Mt Adams

I had to make a delivery for work near Mt. Adams the other day, so I figured while I was up there, I'd climb the bloody thing!  I skipped taking a weekend several days before, so I figured I had earned it.  I made a late delivery, then got to the trailhead around 1:00 am.  Since I was already sleep deprived going into the adventure, I opted to at least sleep for an hour before heading up the trail.  Finally got started by 3am.  The first few miles were easy enough, but as the trail went above treeline and into the rocks and pumice, the trail became very difficult to discern.  I probably lost 20 minutes getting off trail and having to find it again, but I could faintly see the snowfields of the south ridge so I just kept going up and eventually would locate the trail.  The morning glow started when I hit Lunch Counter (~9,000 ft) and from there it was straight up snowfields to the summit.  I managed to hit the false summit of Piker's Peak in about an hour and then had a nice walk across the plateau and up the final hill to top out. 

For a summit meal, I had some smoked salmon from a coworker, and a good ole PBR.  I managed to have the summit all to my self too which was a first.  It was really nice to be able to travel at my own pace the whole time too.  It took just over 6 hrs to get to the top, and on the way out, about 3 hours, for a total car-to-car time of 8:50.  Not bad if I do say so my self!  And there's something to be said for alpine starts too; I topped out in crystal clear weather, and by the time the other parties coming up the mountain hit the top, it clouded up and was probably fairly miserable.  Incedentally, someone actually died the next morning up there after getting lost in a whiteout and sliding into some steep, rocky terrain.  That makes 2 deaths within 24 hrs on 2 consecutive mountains I have climbed in the last 6 months.  Freaky. 

Sam and I got 10 gal of "kick-in-the-pants" 90 minute Imperial IPA going yesterday too.  We made it with A LOT of my homegrown hops.  One is a dark red IPA, and the other is a more traditional IPA.  I'll certainly let you know what it ends up tasting like...  Here's the hop harvest from this year:

Anaphylaxis

I just found out the hard way I have a negative reaction to getting stung!  I was biking and as soon as I stopped to move a log that had fallen in the trail I got mobbed.  I think there was a yellow jacket nest near by or maybe under the log, and boy did I piss them off!  I got 4 or 5 stings (scalp, chest, and both legs).  This makes 8 stings in 2 months, with the reaction from each sting being progressively worse.  I kinda knew that 4 stings all at once would be a bad thing, so we went straight to the hospital. 
In the 20 minutes it took to drive there, my ear canals started swelling up badly, then my face (which went quite numb after a while), then a slight throat swelling, but luckily that never progressed much further.  By the time we were at the hospital I had full body hives/rash that itched like I had been rolling naked in a bark pile.  I didn't have to get epi-penned, but got a SERIOUS dose of steroids and benadryl to help stop the swelling.  I did get an epi-pen for the future which is good, but I am not excited about AT ALL!  Now I have one more thing I have to remember to carry everywhere, grrr...        Stupid bees.

Life on the road

At first it was a novel thing; bouncing from hotel to hotel, getting room service (hah!), generally just living the high life, with work paying the bills.  Then you realize that all you do on the road is eat a fattening american dinner with alcoholic coworkers, listen to their epic wife stories which are completely blown out of proportion, and drink a few beers until you can go to sleep with feet running all over on the floor above you in the hotel.  It really actually kinda sucks.  In an ideal life away from home, I'd be seeing the sights at each new town I visited, walking the mainstreet, checking out the nearest waterfront trails, generally just not being bored out of my mind in a hotel room looking at the same websites every hour to see if anything new was put up.
REALITY:
Most of the towns I visit are logging era towns that have already seen their heyday and now are trying to crawl back out of the depths of economic meltdown.  The mainstreet isnt worth visiting because the Walmart opened down the street and all the mainstreet shops are out of business, the waterfront trails are where you go to score more meth, and people are generally morbidly obese and unfriendly unless they are hotel staff being paid to be friendly to you.  On the rare occasion I do get to visit a nice place like Chico CA (last month) I am generally too tired to do anything because I got up at 5am and drove around for 10-14 hrs (strangely exhausting) in a pickup on shitty dirt roads to look at clearcuts (not exactly the pristine forest I would like to be visiting). 
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the problem solving and constant newness of the work I do; there's never a dull moment when planning a new project.  Its just that these projects generally mean being away from Colleen, home, cats, my garden, climbing, and all the wonderful friends I have.  Hotels are neat at first, but when you look at a hotel room and see "home" for the next 4-7 days, it is a little depressing.  I don't know how long I can keep it up.  I mean, I have missed more Tuesdays at Bombs Away because of weeks away in the last three years than I missed in all of the 6 years before that combined.  What kind of life is this?!?

