Last Sunday we did Mt. Defiance for the last time this season. Brynne came along, though I didn't see much of her as she and Keevin booked ass up the hill. They're insane.
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Today Matt, Keevin and I went up to Timberline Lodge to get in a little hike at altitude and practiceour basic snow technique. We went above Palmer almost to Illumation Rock, but it was blowing snow pretty hard, so we took off back down. We spent about 2 hours practicing self arrest, belaying on the snow and catching each others falls on rope. It was a pretty kick ass time.

As you can see from the pictures it got rough up there and Keevin had to save Matt on the 70 deg slope. But he got him, so don't fret.

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I have to say this weekend blew. We went for our training hike up Mt. Defiance and I was so tired I was resting on trees on the way up. Matt and Keevin had to wait a half hour at the bottom I was so slow.
On the drive home I wanted to get to my hot tub, so I drove a little faster than usual. I saw the police lights behind me and thought "Hah! Some asshole is getting pulled over." Oh wait, he's following me into the other lane. I'm the asshole. $427 ticket.
That night Keevin and I watched Aliens in the tub until we were like Jello. In the morning I got ready to go out and rent some more 24, cos like you, I like to watch Jack Bauer kick some ass. I go out my door and notice my car locks are up. "That'd be funny if my car was broken into" I thought to myself. I got to the door and saw the broken window. Not so funny. They cracked my dash ripping out the stereo (the one night I didn't bring in the faceplate), stole the amps, bent the window trim, and lastly - stole my backup milkshake money from the glove box.

Last Sunday was Mt. Defiance numero 3. We started at a respectable 8am after chowing on pancakes and eggs. Click for pictures:

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Today we did our second training hike up Mt. Defiance. This time it was Matt, Keevn, Aimee, her dag Kala and me. We figured out that our last hike was actually up Starvation Ridge (No. 414 via 414b) instead of Mt. Defiance (No. 413) The beginning was much easier this time when we went up the correct trail.

I used my new trekking poles and they made a world of difference. We left Portland at 4 am so we'd be back in time for the Superbowl. We topped out at 10 am after 4 1/2 hours, 2 of which were in snow. It was a perfect weather day, light wind, sunny and not too cold.

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In preparation for climbing mountains this year, Matt, his friend Dobson and I went up into the Gorge to hike Mt. Defiance after eating some kickass breakfast burritos. We ran into two other groups getting ready and they had snowshoes on their packs. Matt hoped that they were over prepared.

Turns out we were under prepared. At around 3000 feet the snow was about 5 feet deep. It was fun to post-hole through it for a few miles, but then it got a little tiring so we ended up turning around a mile or so from the end. We don't really know cos it was cloudy and we've never done it before. But it was a hell of a lot of fun and we're ready to go up again this Sunday before SuperBowl.

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On Tuesday I took my lead test, again. This time they were kind enough to pass me. After I finished the belay portion of the test and was told to be careful who belays me (as everyone is a midget), they handed me and Matt two cold beers. Matt happens to be the only person in Portland who doesn't drink beer, so he gave it to Scott, who is smart enough to drink beer. That was probably better than passing, drinking beer in front of everyone at the gym.

I pulled my achilles tendon a little over a week ago while running Mt. Tabor. I just got into the doctor today and he told me to ease back into running and to stretch. So I'll stop running hills and stick to flats and doing hikes on hills. That's not too exciting, but an x-ray of my foot is:

Tonight I took my lead test at PRG, and blew my last clip. I'm retaking tomorrow and should pass this time, with less swearing and falling.