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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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.