Kendall Peak Feb 18th, 2008

So Lucas and I wanted to try the back country again, but this time we were goign to use the skis and try to get some more distance and do some climbing as well. The plan was to try to make Thompson and maybe do another peak in the Snoqualmie area (Red or Kendall?). So off we were at 6:00. Unfortunately the day did not turn out as planned and we just ended up climbing Kendall peak instead of Mt Thompson. In fact, it was one of those stupid days where in the end you are just glad that your luck was just not bad enough that you didn't lose anything and ended the day as healthy as you started. Some of this was user induced and some was just bad luck.

So we started up the basin and made good time until the climbing started. By this time I had tried to take some pics but my camera was dead and I was too lazy to get any spare batteries out. Unlike two days ago where the snow was pretty soft, there was a frozen crust with about an inch of surface hoar or fresh snow on top. This made for slippery conditions for us novices. So as we left Commonwealth Basin and started climbing the side of Kendall peak more or less following in the direction of the PCT things became difficult. Even more so, I had not stepped in correctly to the bindings and I kept stepping out of them on the steep slippery surface. With Lucas cruising ahead I kept stepping out and cursing the situation. In the end I took off the skis and booted up to a less steep area and actually passed him. I was thinking at this point we should have ditched the skis completely, but we were out there to get comfortable on them. Unfortunately there was more of the same, but undeterred I tried to skin again. At one point when I stepped out my ski started to free fall down the slope. Both of us thought the day was over, and so was the life of my ski. Booting down 100 feet I found the ski that hit a tree squarely stopping it from a 1000 foot (?) free fall. So I booted back up and we continued skinning, with me stepping out continuously. At least by now I had rigged my leashes so that I would lose my skis. But this made things difficult to put them back on after stepping out. So once when I was bending over messing with the boot all of a sudden I see my key drop from my pocket and watched my key start the free fall. GDI! The key stopped it's journey down the mountain side and after clipping in to the skis I skied down to it and gently sat down (going down hill with skins on is not an art I have perfected). So I righted myself and skinned over to the key only to find water from my bladder pouring out all over my leg. I guess when I went down the mouth piece to my bladder had come off and water was spewing all over me. So I put the end in my mouth, grabbed the key and started the futile search for the mouth piece. Luckily it was stuck in the snow (on the surface) right where I fell. So again i climbed back up to the tracks and continued skinning, stepping out, and cursing ad nauseum. Obviously with the going slower than expected, Thompson was out of the picture so we went up to a false summit on Kendall, booting the final short pitch. Here we finally got to enjoy the beautiful blueberry day and refueled and rested. Pictured is Lucas with Red Mountain in the back to the NW.


After lunch instead of climbing the summit proper (Shown with Rainier in the background) we decided to descend to the NW to scope out the terrain and other possible routes to Thompson. We got some turns in but the snow was still the rock hard crust littered with death cookies. In a very short time we had "skied" down into the basin and were slowly picking our way through the shallow forest and made it to the car all limbs intact and all gear attached to our bodies. We were both exhausted from a long tough day, with a little extra hardship. But in the end everything turned out fine and we'll obviously be smarted and better the next time we attempt something similar. It was however, a nice area to practice in with gorgeous skies all day long! So we ended up at the Rogue issaquah bantering about the idiocy of the day and the next safe practice area.

Also, in the end, I figured out the problem with the setup causing me to continually step out of the bindings and, for the love of god, i will never let it happen again.

Here is a pic from atop Kendall looking down into Commonwealth Basin (left). This would have been great to ski under the right conditions. And another (right) of Lucas booting off the false summit with his skis on his back.

Smithbrook Feb 16, 2008

So, a few things. Being from the midwest, it's difficult to 'excel' at skiing since much of what we have is man made frozen ice crystals deposited on man made trash heaps. Anyway, I did learn (but not enough to excel) in yearly trips to CO and the wretched midwest skiing. So after moving out on my own, I really found out how expensive it was and never continued to ski, since mommy and daddy weren't supporting the habit anymore. Oh, and graduate student stipends don't really support many expensive hobbies.

