Baby's First Hiking Trip

Daniel and I didn't get to go because we had to work but a couple of weekends ago Nate and Pam and our parents took Anastasia on her first overnight hiking trip to Dumbbell Lake in Washington. I guess she absolutely love it and was a little champ. I couldn't resist posting some of the pictures because she is just tooo cute! I'm glad she enjoys being outside as much as the rest of it. Next trip...? Ice climbing!? ;-)

The Little Family

I Love My Backpack


One With Nature

Mom and AJ

Dad and AJ (take a look at her face with the smoke!)

Grandma and AJ (is that a future pyro?)

Grandpa and AJ

North Early Winters Spire

Two days off, beautiful weather, what to do? Drive 7 hours to the North Cascades for a climb!

Earlier this summer I blogged about a climb we did on the South Early Winters Spire. The North is directly beside it. We did the Northwest Corner route, which follows pretty much the leftside of the rock in the picture. The faint white line in the left middle of the rock closer to the top marks the West Face route, next on the to do list. We thought about linking the two, but with just doing one we were able to spend some time in Seattle with Kelly and Jason, cuddle with Patrick, and catch up with Kelly's brother (and our friend) Mark, back from fishing in Alaska (into an early retirement at the ripe age of 24).

We spent the night at the Cutthroat Trailhead, woke up early and started the hike at the Blue Lake trailhead. 1hr15min later and we were flaking out the rope at the base. We were glad for our early start to beat the crowds on a Saturday for this popular area. I led the first couple of pitches, linking the two, beginning with a crack and a short chimney the book rated as a 5.8 (felt a little easier to me) and a short low 5th class to move the belay up. Daniel took the third pitch with 5.8 flakes (these felt way hard to me...possibly even the crux IMHO).

Daniel then took the 4th Offwidth 5.9 pitch. It helps to walk a#4 Cam up the challenging section at the start. An enjoyable pitch that made you work.

I took the fifth 5.9 pitch , starting off with 5.7 friction moves then a 5.9 finger crack and roof. I enjoyed this pitch a lot....easier than the offwidth too! Then the sixth pitch we soloed up a fourth class scramble to the top. It felt sooo good to be in the sun. I forgot it was September but was definitely reminded when I was layering up in the shade in the AM with hats and puffys and capilene and still not incredibly warm. When we rounded the top to the sun it was beautiful, sunny, and clear with no wind. We pawed through the summit registry and soaked in some rays before rapping down taking 3.5 hrs base to base.

Summit photo and a free-hanging rap off of the chockstone

Reuben loves the City

City

Of

Rocks

It was our two year anniversary on Wednesday the 27th! I'd like to say that that day we had a good time, but both of us were working. Daniel on a 24hr shift and me on my 8th 12hr night shift in a row. (I had signed up for some extra shifts...and then my skeleton schedule had gotten switched around, and I never got called off.....sooooo.....that was an experience. The longest I've ever done was 4 shifts in a row. It wasn't horrible to be honest, but I can't say I would repeat it either).

The Team

But back to the topic, Thursday morning all three of us hopped in the car and headed East to the City of Rocks in Idaho for a long weekend of rock climbing and spending time together. I love the City...and it turns out Reuben does too. It was so much fun to watch him free-range. He was a good boy too! He hung out in the shade while we climbed quite well and even carried his own water in his doggy backpack for the longer hikes (*not very long). Great hot weather lasted until Sunday when the sky turned from clear to dark much too quickly. Those dark clouds turned into a pouring, thundering storm that turned us back West headed for home a day early. We were having such a good relaxing time that I was sad to go, but as usual , we have added to our ticklist for the next trip! Daniel and I had a great anniversary weekend, and even got to soak with a bunch of our friends in the local hotsprings each night who had also made the trip East. Great job Shannon on your first multiple lead climbs!

Reuben at play

Reuben at Rest

Reuben and I practicing looking coy

Not a puppy anymore!

Bye City, see you soon!

Serpentine Arete

Cool Views

We were planning on going back to try our luck at the Torment Forbidden Traverse again...but as the weekend crept up, so did the weather. What was once a wide weather window was turning into a narrow window....Tuesday the 19th. Eric Williams, a friend from work has just as sweet of a schedule, if not better so he came along after a foray up Mt. Washington. Monday morning we left for Leavenworth, headed up to the Pearly Gates and did some cragging in between intermittent rainshowers. That evening we went to Gustavs for some beer, burgers, and planning. And yes waitress, we do want, and can eat, three baskets of fries. Please do not try to talk us out of gorging ourselves. then off to spend the night under the bridge...Only the best for our guests! We woke up at the usual ungodly hour and started the hike in. 2hrs later we were at the lake.