Time to pass the fuck out to toilets draining down pipes in walls 12" from my head and several children running back and forth somewhere nearby (if it wasn't so socially unacceptable I might consider playing tag with them; it sounds like fun!).  I cant wait to be home.  1 week.

The goings on in California...

I just got back from a whirlwind 2 week CA trip.  I went down initially for vacation, and after Yosemite got boring, I went to work for a few days in Northern California to evaluate a project completed last year.  As strange as it may seem, this was my first visit to Yosemite.  What an amazing place!!  This trip was all about long day hiking with family and friends, but I am going back reeeeal soon to climb on some of that beautiful granite. 
My mom, little bro Fritz, Brenna (Fritz's ladyfriend), and I departed tuesday and got into the valley right at sunset, which was an awesome start to the trip.  Coming around the corner and seeing the sun setting on Half Dome for the first time was surreal.  We set up shop in Ranger Phaedra's back yard on Glacier Point and enjoyed a bright moonlit night looking down at the Valley.

In the morning we decided to drive the valley and then hike to the top of Vernal and Nevada Falls.  The Mist Trail up to the falls is exactly that, and on a hot day that spray is invigorating!  It was beautiful at the falls, but I tell ya, I couldn't take the insane number of people and the paved trail.  I do have to give props to the CCC trailbuilders back in the day; they moved a LOT of granite for the miles of granite block staircase.  They knew their shit.

Nevada Fall w/ the backside of Half Dome in the background

Day two we parked at McGurk Meadows trailhead and hiked 7 or so miles to Phaedra's cabin, then drove back to the falls.  McGurk Meadow was one of the best displays of Indian Paintbrush I have ever seen.  The photos speak to that.  Past the meadow, we hiked out to Taft Point (on the rim across and slightly up valley from El Cap).  The view there was the down valley equivalent of Glacier Point.  Mom had some serious fear of heights at this overlook (she was fine at the waterfall cliffs though), and it was impressive watching her try to overcome her vertigo (quite entertaining at times too!).  Also, at Taft Point I was tested by the powers that be: a family walked 3 chiwawas right out to the cliff edge 5 ft from me, and I managed to control the urge to kick them into space.  I don't know how I managed, but I did.  Fritz and I finished the hike with a fun scramble up  the back of Sentinel Dome near Phaedra's cabin.

Fritz jumping The Fissures

Fritz scrambling up Sentinel Dome

Day three was a great time because PHAEDRA CAME ALONG!  We all hiked 6 miles to an alpine lake and went swimming in the sun at 9,000 ft.  It was really great seeing Phaedra, it has been quite a while.  Bonus Points for whoever can tell me what the orange stuff is in the photo! (***answer at bottom of page).

 After the fun was over in Yos, I had to get back to work to evaluate a project we did for a forest landowner.  The sites were spread out between Tahoe, Susanville, and Shasta, so I checked the Tahoe sites since I was already in the area.  With a half day to spare, I hiked up to Horesetail Falls on Pyramid Cr. in the Desolation Wilderness.  I was surprised how little elevation gain there was in the trail, so I decided to trail run as much of it as I could.  It was really fun leaping from boulder to boulder and hunting for trail on the granite slabs, and I only took one header into the manzanita .  I need to trail run more often. 