So, I've been out in WA state and have skied twice out here before this year, once at whistler and once at Snowbird (good use of a scientific conference). But what finally convinced me to get back into it was winter/spring climbing and the fact that you can cover so much more terrain on skis when there's sufficient snow pack. So I started acquiring gear. Woman's tele skis from my sis for x-mas (all skis are created equal unless they have flowers, woman's symbols, and "she's piste" printed all over them - but I'm secure in my masculinity), Dynafit bindings (gulp, full price), Scarpa boots "60% off at the REI garage sale), and finally (almost unused) skins from craigslist. So after skipping the gear improvements of the 90's and early 00's, I finally have decent gear again! Time to use it.

So I've gone a few times at the resorts (Baker, alpental, and Steven's) to get used to the whole gravity pulling you down the hill on slippery things and found that I could almost keep up with Lucas and the others that are accomplished in the art. Friday I convinced Shelby to blow off work (actually sckool; otherwise frequently alpental-itis hits the city of seattle on good snow days) and we cruised up to the pass. It's been crazy here, we have had SO much snow that the passes (interstates) have closed for 4 days twice, including last weekend. So shelby and I made it and had a great morning of skiing. During the escapades Shelby was following and missed my line by a 6 feet or so. So instead of hitting a nice runout slope on snow she hit a 5 foot cliff. The site was priceless. HUGE grin, then all of a sudden a look of total surprise when the ground disappeared below, and crash! Adding to the scene was the chairlift just to the right, letting out a seemingly coordinated, "oooooouch!" Classic. I dubbed it a "shelby." So after lunch we were getting soaked with rain and made one more trip down the slopes and called it a day ending at the Rogue, Issaquah, scheming about how often we can get back up there.

Then yesterday Lucas and I decided that it was time to use the equipment for the reason why we bought it. So we went just past Steven's (long drive) with Eileen and Julie (Eileen's sis visiting from NY). We got a pretty late start but that was ok, we just wanted to use our skins (I have never put them on) and climb a bit - hopefully getting some turns in. So we cruised up the forest service road, buried in snow and had some lunch. After lunch Lucas and I donned our skins and started climbing off trail and on the road as the girls turned around on their snowshoes, calling it a day. We started climbing and now i know what Blythe was saying when she felt like spider(wo)man with her skins sticking to the hill, schik, schik, schik, up. It was great! After climbing about 1250 feet (a complete guess), we had climbed up to the ridge way above us and it was time to get down. We took the skins off and skied down. The snow sucked but we were making virgin tracks that we earned. It was a great feeling and good practice! .... and at the end of the run I pulled a "Shelby". Serves me right for laughing with her on Friday. It was a great day - we would've been out there again today were it not for the very extreme (at least for our comfort) avy prognosis. Lucas and I decided that getting hit by this would not be fun: SR20 avy (that was a bit N but still pretty recent)

Anyway, again, better stories to follow, as of now we're getting the lay of the land.

Tiger Mountain 2/4/08

So it's been awhile. Winter has set in and I haven't gotten out that much to, well, ... climb. But I have started to acquire some nice ski equipment and am trying to fill out the set up to get high in the back country - almost there. Until I get there, I've been skiing at some resorts, trying to remember how. I finally felt good on the new skis. So it's been the usual suspects, Baker, Alpental, and Stephens (First time for all of them in my 7 years out here; did i mention I'm trying to learn again?). So, sorry no posts about those exciting excursions.

So now it's super bowl weekend, or maybe stupid bowl weekend (It would have had a different name if the pack, i.e. Favre, hadn't bungled 2 weeks before). I was itching to get out again. After a long night on Saturday, I had a soccer game early in the day, and was pretty tired. Called Lucas up and we convinced eachother to just "get out." So we headed out to tiger mountain. We started hiking about 3 in the afternoon and made it to snow at 0.5 miles and cruised to the top. Met a couple up there also fleeing the stupid bowl, hung out, and got down as daylight was no longer. Stopped into Rogue, issaquah for some refreshments on the long 20 minute commute back to the city.

So it was the first peak of the year! yay (j/k). But after not seeing lucas for 3 months while he dealt with writing his dissertation, it was great to get back out there (ANYWHERE) with him, scheming about all of the climbs in store for the year. Hopefully there will be exciting ones, and many of them. While the first one was not, it was a start to get us out there and get back in the groove. And soon I'll have the complete ski set to add some cool excursions on snow. Here's to a successful year!

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.....