Seattle Marathon, November 25th, 2007

Having done the half in Leavenworth, Mike and I tried to do the Seattle full. While the race only took several hours, the training monopolized my time for more than a month. .... and it should have taken up more time since I should have trained longer and harder. But when doing one hard run a week, usually my weekends were shot because of the time consumed and the hurt endured. But finally I got up to 20 miles and decided that was good enough just to finish. Having stuffed myself the weekend before with our thanksgiving dinner, leftovers and pasta, I was "ready." .... as ready as anyone can be for running their first marathon ever. So evidently the Seattle marathon is quite difficult, because of the hills, a fact that I would realize throughout the race. But alas, I felt good and didn't start hurting until mile 14 or so which was surprising. And then the big hills at mile 20 and beyond were just a kick in the ass, but not horrendous. With my training runs, it was hard to finish 14 miles, or 19 miles, but when running with a thousand other people, it just gives you the energy to keep going and push hard. .... I'm sure the loading up on ibuprofin beforehand and Dana (The Saint!) biking next to us giving us water and cliff shots was a factor in it as well. And the spectators were great, expecialy family and friends (as well as mike's) that came down to encourage us on. And like they say, miles 24 and 25 (and actually 26, and then 26.2!!!) were excruciating. But only a bit of suffering at the end as Mike and I came in sub 8 minute miles. Only caring to finish, 8 minute miles was the best that I hoped to do; coming in just below that passed all expectations for my first marathon.

... Onto the recovery, it was painful. By Sunday night, I was just lying on the couch with my parents still visiting. I didn't get much sleep the next two nights because everything hurt. By Wednesday, I was back to actually taking the stairs. The training schedule and my joints in so much pain told me that common sense says NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!

Mike, I'll see you in Vancouver, for the March, 2008 marathon????

Thanksgiving, Nov, 22nd 2007

So "turkey day" was great this year. I have to mention this weekend because of all the great people that came and the great food. So about the people - mom and dad came all the way from Sedona AZ for the weekend, and it marked the 15th week of 6 weeks that they had been traveling so it was nice that they were able to find time. ... Not only that, but they didn't make me pick them up from the airport so I could go to the Band of Horses concert at the showbox - which was incredible as well) Mark and Jamie drove 12 hours from SF just to hang out with us and to share some time with the holidays. Great friends Tom and Erica, and Britta and Tim showed up as well. I doubt that I could have asked for a better group! too bad big sis kari was traveling throughout Ireland.

Regarding the food, it was a "super share" week from my CSA. I normally get a box of food from a local (pseudo-organic) farmer, which I typically can't consume by myself. This week I got more than double that. The task was to try to use it all, as well as all the leftovers from previous boxes. Additionally everyone was bringing sides as well. So mom and I prepped the night before and all morning. And finally the turkey went into the deep fryer, yet another first. Dad and I made a contraption to lower the bird in from afar as to not burn ourselves and let the fryer do it's thing. In the end there were no burns, the carport was still standing (although my dad wasn't convinced things were going to work out when we took the bird out, as seen in the picture), and it was one of the juiciest birds I've ever had.

After gorging on food (early dinner), the afternoon was low key - and it was wonderful to reconnect with everyone in the group, especially those that had traveled from afar. Thanks all for attending!

High Divide September 29, 2007

Brandee and I took off for the Olympic peninsula on Friday in hopes of escaping the city for a while in exchange for a nice relaxing time out on the peninsula. So we set out and the plan was to do the high divide loop on Saturday. 35oo' gain, 18 miles. Wow, I thought this was supposed to be relaxing. With an early morning breakfast at the B&B we were on our way. With a beautiful day the day before, we were hoping for the same on Saturday. Too bad it wasn't so. Cloud cover prevailed and I think it was a good thing, the precipitation that we had was frozen, and as such we didn't get wet. You can see the wind blown ice on the trees.... at least it made for some nice scenery, if the colors weren't enough. We made good time throughout since there was little point in stopping since we would have frozen (we weren't expecting sub freezing temperatures). With that said, we ended up hiking on a beautiful ridge that was full of fall colors. For most of the time we were below the clouds (as opposed to in them or above them) so we had those spectacular colors, but never did get glimpses of the mountains. Half way through we took a wrong turn and ended up going down to a lake. I think we just wanted a longer hike with extra elevation. It was a good excursion because we ran across a couple of bears foraging on the huckleberries in prep for their long winter and some more colors. All in all we actually went 20 miles and 44300' with our various detours. Beautiful hike but I would have loved to have seen the bailey range and Mt Olympus. I guess we'll have to wait for another sunny day.

