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.

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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