to spend your time," he says.

I'm thinking about my feet as he says that, thinking about the screaming in my tendons and twanging of my hamstring as I trot up the office stairs. Is there any way to drive the four peaks ...

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