The last 3 days have been spent visiting with a number of foresters to look at the (mostly) successful clearcut and fire rehab treatments from last fall.  We learned a lot from this, and have some tweaks for a similar project this fall.  We stayed one night in Chico, and I was able to meet up with cousin Hunter for a beer at Sierra Nevada Brewery, where she works!  I was also able to meet up with Alyssa in Sacramento for dinner one night.  We took some scandalous phone photos and texted them to Colleen.  It was awesome.

There is a lot more to tell, and many more photos but I am tired, and just wanted to update everyone on what is going on!  I can tell you the whole story over a pint at the bar if you want!

*** Dodder

Mt Jefferson photos

The exhaustion in this photo knows no bounds!     Candi wrote up a trip report you can read here http://ccsadventures.zenfolio.com/p860122445

Sasquatch Festival 2010

I was at a loss of what to do this weekend.  It was a long one, so I really had to do something fun, but there were several fun options and I just couldn't figure out which one to pursue, but finally settled on going to Sasquatch Festival with the Old Guard of friends from highschool.  I was not disappointed. 
Here's a link to the full lineup if you are interested.
With 4 stages and nearly 90 different performers, there was only so much that could be fit into the 3 days, but we did a good job of catching the good ones.  As usual, Chris seemed to have done the legwork and researched/planned out the best shows to see.  I departed from that schedule a bit though, to catch some of my own favorites.  Being the closet raver I am, I had to swing by to watch DeadMau5 (deadmouse) the first night and go to the Rumpus Room for A-Trak, Neon Indian, and Simian Mobile Disco.  I can honestly say that I had a TON of fun dancing (voluntarily, mind you!!!) in there to some crazy electronica/trance.  It was weird to have that much fun doing something I have shrunk from all these years!  I don't think I will ever be comfortable enough to just kick up my heels at  any old music, but for some good trance, dancing seems to flow naturally; it felt good.  The atmosphere at DeadMau5 and A-Trak was just amazing, and I headed into that tent fighting to get into the thickest, most ruckus part of it.  The other thing that amazed me was the endorphin flood after leaving.  The rest of the night was TOTALLY different.  I had really high energy, and just couldn't stop raving (at least in my head).  Totally rode that high for several hours after.
The great shows from the more traditional Sasquatch lineup were Miike Snow, Nada Surf, Broken Social Scene, Vampire Weekend, Kid Cudi, Teagan and Sara (unexpectedly a great performance), LCD Sound System, MGMT, Band of Horses, Ween, The New Pornographers, and Dr. Dog.  I had never heard of Dr. Dog before and really liked their music.  I was really impressed with Teagan and Sara; they had a seemingly  unrehearsed, fun set that really jived with me.  Band of Horses got the best start out of the gates with a long, very high energy intro.  Think all the energy and running and jumping of a Metallica guitar/drum solo, but with better music!  Vampire weekend was fun too, and there was a huge crowd response that made it that much more entertaining.  Miike Snow was another fun artist where I immediately recognized a number of the songs, but hadn't really know the artist name. 
Of course, the other half of the fun is in the campground after the official show ends.  Friday night I was in fine form, if I do say so myself.  First I drunkenly talked a lot of bravado about being able to get into a lady's car after she broke the key off in the trunk, but I backed up the big talk with a 30 second (litterally!) unlocking of her subaru with a bent car antenna.  Free drinks!!!  Then we headed off to a huge mound of haybales a nearby farmer had stacked ever so invitingly.  We had seen large groups of people on the bales eriodically, so we figured we better go have fun too.  When we got near, there were 3 progressively taller and wobblier fences to hop.  I vaulted all three in record time using my ninja skills, turned off the headlamp, and ran the 100 yards to the haybales, not waiting up for the rest of the group.  I scrambled up the terraced side and reveled on top for a few minutes while everyone was still hopping fences.  After a little bit I walked to the edge to look down, and there I saw 3 security guards down below hiding at the corners, waiting for the group to finish hopping the fence before busting them.  That made me feel REALLY SNEAKY, that I had gotten on top without them seeing.  Now, I had to get OFF without getting caught.  After waiting for a little bit the guards took off to apprehend the rest of my group, and I bailed down that 50 ft pile like greased lightning and took off into the desert.  After a few minutes I joined up with everyone again, appearing out of the darkness silently like a ninja (just for more sneaky effect) to a relieved set of friends.  I know there was a lot more fun that night, but that is about where things get real fuzzy.  I remember rescuing some beachballs, Chris chasing around trying to meet some hot (sounding at least) chicks he met on channel 4 of his handheld radio, and a lot of music. 

