Ding and I went to get peaches at Sauvie's Island this weekend. There were a lot still on the trees but they weren't as tasty as I remembered. They all went mushy and moldy in a few days so Ding was a little sad.

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On Saturday Matt, Ron, Angel and I went up into the gorge for a little hike up Mt. Hamilton. It was a pretty chill hike with some nice views.

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On Tuesday Ron and I went up to Beacon Rock to get in some practice. I've been wanting to do some simulclimbing to get ready for the Grand Teton in August. We got in a few sections of simulclimbing using an ascender to protect the leader, I think it worked out pretty well. The climbing was bomber and I felt pretty good on lead above the gear. We'll be going up again in a week or two to get more practice.

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Last weekend I went up to Seattle to hang out with Sara for a few days. We came across a kitchy store and inside they had Ugly Dolls. They are quite ugly, but I bought a bat for Ingrid. We decided to take Ding (the bat's name) around Seattle and document his adventures for Ingrid.

We took Ding to the aquarium, to an Italian pizza place, to beer, to a park, to breakfast and then to mojitos. Below are his adventures.

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For the 4th we went down to the beach to hang out and get in a bit of mountain biking. Sara came down on Wednesday to check out the fireworks with us. We had a kickass bbq, even if there were vegetables involved.

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Last weekend I went with Ingrid to Montana for her grandmothers funeral. We went to some of her family's favorite spots to hang out. At the waterfall Ingrid jumped off the top and later went down the waterfall.

Photos

White Sulphur Springs, Montana.

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Over the weekend Ron and I went over to Smith to try and help out Vince's Boy Scout troop do some climbing. We set up a few top ropes over by Cinammon Slab. We did a few 5.8s and a 5.5. After they left Ron and I redid the 5.8 to the side of Cinammon Slab and then did the 2nd pitch of 5.5.

The next day we ran over to Super Slab (5.6) after a bigass breakfast and had a bad ass time. I think next time Ron will be ready to do his first real trad lead on the 3rd pitch - the money pitch. When I lead it this time I was able to run out certain sections to practice going faster and it was totally bomber.

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On Sunday Ingrid and I went down to help out Trey, Mary and Simone make some cob for a new fireplace. It was pretty fun to much around w/ the mud and straw. My bricks were the ugly strawie ones, while Miles and Ingrid made really nice ones.

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I decided to try out vimeo youtube to host little videos I've taken. I put up the Keevin zipline awesomeness. I also took a video of my glissade down the upper part of Mt. Hood.

Keevin, Matt and I went up on Hood to do the Luthold Couloir. We made awesome time to the top of the Palmer lift and then headed over towards Illumination Rock. From here on the snow was pretty loose and we postholed everywhere. We cramponed up at Illumination where Keevin lost his blue butt pad. We went over the saddle and took the wrong way over to the route we wanted. We ended up going up the Reid Glacier Headwall. We got in a cool section of mixed climbing that was pretty thin in parts. This was last fun part of the climb. I promptly took off my helmet to remove my hat and dropped my headlamp down the glacier. Keevin said it was gettable, but it had taken 30 minutes to get from where the lamp now was. So I called it an expensive lesson.

We moved up from the mixed climbing into more soft snow made for postholing. This prompted us to bonk which we didn't remedy by eating extra food but instead complained we were tired. I entered a section of deep sugar snow on a steep section that seemed like it was ready to slough off and turn into an avalance. This is at least what I told myself as I wigged out standing in waist deep shitty snow. Keevin threw down a rope and belayed me to firmer snow.

Keevin took a different route up to the summit ridge than Matt and I. I just followed Matt as I was too tired to make my own plan. We saw Keevin off to the north taking a route in the sun. I was a little concerned about avalanches as the sun was on the already warm snow. We could hear him swearing as he slowly made his way up. Once on the ridge I hung out and saw Keevin lying down on his ridge. I radioed for him to meet me up higher on the next ridge so we could split some gatorade and M&Ms.

It took us a good 2 hours from the M&Ms to get to the summit. Matt was ahead telling us that we were no where close to the West Crater Rim, which sucked. Keevin and I would rest every few steps. I fell asleep resting on my axe once and realized this wasn't the place to be screwing around and took my time going across the final ridge to summit.

We stayed on the summit for about 2 minutes before heading down the Pearly Gates. Keevin got hit on the head twice with ice in the Gates. I followed last and went the wrong way around the Bergshrund before doubling back. As I followed the boot pack across below the Bergshrund my left leg broke through the snow and was in the air. I was up to my waist and fumbled around for a while until I could fan out on the snow and get myself out. I made it over to Keevin who was passed out on the Hogsback and shared the last of my water and I threw on sunscreen - about 4 hours too late.

I took my time going down as I was so exhausted and thirsty. I put snow in my nalgene and got a bit of water out of it on the way down. We saw a few people going up and adviced them not to try and summit as there was so much rockfall and crappy snow. There was even a snowfall and avalanche to the west of the Hogsback. We all got down safely and booked for home and some rest.

Photos

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