Rose City Road Trip

When my wife Julie's parents moved to Camas a suburb of Portland a few months ago it left Amelia without a Grandma nearby and us without a devoted babysitter nearby. It was just a matter of time before we went down to visit. The plan was for me to drive down early Saturday morning while Julie and Amelia slept in the car and arrive just in time for a breakfast of Dave's famous sourdough waffles. Then Julie and I would run off the city and spend some time together in Portland.
The drive down was pretty smooth and finding the new place not too difficult. After breakfast and some visiting it was time for Julie and I to go play. That was about the time that we noticed a flat tire. I was anxious to get going, so the trip to get a flat fixed that lasted an hour and a half was frustrating to say the least.
Portland is notorious for bad freeway traffic and because of construction projects this day promised to be worse than usual. We decided to get some lunch before facing the madness. Dave suggested we try Five Guys, a burger joint nearby. It was pretty busy when we arrived but not terribly so. The overall ambiance was very plain, simple and to the point. They are known for their fries which are hand cut and extra greasy. You will not leave there hungry which I guess is the point. The food was pretty good but almost instantly made me feel bloated and lazy. Perfect condition for someone about to go sit in a car.
Traffic wasn't too horrible and we made it to downtown fairly easy. Our first stop was the Portland Saturday market. This is a great place to shop for handmade items, listen to street performers, get your fortune read or just people watch. Every hipster, hippy and homeless teenager is here and I felt right at home even though I am none of the above. Julie picked up a beautiful necklace and I got a pretty cool new t-shirt.
Our accommodations were at the Benson Hotel. It was a nice place to stay and I enjoyed the view from our room on the 9^th floor. There must have been a white trash wedding discount that weekend as the place was crawling with brides, grooms and drunken wedding attendees. After a bit we decided to go venture around the neighborhood a little. On our way back to our room we noticed that we had another flat tire!
Good thing that Portland has such a great public transportation system that we didn't really need to drive anyway. We took the streetcar to the Nob Hill neighborhood and had a nice dinner at 23 Hoyt. The appetizer of flatbread with goat cheese caramelized onions and mushrooms was delicious but a little too crispy. Our salads had great flavors especially the romaine heart with bacon, fennel, onions and buttermilk blue cheese dressing. For our entrees I had a wild sockeye salmon steak that was simple but tasty and Julie had the special rib eye steak with béarnaise sauce that was exceptional. I sometimes suspect that when I eat out with Julie and my entree isn't very large she feints that she is full so that I will finish her plate. What an awesome wife!
After dinner we visited Powell's bookstore. This is the biggest bookstore I have ever seen. If there is a heaven for a book lover this is it! Julie and I could spend hours in a place like this but as it was starting to get late and I was worried that the gelato place across the street would close we cut our visit short. Luckily it was open and as I was eating my favorite sweet cream gelato I thought to myself Portland is alright.
After a great night's sleep we woke to a beautiful sunny morning, checked out and headed down to Kerr bicycle rentals and got outfitted with some wheels. Portland is such a great bicycle city that this is an easy way to get around and get to know the city better. We rode around exploring the bicycle trails along the Williamette river and over to the south end of town in the Hawthorne neighborhood. Here we looked at cute little shops and had lunch at the Mai Thai Bistro. The décor was beautiful and the presentation was exceptional. The coconut soup and shrimp soup were both quite good. I ordered the phad thai and it was below average. It came with red sauce and peppers on the side which was good as it had absolutely no flavor without them. The service was adequate but bizarre. When Julie requested water without a lemon she was asked if she had a lemon allergy or if she just didn't like lemon. Our server then asked if we had any food allergies she should be aware of. Weird. When Julie's diet coke arrived with a cherry in it we realized that we were in the land of unrequested fruit in beverages.
I was very proud of Julie as our bike ride included riding on some fairly busy city streets and up some hills. We made it back just in time as a nice rain squall hit after we had returned our bikes and were on our way out of the city. Other than perhaps a sore butt we were no worse for the wear.
Portland is a fun place to visit. Even though I had been there before for some brief visits and even proposed to Julie at the Portland International l Rose and test garden I had always just kind of ignored it. It always seemed too close in location and character to Seattle to pique my interest. Now that we have a base of operations, a babysitter and a good reason to visit I am sure we will be getting to know the area much better. I look forward to it.

Big Tahoma Emmons Glacier 7/17-7/19 2010

Big Tahoma or Mt. Rainier is the largest and best known mountain in the Cascade range. Climbers come from around the world and spend thousands of dollars on guide services, gear and travel expenses for a chance to stand on it's lofty summit. For those who make it to the top it is an experience that they will never forget.

Success on Mt. Rainier requires three important elements. Training, conditioning and luck.

Training may mean taking a climbing course through an outdoor club such as I did this year with OSAT, hiring a guide service for a crash course on glacier travel and leading you to the top, or just by years of climbing mountains and learning from experienced friends. If your party lacks training and experience Mt. Rainier is a very dangerous mountain to climb.