Yeah, a lot of great music...

Summer Plans

I have been jonesing to go hike the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island for a while now.  I think this summer is the time to get it done.  We were planning on perhaps some time in July, but it looks like my July is now going to be very full of work (New York for a week and New Mexico for two weeks of invasive buffel grass removal from Saguaro Nat'l Park).  I am thinking about kicking the timing back to some time in August now.  With that said, is there anyone interested in hiking the trail with us?  Having a few friends along would really be fun!  Reservations are required (limited # of starts each day).  Let me know if you can work it out!

Some random Flickr photos

Eugene Marathon

Here's the photos I took of everyone at the eugene marathon. Some aren't the best (you always look a little funny while running...) but I figured you would want proof anyway. You guys rule!

Buggered up fingers lead to diversified outings!

I partially tore my A2 pulley in my middle finger, and it is taking for ever to heal. It feels good enough now that I can get out and at least screw around on rock a little. I decided that now would be as good a time as any to figure out this whole aid-climbing nonsense, since I can't "really" rock climb still. I got the required mess of slings, steps, hooks, mini speakers (so I can rock out to music while hanging/belaying) and grabbed Matt to go play at Broughtons. We first aided a very steep half bolted half traditional climb. This felt good, so we went over to a flaring, slightly funkier, crack. Matt pulled first lead, which was fine because it started with a bad hook move then a micro nut for the first two moves. Since there was no point belaying yet, I spotted him from the ground. He was able to weight and lightly bounce the micro nut, but after about a minute of it holding his body weight, the thing blew and he was plopped back onto the flat ground. No worse for wear, Matt donned climbing shoes and free'd the first 15 ft to get some gear in, then continued the aid climb uneventfully to the top. I did the same to finish it off.
I have ripped on aid climbers a lot over the years, and while I am not prepared to stop it entirely, I realized that aiding, especially a few hook moves, can feel just as scary as free climbing. Aid is definitely something good to have in the back pocket, but I can't wait to get my fingers curled around a nice big hold again soon!

Spring!

I recently celebrated my birthday, and I must give Colleen huge props for pulling together an awesome birthday weekend. Unfortunately work tried it's best to get in the way, but I managed to fend off the worst of it and still make it to the party. After a photo finish at work, we zipped up to a lovely sushi dinner friday night with Rachel, Jake, Dev, and Rhiannon, then went to the Roseland Theater to watch RJD2 live (instrumental electronica, kinda). It has been a really long time since I went to a small venue show like that, and I must say, it was great! I really want to go to more in the coming months (works well, especially because Matt Stasiak is a bouncer at the crystal ballroom) The show went until 2am, I went to Col's folks house to sleep for 2 hours, then I drove back to Corvallis to complete a spray project for OSU that started at 6am. Then it was back to Portland! On Sunday, Rhiannon, Dev, Col, and I went to Edgefield McMenamins to enjoy drinks at each of their 12 bars, sit in their hot baths, and walk the 300 ac of gardens. The gardening prowess of their master gardeners is amazing. I can think of only my Aunt Sandy who has a nicer, more creatively composed garden.

SNOW!