Leavenworth half marathon/ octoberfest

So I've always wanted to run 2 marathons (anyone can just do one) but I hate running. Good friends from soccer Mike and Dana were planning to run the leavenworth half marathon that coincidentally coincided with octoberfest so they convinced me to tag along for a fun filled weekend! I, without thinking said of course and decided to try my luck running a long distance race.

So the race was spectacular, a relatively easy course (i.e. limited hills) set in beautiful leavenworth (mountain village at low elevation) on a gorgeous fall day. I don't know how I did it (I had trained for all of "a week") but I felt great - I am sure it helped having Mike push and pace me at the beginning, not to mention his company. Anyway, it seemed like we got faster as the race progressed and both set personal bests - sub 100 minutes! of course, mine was my best by definition. I was happy just finishing my first race, and then very pleasantly surprised with the times. Is the seattle marathon next?

For the rest of the weekend we tried to mask the pain with a lot of beer. Of course there was plenty of both. We had a great time with great people drinking the merry night away! Thanks for organizing Mike and Dana! Sorry no pics, but if I find one, I'll post.....

Vesper 2007 N. face via 1968 route

September 15, 2007

Owing to the end of summer we thought this might be a ‘last chance’ for decent weather allowing us to do something fun and exciting in the mountains. Lucas and I also needed an escape so we decided to try something new and a bit more technical for “practice” and headed up to Vesper peak to do the N. face (via 1968 route). We woke up at 4:30 and a tad past 5:00 Lucas picked me up. The night before I had gone to an exceptional wine paring dinner and tried many fabulous wines accompanied by equally fabulous food. It ended up being an awesome night, albeit late with a bottomless glass of wine. Highly recommended, but possibly not the night before a 4:30 wake up call for a climb. Anyway, I digress. We were the first to the TH and started our climb up to the N face. We started below the clouds in gloom, hiked into the clouds, and finally got above the clouds about 500 feet below the start of the climb. It was surreal with all of the N cascade peaks sitting on top of the clouds. We worked our way for a good vantage point of the route (pictured). With a completely empty wall we took our time and proceeded to climb the 1968 route with Lucas leading the 3 pitches. Slow going and Lucas led them all. For us, there were a few uncomfortable spots due to lack of protection, but all in all, it was great rock and pretty easy going. We hung out just below the summit on a nice sunny rock enjoying the company, weather, and great climbing. Being such great weather, company, and not knowing when the next opportunity we would have to come back we took full advantage of the situation. Finally we headed back to the TH and arrived with the aid of our headlamps. Here's Lucas' description.

Challenger/N. Pickets 2007

July 15 - 21, 2007

The trip was supposed to be ~7 days to the northern pickets. Sunday hike into hannagan pass and down into the chiliwack river valley, from there across the chiliwack onto easy ridge, over easy peak and on towards perfect pass allowing us access to the Challenger glacier and Challenger. We were then supposed to continue into the Luna cirque, onto Luna ridge. From there we were going to climb Mt Fury, possibly do a day trip to Picket pass, Luna peak, and then hike out to Ross damn via Access creak. Hiking in at Hannagan and out Ross damn would be an atrocious shuttle so we decided to set that up before hike in day. On Sat July 14^th.Brandee and I were going to do a hike and I convinced her to go up towards Marblemount and hwy 20. She agreed, and accompanied by another friend Colin we set out to do Maple Pass and Heather Pass, leaving my car at the damn. It was a beautiful hike, a perfect warm up to the long road that lay ahead, but unfortunately it was only on about 3 hours of sleep. I felt sluggish and tired. But at the end of the day, the take out car was set. For the dropoff Eileen, a coworker of Eileen, and Brandee drove us up to, and hiked with us to Hannagan pass. As a group we had a casual hike up to the pass, with L, T, and I hauling full packs and the others good ole day packs, making all of us jealous. At the pass we dropped our packs, hung out, finished climbing Hannagan Peak and came back down to the pass. After a nice good bye, and oh did we appreciate the company and help with the car shuttle, we continued over the pass and down into the Chiliwack while the others headed back to the trailhead and then Seattle. So now we had only one car … at Ross lake. We didn’t want to consider the scenario of having to go back to hannagan trailhead. With the help and extra climb it was onward of 5:00 when we reached camp in the valley. We rested for 10 and decided that it would be advantageous to get onto Easy ridge. We hiked onwards to the Chiliwack for the ford (L pictured). Per excellent beta we found the climbers trail to the river about 5 minutes after we came into sight of the river, forded, and then found the climbers trail immediately on the other side of the ford (about 50 yards downstream of easy creak). The only excitement was me in just over knee high deep water losing my balance and almost plunging into the river. T and L were on their toes about ready to dive in, but I sacrificed my feet and righted the ship and made it still with a dry torso. So up to Easy ridge – just over 2 k in gain starting at 6:00 pm, should be plenty of daylight. After 400 feet we started slowing drastically and I bonked soon thereafter. Who knows, I could have been out of shape, it could have been the lack of sleep, it could have been lack of water. I finally gave up the rope and started “talking in tongues” freaking out T and L to motivate myself to the ridge. Just after sundown we made it and I was useless and unable to eat. This, I feared, was going to be a long trip.

