Ingalls climb with Matt, Shawn, Skye, Keevin and myself. Awesome weather and good climbing conditions.

Panoramic photos

Photos

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Blind Date At The Diary #1.

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Ing and I took Sara and Mark down to the McKenzie River area to go climb and sleep in the trees. The forecast was kinda dodgy but we lucked out and got nice temps and no rain. Our sleeping platforms were around 180 feet up, just shy of the 220 feet height of the tree. We didn’t have any wind so there was no rocking to lull us to sleep. Mark and Sara were champs on the climb and even got to use the special orange bottles during the night. In the morning we hooked up the gri-gris and slid down the ropes to the bottom - much faster than climbing up that night. We wrapped it up with bigass breakfasts down the road. Next time we’ll plan on visiting the hot springs that is just over the next hill.

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Ingrid and I went to Whistler so she could get in some good riding. I went to crossfit one day to get beat up and then took the Peak 2 Peak gondola to get in a hike the next. To assuage our aches we went to the Scandinave spa in the woods to soak and relax.

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I took an overnight moto trip out to Eastern Oregon. I was going to do a few nights but thunderstorms were predicted for Friday so I shortened it to one night. The weather and roads were perfect. I tried out powershifting for the first time and it was fun to shift sans clutch - and having just watch the Indy MotoGP race I felt sporty.

Panoramic Photos

Photos

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Ingrid's work friend Brooke got married out in West Linn at a really nice site with perfect weather. They had a photo booth and props that was lots of fun.

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Day ride out to Wasco and back via Grass Valley.

Panoramic Photos

Photos

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Pics from Terry's camera.

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In

Terry and I went up to the North Cascades to do East Wilman's Spire. We brought mountain bikes to take care of the first four miles which are on an abandoned road leading to Monte Cristo - itself an abandoned mining town. We carried in all the water we'd need for the trip as there are reports of arsenic from the mines.

The ride in was pretty fun, inluding a log walk over the clearest water I've ever seen. We got a nice campsite just outside of the 'town' itself and made dinner and a fire, well, Terry boiled water and made the fire - I ate a candy bar in support.
We aimed for a leisurely start and got moving around 6:30. The hike into the basin was fairly tame except for sections of some scrambling over large steps. There were lots of relics from the old mines and trams - hundreds of feet of cabling and sluice pipes. I can't imagine hauling all of that equipment up, it was hard enough to carry in my 2 granola bars.
At the route of the gully leading to the spire we helmeted up and started up one of two snow fields. Inbetween the two fields was a crappy section of scree, which took a long time to scratch up. Perhaps a few weeks earlier in the year would be better as one could go up the whole way on snow. The snow field was fairly steep and we roped up in case the bridge was thin.

Climb

After some more scree fields we made it to the proper start of the climb and put away our boots in favor of climbing shoes. Terry was nice enough to do all of the leading. As someone else has stated for similar situations - I forgot my man pants at home.
Terry made short work of the two chossy pitches and we were presently on the top slab. The views were awesome and we hung out for a bit admiring it all. I didn't want to break up the pattern so Terry headed down on rappel. We had to be uber careful to not knock down any of the choss during our rappels and down climbing. Once back safely at the base of the climb we put away the tight shoes and laced up our boots for the hike down.

Way out

While normally one would think of the climb as being the most perilous part of the trip; we found that the scree field is the part to worry about. Terry discovered the field's angle of repose the hard way by triggering a small slide that contained a very large boulder. As with most scary events, everything kind of blurs and doesn't seem real. It looked like Terry got pushed over by the boulder (about the size of a fridge), got rolled over by the boulder and then started cartwheeling down the slope. Luckily there was a beginning of a snow field that stopped his fall and he was able to stabilize himself.

I stood for a few moments while he slid down the slope trying to hit as many rocks as possible. After we determined he wasn't dead I scooted down on my ass until I could traverse over to him without making things worse - the theme of the rest of the day. When I got to him, he had already figured his legs weren't broken. His shirt was ripped and he had large scrapes on his chest and shoulder so we did a check to make sure nothing was out of place and no obvious bleeding. I found his elbow was bleeding a fair amount - in reality not bleeding much, but compared to a ripped hangnail it looked like something. I cleaned it up with tiny iodine wipes and then slapping a Tegaderm patch on top.
After giving him a handful of Advil and some Chomps, we walked over to the top of the snow field to sort things out. We thought about trying to rappel down the snow field but it didn't look too positive so we planned on downclimbing. I put all of the gear into my pack so Terry would just carry his lightened pack. I went first to kick big steps to help him get down with minimal fuss. We took our time so that we wouldn't make any mistakes.

By the time we reached the trail proper, Terry's arm and shoulder felt better and he was able to cruise along down the smooth path. I cleaned his elbow again, put some bandages on his head cuts and we shared a chocolate bar that had hidden itself in my pack. Once back at camp we guzzled the rest of our water, ate some advil, then loaded up the packs for the ride out. It was super nice to be able to coast downhill on our bikes. At the car we quickly got our gear in so we could book it to a hospital to have a professional clean his elbow.
We got into an urgent care facility in Everett where Terry's elbow got irrigated and stitched up with 3 sutures, but nothing broken and no concussion. After that and a detour to an Olive Garden for endless breadsticks, we took the long drive home.

Times

Camp to basin: 1:30
Basin to notch: 2:00
Notch to summit: 1:00
Summit to basin: 3:00
Basin to camp: 2:00
Camp to car: :35

Panoramic Photos

Photos

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Up

Marc has been wanting to go up Mt. Adams for a while and we were able to find a free day for both of us and headed up. It was a little cooler than last weeks climb but I was cognisant of the slushfest so I had us get up at 2:30 for an early start. As it was dark when we left I accidentily took the summer route - as opposed to the winter route from last year. Enough snow had melted that I couldn't recognize last weeks route. No matter, we made good time to the bottom of the snow with perfect weather.

Marc got to try out some crampon and axe work as we found a few alternative ways to get up a few of the hills. We stopped for some grub and water at Lunch Counter before heading up more.

Just below Pikers Peak Marc realized he reached his fun limit and called it. This is good as he was still enjoying it but pushing through would've probably made it a shitty experience. He told me I should go to the summit and he could just hang out. As we were close to Pikers Peak I just ran up to that so I could get in a full glissade down.

Down

I got back down to where Marc was and showed him ways to keep the speed under control for the tube ride. The snow was still fairly hard but didn't have much speed to it so there was no worry of going too fast. As always it was much nicer to slide down than to hoof it up.

Marc got the hang of the sliding and was able to bust out our plastic sleds for us to make good time down to the dirt. On the way out he decided we should try again next year, maybe after a few Gorge hikes.

Photos

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