Winter is lurking... Meadows got over 4 feet of snow on 3 separate days, and I tore it up all 3 days. Heaven. And thanks to Graham, I found a whole bunch more terrain that suits me much better than what I have been playing on there. I think some of what I rode this week was the steepest I have ever been on. And with that much new snow, it was just heaven.

Don't Forget to Warm Up!

I have a project on my garage boulder wall I've been working it on and
off for months. I think Matt Stasiak and I first put it up last spring before
he left. The route traverses across the wall on wide spaced slopers,
with a large matching jug in the middle. The final moves are on large
gently curving slopes that get you spread out in all directions. At
this point, there are three options for movement, a left bump, right
hand dynamic barn door, or a "fuck-it" dyno to the finish hold,
skipping the intermediate sloper. Every combo of this has been tried
by many people, least of all me, with every attempt getting so close,
but ultimately failing. After ignoring the problem for most of fall, I
gave it another go. Lo and behold, working the finish moves, I found
another way, and after a few goes, was able to finish the problem's
last move! This got me all stoked for sending and I promptly spent the
next two boulder sessions trying to link the whole thing. The
strenuous moves early in the problem worked me over and I didn't send
in those two days of solid effort. I gave it another go a few days
later, and got a little hasty in my attempts. I hadnt warmed up
enough, knew it, ignored it, and in my haste for the big send promptly
blew out the pulley in my middle finger. It is a little disturbing to
hear an audible "pop" from your hand, and then involuntarily lose all
grip strength. The best diagnosis I can figure out, without going to a doctor, is that the pulley tendon at the base of my finger is partially torn (a full tear would show bulging finger tendons). So now I am bummin that I pretty much can't rock climb for spring.
On the plus side, I have made great use of my 10 time pass at Mt Hood Meadows, and have gotten out to climb mountains the last few weekends. The most recent adventure was an attempt on Shasta, which fell short due to a storm moving in a little earlier than planned. We camped at treeline (I got to use my new Mountain Hardwear EV3 tent!!!!) and got some really nice turns from about 10,000 ft down. We made the right decision on not climbing; a fatality occurred that morning due to AMS (?) after two climbers bivied near the summit. RIP.

Spring Already?!

Man, it has been so nice recently! I love the month of February/May! Got some slacklining done in the quad last week which was excellent. I love slacking; you just set up a line anywhere, and people gravitate to it like moths to a light. Inevitably I meet some new slackliner in Corvallis every time. Slacklining is different for me now. I used to have to focus so hard to stay on, that it was a meditation really. Now, it is easy enough to walk and talk or look up that it has lost some of it's feeling of pure focus. Maybe I need to go set up another highline to force that focus upon myself... :)

It is also time to start thinking about your gardens people!!! This week we are turning over the soil, adding year old compost from our composter, and planting Spinach, Bok Choy, Sugar snaps, and snow peas. I think a small project for this spring will also be to remove a strip of grass near the roses so the sprinklers don't get the roses wet s much. They got horrible blackspot the last year and we lost one due to it I think. We are maybe going to put in a border of Lavender where the grass was. I cant wait!

Oh, and Col and I have been drinking crazy amounts of tea the last few months. For Christmas we got some different kinds of loose leaf tea from the tea shop in Corvallis, and I tell ya, they have some amazing blends! Chai-Chai is the best thing ever, and they ahve some really wonderful green tea varieties as well. I highly recommend Da Zhang Mountain Green Tea if you are going by there.