Monday we woke up to a gorgeous camp on the ridge (view from camp looking back across the chiliwack towards copper ridge) and I felt much better. I could stomach food and water and felt pretty good. T kept the rope so the good spirits could have been my lightweight pack! Over easy peak with clouds rolling in and out on down around a buttress to ascend back to perfect pass. We didn’t know what was going to happen on the way when we would get to the, as Becky describes, a “minor obstacle.” We continued down around the buttress and I slipped on the snow caught my balance and carried on. At that moment T asked, “are you ok?” I thought, pffft, of course, replied “yup!” and carried on without breaking stride. Moments later I looked back and T and L were lagging behind, I waited for a tad and only then did I realize that T was not talking to me but to Lucas who had slipped on the snow, caught some speed, and self arrested on his left arm on top of smooth granite rock, skinning two left fingers and his elbow. DAMN! It was good that it was only surface wounds, but damn it looked like it hurt (and based on Lucas’ choice words, I think it actually did hurt as well). We continued to a nice stopping point to clean it up and bandage it up, and ironically that stopping point was the impasse (that “minor obstacle”). We were hoping that there would be enough snow that we could pass right on over, but no such luck. We tried a variety of different approaches and the one that finally worked was climbing up the buttress a bit. Finding a shelf that gave us access to the impasse gully on a slight decline, climbing up the gully, to another shelf that allowed us easy crossing of the stream and a relatively easy out. Nothing more than class three/four, but with 60 pound packs, and mountaineering boots, we were a tad fearful. Owing to the consequences of a possible fall I led into the gully (L was in no shape to lead), the others followed and then I led up the gully out onto the other side. It wasn’t the cleanest, fastest, or best route, but we all made it (pictured is me looking back down the impasse from where we exited). The 2000 feet up to perfect pass reminded me of the day before but we made it for sunset and all felt pretty good.

Tuesday we woke up late (L and T pictured with Challenger glacier/summit in the background) getting a bit extra rest from the 2 days before, and headed out across the Challenger. We decided to forgo Whatcom peak for some reason. We were tired, wanted our rest, and wanted to conserve our energy for the escapades that lay ahead. The glacier went smoothly, we dropped our packs on the arm, headed up with or climbing gear and summited mid afternoon. Again, I had to lead the final summit pitch, which was protected with some fixed pitons and we all enjoyed our time on top. Ever since I hiked on Copper ridge a few years back I had dreamt of doing Challenger. I just thought that it was too far away and too remote. Well now I was here and I was going more remote. It was surreal. I thought the climb had it all, even if “it all” includes one tough, long ass approach! On the summit we got sopped in and scurried along off the summit to our packs and on down the glacier. I think we headed N sooner than most parties and found a rock outcropping that had a perfect camp – flat platform, water, and the most unbelievable views of the Luna cirque, including all of the N pickets and Luna. We all were giddy that evening watching the clouds roll in through the pickets, enjoying our day and camp (Luna cirque and our eventual route from camp on Challenger arm). We were in heaven and on perfect schedule. With a great view of our next task we planned out our route and went to bed hoping for an early morning as we were now all recouped and feeling strong with the panorama view pictured below.

Wed we woke up to rain, rain, sun, and then more rain. The weather gods were playing with us. It would rain and then give us hints of clearing up, only to throw another rain shower at us. We tried to wait it out and at about noon we were getting antsy. We busted out the cribbage board and played a couple games, ate some more snacks, and I saw the barometer go up a tad amidst decent weather. LET’S GOOO! So we through everything together and headed for Luna Lake to try to stay on schedule. Well, about 30 minutes out of camp it started pissing and when it became a full fledge poor, we found a nice rock shelter and hid under the fly. When it finally stopped raining, we hurried onto the moraine, set up camp on a sandy bar in the moraine and called it good. It as a comfy camp, but we were wet, and it was dry (i.e. no water). We were fine though and spent the night. That night T went “CRAZY” and started punching the side of the tent claiming that we were being attacked by the shadow of a bunny rabbit. What wasn’t crazy, just awe striking was the calving and rockfall from above …. All night long. That was spectacular (only because we were out of harms way).