It should go without saying that you need to be in great physical condition to climb Mt. Rainier but I will say it anyway. You need to be in great shape to climb Mt. Rainier! I won't attempt to explain exactly how good of shape you need to get into or how to do it as there are entire books written on this subject. But I will say that lack of proper conditioning is one of the top reasons why people fail to make the summit.

Good luck.You will need it! You will need good weather to make it to the top safely and even during the best months of the year the weather can turn ugly and stop climbers in their tracks. Storms hit the upper parts of the mountain hard creating white outs where it is impossible to see more than five feet in front of you, driving snow and hail, and winds that will literally knock you over.

This was one of the most enjoyable climbs I have ever been on. Climbing with a great group of friends, agreeable weather and a fun route. I let go of my fears and anxiety and accepted that I had prepared myself and my gear as best I could and that success now depended on gods will and not mine. Also I believe having already summited before made it easier to focus on the experience and not be as concerned with the result. Not to say that the trip was without difficulties, just that I had a sense of serenity in dealing with them.

OSAT Mt. Baker Climb 6/27-6/28 2010

Polly Penguin and I at the summit

Lenticular cloud forming

I came into this climb feeling confident that I had prepared as much as was possible and I was prepared to meet the challenges ahead. I had previously summited Mt. Baker two times and this was my second time climbing the Easton Glacier route. I was part of a strong, well equipped party that had been training and practicing for the last 6 months. It is funny how the challenges you face on mountain climbs may not always be the ones you were expecting.


Mt. Baker is well known for it's record snowfall in the winter and I have a theory that has proven true in my experience. If there is a chance of rain in Western Washington it will rain at Mount Baker. The forecast for this climb was for a chance of showers on Sunday night. Not the worst forecast in the world. We might get hit by a little rain on our way out Sunday afternoon or we might miss it altogether.

We had a great hike to our base camp on Saturday and there was an overall feeling of optimism within the group. We even had a small group of Sherpas from the club that hiked up to our base camp with us and carried our ropes and some of our group gear. Even so packs on a climb like this are heavy and it was a tiring hike. We spent the afternoon resting, eating, hydrating and basking in the alpine glory. Plans were made for an alpine start. Up at 10:30 P.M. and climbing by Midnight

We got up and started close to our planned time and began ascending on a beautiful night. This is the part of climbing big mountains that I love. The cool brisk air filling my lungs,the sound of crampons and ice axe's as they penetrate the firm Styrofoam like snow and the sight of headlamps flickering as they slowly move up the mountain. I was feeling great, even euphoric.

As we continued to climb our party began to go slow and slower. When climbing it is frustrating when you have to continuously stop and can't get into a rhythm of breathing and stepping. Something was wrong but what I could not tell. Because of our slow pace we began to be overtaken by faster moving parties. I started getting pushed out of the line of steps kicked in the snow and into deep soft snow. This was exhausting and even more frustrating. I was miles from anywhere on the slope of a beautiful mountain being mosh pitted by a crowd! Eventually our party stopped and it was decided that one of our party who was struggling would have to return to camp. As it is unsafe to a travel on glacier alone two other members of our team were selected to descend back to camp with them. A tough break for them.

We resumed climbing at a more acceptable pace, however we were still in the middle of a huge crowd of people crawling to the top. The result of this was many stops and starts. Eventually we reached the summit crater still over 1000 feet from the top but getting much nearer. This is when the weather began to quickly deteriorate. The wind picked up making it instantly feel much colder and as it had started getting light by this point you could see groups of clouds moving rapidly overhead. It was getting windy but still manageable and as we were committed to making it to the summit we continued to climb.

As we continued our slow upward trudge conditions continued to deteriorate. When we finally reached the summit it was a full whiteout with high winds. We didn't stay and celebrate for too long. It was very cold and we knew it was going to be a long trip back. Just as we were leaving the summit the mountain decided to give us one more goodbye present. It began to hail and sleet sideways. It was very painful hitting on your face and I tried as best as I could to cover my skin with my balaclava and hood.

It was a long and luckily uneventful trip back to camp. My hands got cold from removing my gloves and taking photos at the summit and stayed that way for most of the descent. I also had to remove my glasses to be able to see where I was stepping due to them fogging up and getting saturated with rain on the way down. When we finally made it back to our camp it was a much welcomed sight.

Back at camp I was exhausted, hungry and still hadn't completely warmed up yet. I tried to prioritize what to do first. When my tent mate asked me to remove my gear from the tent so he could start breaking it down I got irritated and started tossing my stuff out onto the snow. I wasn't really mad at him, just physically and emotionally exhausted.

We packed up and started the long march back to the trail head. We were treated to almost continuous rain all the way back. On our way out we were met by more friendly Sherpas who greeted us with fresh fruit and cookies. Shout out all the awesome Sherpas! To our surprise the trail head had been moved two miles farther away from where we had started. Or so it seemed.