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Surf Safari 2009

Riding a wave has got to be one of the most amazing and magical things that a person can do. I had an opportunity to surf again last week and was once again left feeling humbled. It has been seven years since my last trip to San Diego and my first opportunity to try it. I knew from that experience that it was a pretty difficult thing to do. I went into this trip hoping for the best but not expecting a lot.

My first opportunity was at South Mission beach in San Diego. It was rough surf and for me very difficult. My surf coach took me through some basic drills on paddling, popping up and how to deal with waves breaking over your head (turtle rolls). I was feeling very determined and definitely gave it my full efforts. I completely exhausted myself but I was able to catch several waves and stood up for like 1.5 seconds. It was a small but tasty feel of the stoke.

The next day we went to San Onofre or as the locals call it San O. It is state park about an hour north of San Diego and one of the coolest places I have ever been. It is very popular but big enough that it doesn't feel crowded. The surf here was small, slow and mushy. Paddling out beyond the break was much easier than on any of my prior attempts and gave me some confidence that this might be my day. However it was difficult for me to catch waves they were so small. Also my shoulder muscles were exhausted from the prior days adventures and the fact that at San O the breaks were a long way out from the beach.

I had a great time getting out and giving it a go. It was great fun to get to meet and hang out with some really cool people. It feels like it is almost within my reach to be able to stand up and ride a wave, but with such a limited time to try I wasn't quite able to do it. I really want to learn how but living in Seattle it is a pretty long drive. I hope I get an opportunity to try again before seven years goes by again. A big shout out to my surf coaches and enablers Jen, Greg and Glen, you guys rock! Also my very patient wife who kept Amelia from eating shells and seaweed while I was busy eating seawater.

Big four ice caves 8/23/09

When I asked Julie if she wanted to go hiking with Piper and I on Sunday she didn't seem too excited about it until I mentiond where I had in mind to go. There is something fun about a cool destination and for me that usually means the summit, but for Julie the magic words were ice caves! This was a very fun family trip. Kind of a long drive from Seattle but worth it for a fun easy hike to a beautiful destination.

So one thing I must mention is that when I was researching this hike I read at least ten warnings about how the caves were dangerous and you should not play on or around them. First hand accounts of near misses and the like. So if you go there don't be a dumbass and go poking around in the caves with your family like the rest of the dumbasses there seem to do.

Mount Catherine 5052 8/15/09

Piper and I did this hike together our first time climbing this mountain for both of us. It was cool and foggy going up the trail. We got a little shower when the wind blew rain off of the trees. From the summit we got glimpses of Lake Katchess and I -90 below and a few nearby mountains. The summit has a nice airy feel and Piper enjoyed her snack of watermelon and string cheese before we headed back down.

The Last of the Snoqualmie Summits

Last weekend I climbed up Abiel Peak. It is one of the last mountains in the Snoqualmie pass area that I had not climbed yet. It was also the first mountain that I did as a scramble leader for the Mountaineers. A very fun trip!

Mount Stuart the Easy Way

How can I even begin to describe my thoughts and feelings about Mount Stuart? Let me start by saying that Mount Stuart is not fucking around. It is a large mountain and a very long climb. The route that I climbed (Cascadian Coulour) is the easiest route up the mountain, but by no means easy. It is a non-technical route meaning that you should be able to climb it without a rope to protect you in case of a fall... if you are a competent climber. I thought I was a pretty good climber when I turned back on this route in June of 2007. On that trip I was climbing solo and turned back at a section of steep snow right below the false summit. A good decision but one that still left me feeling defeated. I knew that the mountain wasn't going anywhere and that I would be back again some day.

My someday came on Saturday August 1st 2009. I was arriving at the trail head late in the morning on a very hot day. Ken and I had been discussing climbing plans earlier in the week when he mentioned Stuart. I think he was still feeling guilty about canceling out on me 2 weeks prior and knew that I really wanted this one. Whatever his motivation I jumped all over this idea.

Our plan was a 2 day climb up the Cascadian Coulour with a bivy at a location to be determined. I was hoping to bivy up high right below the false summit to increase our chances of a successful summit and enough time to descend and get back to the trail head on Sunday. But the late start was making that seem less likely. The logical site to bivy was at Ingalls creek but when we got there it was infested with black flies. We filled up our water at the creek and decided to keep pushing up the route hoping to escape the flies higher up.We pushed on about another hour and found a fairly nice bivy site with slightly less bugs. We were both hot and tired and this seemed like a good stopping place for the night.

The only problem with this bivy site was a lack of running water or even snow to melt to make water. This turned out to be a very big problem. Even though we had filled up at the creek and had even thought to bring an extra water bottle it wasn't enough. We had worked too hard in temperatures in the 90-100 degree range and needed to rehydrate. By the next morning I was down to 1 and a half liters of water and Ken had about 2 liters. We were looking at nearly 4000 feet of elevation to get to the summit, not to mention back down.. We discussed the possibility of hiking back down to the creek to fill up again but neither of us had it in us to hike down and back up.We decided to rest, get an early start and put snow in our bottles to extend our water supply.

We were up at zero dark thirty, ate a little bit of food and were on the route soon after sunrise. The route starts out not too steep or difficult, it just keeps going. When we got higher up and I saw snow I was very happy. Maybe we would be able to pull this off. I filled my hydration bladder with snow and just a little water to help make it slushy. My strategy was to then drink from my nalgene bottle and fill up what I drank with the slush from the bladder thus creating the never ending liter of water.

When we got to the section of steep snow where I had turned back on my previous attempt I was relieved to see that it was almost entirely melted out. So we weren't going to need the second tool I had insisted we bring much less the crampons. An ice ax was handy for the short section of snow that remained but not entirely necessary.