We woke up Thursday to the same weather as Wednesday. We were going stir crazy and decided to go for it earlier today than yesterday. We had to start moving up into the cirque and going was going to be tough. We didn’t want to do it in rain. We went through some of the areas where there was noticeable rockfall (from the previous couple nights????), which enticed us to maintain a pretty good pace. We got up to the lake and it started raining. NOOOOOOOOOOO! We made another shelter using a great rock and waited it out – about 90 minutes. With that rest we started up from the lake and gained Luna ridge about 3 hours later. No prob. We set up camp just below the ridge and decided to try to climb Luna. Weather was rolling in so we were hedging. With most of our gear safe and dry at camp I enticed everyone to go up, but unfortunately at the summit it was all clouds, with a bunch of rain. You can see how enthused T and L are at the summit! We went back to camp (pictured below) hoping the front would pass and getting our hopes up for Fury.

That night we heard the rumblings and grumblings from the S picket range. We woke up to sunny skies and decided to go for Fury. We tried to find the route, ended back up at the pass and then decided that the best way was to drop a 1000 feet and climb up. Upon doing so, we decided to move camp and upon doing so weather moved in once again. We decided that the best decision was to pack it out since we weren’t too keen on continuing in the rain, didn’t know how long it was going to last, and decided that we were going to have to hike out tomorrow anyway. So we continued down a steep snow gully and then into the worst bushwack of my life. It started raining and the going was slow, arduous, and miserable. We were all completely soaked and tired and I was on my a$$ numerous times due to the slick plants and logs. 5 hours later we arrived at big beaver river, but this was just a tease because we had to ford it and there was no obvious way. We finally found a recently felled tree and did a classic 4 point crawl over that. After a stopover at mile 39 camp for a much needed fire to dry everyone and everyone’s gear out we continued early in the morning to Ross lake to try to hitch a boat ride to the trail head. Almost immediately someone offered us a ride. Was it because we looked so pathetic? Maybe, but they were great – giving us a ride and great company to boot! Saving us the extra 6 miles and 1500 feet of elevation gain/loss (or whatever it was) was a lifesaver! Thanks so much.

With beer in hand and a stop at good food in marblemount we made it back to Seattle to enjoy some more rain, dinner, and sleep on a comfy bed. All in all even with the drag of the weather, great company, great location, great climbing trip. Lucas' Description

Mt Rainier - Ingraham Direct

Since moving to WA, I've wanted to climb Mt Rainier (as seen from the muir snow fields on the right). Not that it is all that fun, but it's Mt Rainier. Lucas' friend also wanted to do it before moving away, so the three of us got on the same page for a relatively early season attempt. Lucas' friend dropped out so we tried to convince Tom to join us, keeping the rope team at 3. Fate was not on his side as he couldn't get a sub the night before so it was Lucas and me. We headed to Paradise, and with permits in hand, we sat at the lodge trying to let weather pass. Upon doing so, there was a seemingly bad omen for the trip when an older tourist came in and called us posers. Que!?!?!? On the contrary we hoped, and we were motivated to get going. The hike up to muir was straight forward. The weather that we had at paradise was caused by a classic inversion and we hiked through clouds and mist sweating profusely (Lucas pic'd on the left). Upon leaving the clouds a thousand feet above that pic, gorgeous blue skies awaited us (Me and Mt Adams on the right). Unfortunately by this time we had sweat off the sunscreen and reapplying was futile so we got pretty sun burned. We ended up spending the rest of the trip covering as much of our skin as was possible with clothing, gauze, whatever. By the time we got to Muir we were cooked, tired, and dehydrated. After a little melting water, food, and prepping for the early start, we tried to get a little rest.

A 12:00 wake up call and we were up and the first out of Muir. Adrenaline pumping we started running up the Cowlitz and then the Ingraham. It was unseasonably warm - I never donned my down jacket throughout the trip - and was hiking in a t-shirt and shell through the "coldest" part of the night. The Ingraham was in decent shape with easy crevasse navigation. There was only a couple sketchy areas that were protected by some pickets left by the guiding companies. At the top of the Ingraham there were some impassable crevasses and we traversed far right to the Emmons glacier for the final push. On the traverse and ascent of the Emmons, the sun started rising (pic left). At ~12,000' though we hit a wall (evidently it isn't wise to run at that elevation being partially dehydrated and not being acclimated) and were struggling. After slowing the pace substantially, we labored up to the crater and finally to the true summit (pic right). Here we hung out for a few pics (it was quite comfortable temperature wise), took a quick tour of the crater rim, and depleted our water supplies.

We were exhausted for the climb down making things difficult, but it was uneventful. Back at camp we hung out, rehydrated with some rainier beer, and then melted water. After several hours, we packed up and headed back to Seattle.

I posted the rest of my pics on Snapfish. Click here for Lucas' account of the extravaganza.