A little early-morning route finding conference

Getting ready

Make a figure eight.... follow the racetrack back through...;-) (j/k Eric is a strong climber, but very fun to razz at the same time!)

Here begins a series of mishaps. Mishap #1: Hiking up the boulders/scree to the base of the climb Daniel rolled a large boulder onto his shin, which Eric had to pull off of him. Lucky Lucky Lucky we were. I had horrible visions of Daniel trying to crawl four miles out. Unscathed, we continued on. Easy, unroped climbing got us to the first 5.7 pitch. The next couple of pitches were fun 5.8 pitches.

The first was up twin cracks to a beautiful 30 foot splitter crack. Mishap #2: I followed third up this pitch and got to the top. We were sorting gear for me to lead the next pitch when Daniel asked me if I had the anchor. I looked around on my harness and realized that I had neglected to clean it when I set off at the bottom of the pitch. Can't say I've ever done that before...maybe I was too excited to start climbing? So I had to rappel down, clean the anchor, and then climb back up.

Good thing I have patient climbing partners! The second 5.8 pitch was up a shallow dihedral.

Then began the simul-climbing (for those non-climbers, we remain roped up but all climb at the same time because the terrain is easier). Holy rope-drag! We were using twin 70m ropes due to the team of three but that's a lot rope to wander through low 5th class terrain with.

Soon we got to the top and after a few pictures for posterity that indeed we had not killed Eric yet we headed down aasgard pass. Mishap #3: You got to watch out for those boulders. Daniel accidently stepped on a large, loose boulder. I was walking maybe 5 feet below him but a little off to the side when I hear him yell "ROCK" , I look up and a boulder the size of a bicycle wheel is rolling in slow motion toward me. Needless to say, I got out of the way quickly, which meant jumping into the creek. I decided wet feet were better than no feet at all. I have to be honest, the boulder incidents were the first issues of these kind I have ever had...and definitely more close calls than I would like, but I guess some days are just off days, whether you are in the mountains or not.

We got back to our packs and headed back down to the car and back home to Portland, picking up Mister Reuben from my parents on the way. Good trip, good climbing partners, good times....and yes the weather, though a marginal forecast, was accurate this time!

A few 8x10 glossies of the men at the top

Spa Day

It was my friend Shannon's Birthday so we went up with a group to Olympus Spa in Tacoma, an excellent, relaxing all-women Korean spa. Check out the website, I highly recommend the body scrub!

http://www.olympusspa.net/tacoma/index.aspx

Mt. Torment-Mt. Forbidden Traverse.......Attempt

Daniel and I tried to go up to the North Cascades and do the Forbidden-Torment Traverse, an alpine climb that goes along the ridgeline between the two peaks. The permits to the Boston Basin Trailhead were full, so we decided to take the less popular Forbidden Peak Trail. Note to Self: There is a reason this trail is not popular....possibly because it's not really a trail!! This inefficient choice involved 4000 feet of climbing straight up the side of a mountain, following pieces of flagging and the occasional boot track, over logs, under logs, in alder, and through alder. Oh and also, the forecast said clear and sunny...but guess what, it was overcast and raining....hmmmm.

Example A: For those of you wondering why my legs always look so banged and scratched up. If you can "Where's Waldo" well, there is a small piece of orange flagging in the upper right of the picture. This is probably the closest this trail came to resembling a trail.

Example B: But also it was like this. Yay for wet alder!

Example C: Now you see him, now you don't. That faint yellow in the upper center is Dan's backpack

But we are outside so we are happy, even though we are hiking over wet, mossy granite!

But we could tell the weather was getting worse. This is at about 3ish in the afternoon.

And we think that Mt. Torment is over there!

We got up to a ridge close to 5ish and knew where we were....but didn't really know where that was in relation to where we wanted to be. We ended up finding a flat spot and pitching the tent...and getting about 12 hours of sleep because we turned in so early!!

We woke up above the clouds.

It was beautiful. Can you see our tent in the lower right?

It was too late to do the climb from where we ended up, so we hiked up to the top of the ridge and then rappelled off in order to go down the Boston Basin trailhead. We didn't think we could stomach going back down the crap we had come up.

It was a long traverse back, but rewarding because the Boston Trail is an actual trail. We have definitely completed our fair share of recon. for when we come back. Now we know exactly where we need to go and NOT go!

"The hills are alive" on our "Torment Trailhead to Boston Trailhead traverse"

The highlight of the trip for me was getting to see Kelly and Jason Hower's little boy Patrick, who is now 2.5 months old! He is beautiful, and happy, and I am absolutely in love. He is a such a good baby. We spent some quality time with Kelly and Jason and went for walks and enjoyed the weather. I totally spaced taking any pictures so here are some pics from their blog so you can see how cute he is!