We made our way up to the false summit and could see how much further we still had to go. We were both starting to get pretty tired at this point and decided to drop our packs here to save some energy. This is also where the rock scrambling started to get really fun. There were a couple of interesting moves required to get past a few difficult sections but they were in areas that weren't steep or too dangerous if you slipped. There are several choices of what route to follow here. We elected to follow the lower and what appeared to be less exposed route.

The summit of Mt. Stuart is beautiful. We spent a few moments here taking photos and enjoying the fact that we had made it up. We knew we still had a lot of work to do to get down and out of there however and cut the victory celebration pretty short. Dehydrated and tired we began working our way back down.

The descent is probably the most difficult part of this climb. I was grateful that Ken led the way back down to the false summit as it didn't require me to think too much. We got a little confused descending from the false summit, but only wasted maybe ten minutes. When we made it down this steep section I was pretty relieved. We still had a long way to go but it was no longer as steep and dangerous. However this is when the heat and dehydration began to affect us. I was not thinking too clearly and was concerned that we had started down the wrong coulour and would therefore not be able to retrieve our bivy equipment we had stashed. I still don't know if we were off route and got back on it, or if were on route all along. The descent here is very tedious and tiring and we started to melt down from heat exhaustion about halfway down. I was thankful my snow melting technique kept me from getting too sick.

We eventually made it back to our camp and then on to the joy of running water at Ingalls creek. We rested here and re hydrated a bit before the flies got too annoying to handle and we moved on. The next task was to ascend back up to Longs Pass a 1400ft of elevation gain. This was physically the toughest part of the climb for me. My knee was really hurting and I could barely lift it when I had to step up over rocks and other obstacles. But we just kept slowly moving on and eventually made it up. After Longs Pass we had to walk back down the trail that I swear was ten times longer on the way out then it was on the way in. After 14 hours on the move we were back at the truck and we had achieved our goal of making it out before dark.

To some people this would be a silly and tedious climb. To others it might be an amazing adventure. To me climbs like this are why I climb. I am completely humbled by this mountain and feel very fortunate that I had the opportunity to stand on it's summit if only for a moment.

Piper climbs Granite Mountain

I get a little obsessive sometimes when it comes to the mountains. This has become plainly evident with my desire to climb to the tops of mountains with my 8 month old daughter Piper. It is challenging being a daddy when mom works 4 nights a week and during the day on Saturdays. I love my daughter but I like to be outside and I like to do things. So the day we got a baby backpack was a very happy day for me. We could start going on hikes to Carkeek park during the week and begin doing longer hikes on Saturdays. I had been dreaming of this for a while, in fact I had begun a ticklist for her even before she was born. Some parents would be happy to go for some nice hikes to a lake or maby a waterfall, but not me.

Having successfully summited West Tiger mountain we began to set our sights further East and higher up. We needed something bigger that still had a nice trail. The obvious choice would have been Mt Si. However the Mt. Si trail dosen't actually go to the top of the mountain. I may be obsessive, but I am not going to risk my daughters saftey and do an exposed rock scramble with her on my back. So the next obvious response is, well just hike to where the trail stops and call it good. Why do that when there are perfectly good trails that go all the way to the tops of mountains!

So with the goal of climbing to the top of a mountain and a perfect weather forecast I decided on Granite Mountain 5629 near Snoqualmie Pass. This mountain was chosen for several reasons. It has a nice trail that goes all the way to the summit and it is not too far of a drive from Seattle. Another bonus is that you can see it clearly from I-90 and point out that your daughter has climbed that mountain.

The logistics of hiking with a baby are critical. You really need to be sure that you bring along everything that she will need for the day. Extra clothes, sunscreen, diapers, wipes, formula, snacks the usual needs. The difference is the added pressure that if you get 2 hours from the car and an hour after that to get back home and forget something it could be bad. Oh ya, you will probably need some stuff too! Also you need to have a happy baby. This means a well thought out strategy for feeding, and napping on the car ride. Getting to the trail head prepared really is half of the battle.

So on July, 18th 2009 I arrived at the Pratt lake trail head at about 9:30 am. The first order of business was to try to get my boots on and get my pack together before she wakes up..... too late, she is up. So I feed her a bottle and do a quick diaper change then it is time to sunscreen up and in the pack you go. So after all of this preparation I discover that I have forgotten the insoles to my boots. I had taken them out to dry after my last trip and they never made it back in. This is unfortunate, but I am determined to give this a go and decide to go on without them.

Piper thinks that whenever we go anywhere all of the people we see have come there to see her. Hiking up Granite mountain this day was no exception. She smiled and talked(ba ba ba ba) at everyone we passed. She was the only baby on this trail this day and the higher up we got the more surprised peoples expressions were when they saw a baby who was having a gay old time. Well as long as she was having a good time I was determined to keep going.

This is a fairly long and steep hike with over 3000 ft of elevation gain. I talked briefly with several people on the trail who asked me if we were planning on going all of the way to the top. I said we were going to go for a while and see how it goes. They said "good luck" as if they didn't believe we had a shot in hell of making it all of the way. Well thank you very much for the added motivation!

Well after more than a few stops for bottles, snacks, diaper changes, and clothing adjustments we finally made it to the top. There was a little snow on the trail but it wasn't steep or slick and didn't present any difficulties. It had taken us a lot longer than I had anticipated but we had made it all the way up.My feet were just starting to hurt, I hadn't packed enough food for myself and I knew mommy was going to be a little worried about us coming home after she was already off work. But Piper was happy and I knew everything was going to work out ok. Such a proud moment:)