On Monday, Ingrid, Ron and I went up Dog Mountain to get a bit of exercise and look at the flowers. It was a bit slow going up but totally worth the views from up there. You could see the top of Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams. Up top were at least 30 people, and we must've run across another 30 on the ways up and down. Ingrid and I talked to this older gal who was cool as hell, she trains with 2 gallons of water for the hike up. I felt like a siss just carrying 5 gallons when I'm 40 years her junior. She was badass.

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Over the weekend I went back to Providence for my 10 year reunion. My friend Jon met gave me a lift to Newport where he's working and living with his wife Aliki and two girls. I hung out there until Alex and Susa showed up and then after eating some fish & chips we went up to Brown.

We had campus dance Friday night after free beer at New Dorm where we ran into some old friends. At the dance I saw Dustin Hoffman. The next day we had breakfast at Brickway on Wickenden after walking by the old houses. Molly, Nicole, Brian, Hilda, Paul and Sofia were at Brickway too. After a nap I went over to the CIT for the Computer Science reunion and ran into a few people I remembered and profs who didn't remember us.

That night the 1997 class had a party behind the main green where I bumped into other people I hadn't seen in 10 years. I saw Tim and we tried to work the word fuck into every sentance. His wife was fucking nice enough to play along too. After that we went down to Water Fire, where they have fire on the rivers downtown. I've always liked it and this time was no exception. There was a living statue who was probably the most striking woman I'd seen in a long time.

Sunday was commencement and after some bagels with mayo and egg (as the Silver Truck is dead, damnit.) After getting some lemon ice (like a slushy) we went back to the dorm and Alex and I played frisbee until he gave up admitting I was the better.

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On Saturday I went up to French's Dome with Keevin and Matt. We did a few climbs and it was pretty good. But the exciting part was there is a zip line there. They're rebuilding the belay areas on the right side of the dome and have a cable line installed to move the timber. So we thought it'd be a good idea for Keevin to do the zip line. We did a few dry runs and then let him rip down. He was on a rope clove hitched to a tree so he wouldn't hit any of the construction half way down the line.

Here's a video of Keevin on the lne

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As our Mt. Hood trip failed, Ingrid, Keevin, Matt, Moria and I went over to Smith to redeem ourselves. It partially worked. Ingrid and I did an unnamed 5.8 multiptich sport route and then tried to do Spiderman. But there were two parties already on it, so we went over to Cinnamon slab to do a quick climb. We saw some guy climbing a 5.13? near us so we watched him for a bit.

Photos

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On Friday Ingrid, Keevin, Matt and Moira and I went up to do the Louthold Coulor route on Mt. Hood. By the time we got up to the top of palmer it was already 3:30am and we weren't feeling it. So we called it and went back down. We did get to see a really cool red moon as it rose.

On Saturday I went back to the Gorge to get my damn boots back. As I'm paranoid, I brought up some rope and cordlette to help me get the boots out, as they were stuck fast last time I saw them. I got down to where the boots were and was ready to rig up an elaborate system (maybe a 5:1 Z-C pulley system I learned in crevase rescue or some such). There was only one boot and it was just lying there under a small waterfall and I could pull it out with little effort. It came out unattached and with not much in the way of shoelaces. I threw it to shore (which could have gone bad again I realized while it was in midair). I tried to search around in the pool of water for the other one, but the water is too damn cold.

I got out of the water with help from my really unnecessary rope and carabineers. I didn't biff it into the water, so I guess it was all helpful. I walked down the stream, I mean river, for a ways and couldn't see my other boot. I think it was hiding from me under a rock or a branch, probably thinking I wasn't worthy of wearing it. I got back to my bag and solitary boot and packed out to the car. At least I have one boot to add to my growing collection of crap on my front porch

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On Thursday, Kate, Dan, Keevin, Silvia, Pam and her boyfriend came over for some nabe. As usual it was good.

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Kate, Dan, Ron, Angel, Keevin, Matt, Moira and I went up to the Tietons near Yakima to get in some crack climbing. The climbing was totally different than we (at least for me) were used to. The ratings there are a little stiff as well, I had more trouble on a '5.4' than a 5.7 at Smith. But the rock was pretty solid and the climbing lots of fun. We had awesome weather both days and nights.

The first day we all climbed at Royal Columns - Ron, Angel and I stuck to 5.3 and 5.4 climbs while everyone else got up on .7s to .10s. But they're sick in the head. On Sunday Ron, Angel and I stayed at Royal Columns to tackle a harder 5.4 and top a 5.6 while everyone went to The Bend. It was all good and we all had an awesome time.

Photos

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We did up Nabe again on Sunday. Ron, Jami, Angel, Esther, Ingrid, Matt and Mora came over and we continued the ritual of Nabe. It was good, as usual. Esther made brownies and ice cream, that helped.

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On Saturday Dan and I went up the Rock Of Ages trail in the Gorge. It was pretty muddy and a pain to go up,but the Devil's Backbone is super cool. It was cool out and we had fog, which made it like Mordor or something. For once I didn't bring too much food and I was eyeing my advil as a source of food. Not that I'd really starve, but once you think about air dropped Philly CheeseSteaks (Dan's idea), it's hard to not get hungry.

While crossing one of the larger streams I thought I'd make it an easier crossing by chucking my boots across.

Bad Idea

As soon as the boots left my hand I knew it was going bad. They might have made it 2/3rds of the way across before landing in the fast part of the stream. As opposed to rushing to where they plopped in thestream, I stared at them in disbelief and thought "I used to throw in High School, how did they not make it?".Dan pointed out where they floated to and I moved there to snag them. They fell under a waterfall and got stuck. I tried grabbing the one boot and yanking on it, but the other boot was stuck somewhere. I regretted leaving my knife at home (I looked at it twice and thought "Why would I need a knife?"). I also regretted using 200lbs tensile strength cord for shoelaces as it's next to impossible to break with one arm.

I saw it getting worse instead of better, so I decided it was time to get heading back to the quasi warm confines of the Van. I had some duct tape and put it on my feet for the 3 mile hike out. After a while Dan pointed out I could put on my socks, so I did that and added more tape. Dan headed out faster to get my sandals from the car and brought them back to me about 2 miles later. A few people hiked by and wondered what the deal was. The deal is I can't throw two boots across a stream.

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