Adventure report

This won't be that last time I ignore my blog for a month or so, but Sorry. Ok, with that said, heres the adventure report for April. I got out to smith a few weeks ago with an eastcoaster who moved out to Newport last year. Pretty normal guy(for being from Boston). Our goal was to climb 2000 vertical feet in a day, but we only got half because of the absolutely epic winds. 40+ mph gusts on a 6 pitch 5.8 X ridge climb is sketchy as hell. We bailed on that and spent the evening eating Cody's freshly slaughtered, apple fed beef in his wood stove heated 20x20 canvas tent, while it rained, froze, and then snowed outside. If that aint camping, I dont know what is.

Two weekends ago, I organized an OMC trip up Shasta. That went about as well as a mountaineering trip could possibly go. we had temps in the mid 80s during the day, with a nice freeze at night. We split into two groups of 4, with the skiiers going up west face via hidden valley and my group climbing Caseval ridge on the southwest side of the mountain. Greg and I climbed Avy Gulch two years ago, and I must say, Caseval is head and shoulders above AG. It begins at 7000 ft or so, climbs up to 9600 and there it levels out and follows a half mile of steep traversing on snow slopes. Then you gain elevation quickly up one of two gullys next to the ridge (we opted to downclimb and ascend the east face for a short time to avoid a large cornice on top of the west gully). From that bench at 11700 or so you get back into cruising up rock bands and snow slopes for another thousand feet. A final band of red rock is encountered with a narrow snow ramp with tons of exposure, then we hopped onto misery hill for the final summit approach. Total time to summit from bivy at 9500 was just over 7 hours. The glissade down Avy Gulch covered about 2000 ft in 5 minutes. Fun! Oh, and when we talked to everyone back in the parking lot, we found out that Celene didn't handle the thin air so well and puked 5 times above 14,000 ft. but she topped out anyway, so you go girl!

This most recent weekend, We had a party at our place on friday night, then I went with Greg to Smith for the day, then I went up to see Colleen's parents new house in Camas. They overlook the gorge, and have an absolutely amazing house. Want!
I am kinda glad I didnt bring my camera to smith, because Greg and I both had an absoulutely terrible day at smith; one of the worst. It has been a really long time since I didn't enjoy climbing, but this was one of those days. We climbed two laps each on Herasy first thing and turned our arms to jello for the rest of the day, making everything else we climbed scary and unpleasant. bummer dood! Col and I rounded out the weekend with a paddle on the lovely little Lacamas Lake near her folk's house. I was pleasantly surprised by the wildlife that was able to exist there among the zillions of boaters and fishermen. We watched ospreys catch fish litterally right in front of fishermen, and then watched a big bald eagle swoop in and chase the ospreys until they dropped the fish so he could get it. This happened 30 ft over our heads, and we got to watch the bald eagle eat the fish on a tree branch from about 20 ft away. Just a really nice remainder of the weekend to compensate for the crappy day of climbing.