A run up Hood

Its that time of year again. Climbing season is upon us. Forrest and I went up the old Pearly Gates route on the south side of Mt Hood last weekend (after I snowboarded all the day before...).
We went up sunday morning early looking to climb Leutholds, and made great time up to Illumination Rock, but once there determined that Leutholds was out due to new snow and me being a whiny bitch about the logistics of carrying our board/skiis all the way up knee deep postholing (doable, but not fun). After resting in the avy pit we had dug and killing way too much time debating which route to go to, we decided to head up to Pearly Gates or Devils Kitchen Headwall (inspired by the earlier trip report on cascadeclimbers.com).
We decided to skin up the west side of Crater Rock, and in doing so, realized why everyone typically goes to the east side of crater rock. We picked our way through steep muddy steam vents, slipping and sliding all over, which probably was the most harrowing, sketchy part of the trip. After collapsing a few snow bridges over small vents we made it up to the hogsback in time for sunrise. While gearing up, I remembered that I had carried several roman candles up in my pack. I pulled them out, stuck them in the snow, and fired off a few. Forrest wanted to play too, so I gave him the last one which he lit, held, and promptly had blow up in his face (mom, you didn't read that, k?). After checking for both eyes, ears and a nose, we decided fireworks would no longer be held in the hand...
We chugged our way up through deep, but consolidated fresh snow to the west Pearly Gates chute. 150 ft of clawing up 40-50 degree sugar snow led us to a fun, clean, 30 ft step of BOMBER blue water ice at about WI2. From there it was a quick run up to the top. We downclimbed the same line back to our packs. From there, we both agreed, was one of the best ski/board descents either of us had ever experienced. I got to rip on my new splitboard and Forrest rocked his ATs the whole way down on five inches of 99% virgin powder. We rode the 5,000+ vertical feet all the way back to the car, and enjoyed some cold beers while waiting for Forrest's ride. A good day!
Forrest's video:


Oh, and I had an interesting experience with Patagonia. I was very close to writing a quite negative post about them several days ago though. You see, I have a giant down jacket for mountaineering that recently had a baffle in the sleeve collapse(its about 1.5 yrs old), effectively deflating part of the sleeve of all down. I sent it in to get fixed, but Patagonia called back saying it was unfixable. When I pressed him, the guy said that actually the repair division was just really swamped and only taking care of the easy fixes at the time and the baffle was too time consuming to bother with. Instead they were prepared to offer me a 160$ gift certificate; ...for a 320$ jacket! Bull Sh**!!!!
I just said to send the jacket back and I would take it to the gear repair in town to get fixed. At that point I was very unhappy because this went against every guarantee I have ever heard from Patagonia. Well, the guy called back about a half hour later and said that he had talked to his manager and he had approved a full refund for the jacket. :) So now, I must say, that they are on thin ice, but still holding up to their end of the bargain. I am still questioning where Patagonia's quality is headed as they grow...

What up doc?

Weeeeeellllll really not a whole lot of interesting stuff going on right now. Buuut I figured I'd check in anyway! I am sitting in a Hilton in Little Rock Arkansas (WTF!, why do they have to pronounce it Arkensaw?!?) rocking out to Obama's state of the union address. I love that guy, even with all the shit he has been getting recently. Being president is a tough job! Anyway, I am in AR with my boss to meet with the head honchos of the company to redesign our billing and inventory web interface. It currently is a P.O.S. designed by backwoods Arkansians (and when I say backwoods, I mean it!) but I think we made a lot of headway in making things easier for everyone here and across the country.
While here I have had an interesting cultural experience. By "interesting cultural experience" I mean, the southeast is a whole different fucking world. Everything edible is fried and they speak a whoooole different language. As an example of the regular food around here, yesterday, for lunch and dinner, I ate the following: fried chicken, fried okra, fried pickles, fried crawfish tail, fried catfish, meatloaf, french fries, and greasy-ass (fried?) corn bread. I have to eat healthy salads for a week to offset that funkiness.
The MLK house was fun this year. There wasn't much snow to be had so we hashed, hiked the river trail, and drank a lot. I think we pissed some people off the last night, but in our defense, we HAD to finish the keg! You understand right? The cop understood!
Oh, and I bought Keith's splitboard, so I am ready to take on the fuckin' world this winter. Unfortunately I did so in an exceptionally "El Nino" year with a very poor PNW snowpack. Colorado anyone? :)

Sunriver Hash

I am excited. In addition to the usual shenanigans, this year's Sunriver house is going to have an associated Snowbunny Hash. Interested in coming?

Here's some photos from the break: