Mt Baker via Coleman Route

View all the pictures from the trip by clicking on the image above

This past weekend Natalie and I headed up to climb Mt Baker with a group of 4 other folks.  We headed out with Dan, Laura, Matt (we climbed Adams with him before) and Kent (a buddy of Matt's).
We arrived at the trailhead at 9:00am and were shortly on the trail.  We wandered through the forest for a few miles and eventually popped out onto a snowfield at the edge of the tree line.  Rather than take the real trail we just started heading up the snowfield.

Around 6000 feet we took a break to rope up into our teams.  We setup as two teams of three so that one team could help the other if something were to happen.  The snow was soft from the sunny weather so we kept the crampons in the pack.

The climb was beautiful, with Baker looming over us.  It was amazing, and messed with our minds a bit, to see the summit we were headed to off in the distance.

It was a tough climb but before we knew it we reached camp at 7500 feet.  We stopped with an amazing view of Baker.  Everyone was getting pretty hungry so the first order of business was melting snow for water and getting some food going.

The plan was to wake up at midnight and start hiking at 1:00am so it was an early night.  It is tough getting to bed at 6pm with the sun still blazing away.  We had eye masks I had picked up but it still took a few hours before I was able to wind down from the hike and fall asleep.

Beep!  Beep! Beep! 12:00am showed up before we knew it.  I cannot remember falling asleep at all but the alarm beeping away woke me right up.  Well I did lay around questioning my sanity for a few minutes but manged to get myself moving.  We had put all of our summit day gear to the side the day before so Natalie and I quietly gathered our stuff and geared up.

We were roped up and moving at 1:30am.  A little late but better than Mt Adams where we slept through 4 people's alarm clocks and woke up 2 hours late.  So I call it a success.  We were the first group awake, the stars were out, and it was completely silent.  You could barely make out the darker darkness that was Mt Baker in the dim starlight.  Wow, that is a long way up.

The morning was filled with crunching ice under my crampons and the zip zip zip of the rope on the snow as we ascended.  It is amazing how we just fell into a rhythm of step step breathe, step step breathe, and gradually ticked off the feet to the top.  I think Natalie and I started to feel the climb at about the same time.  I don't know if it was the exertion, altitude, or just being a little loopy from getting up at midnight but we hit a mini wall at about 10,000 feet on, ironically, an area called The Roman Wall.  This was a 30-45 degree slope of about 1000 feet and is the final push to the summit.  We pushed on though and gradually worked our way up.  As we crested the top of the wall the sun began to rise over the north cascades and was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.  We were surrounded by jagged peaks turned pink by the sun peaking over the horizon.  Just incredible....

We hit the top at about 5am, sat down and took in the show as the sun came up.

 We were on top for a bit before the cold winds drove us to pack up our gear, tie back in to the ropes, and head down.

The hike down was pretty cool because we got to see everything we had come up in the dark.  There were a few sections where we were pretty happy we did not see what we had been climbing.  Mostly though it was hard to not take in the sights on the way down.  We could see the San Juan Islands out in the middle of the sound.  Rainier was peaking out to the south, and all around us the glaciers were lit up.

It took us a few hours to get back to camp.  We all fell into our tents for a quick 45 minute nap, then packed up and headed out.  It was about 3pm when arrived back into the parking lot and all groaned with satisfaction as we dropped our packs that seemed to have gotten heavier throughout the day.

It was an incredible trip, and I have to say I am hooked.  Today I actually feel pretty good, my legs burn but are not any worse than after a 1/2 marathon.  It was certainly one of the hardest things I have ever done but was worth every step.  Rainier next year guys?  I hope so.  Hopefully I will get the chance to do Mt Adams in a day sometime in early August as well.  Can't put up the crampons just yet.

Quinault Lodge Weekend

A few weekends ago my parents came into town.  We have hit most of the Seattle sights so this trip we decided to get out of the city.  We headed to the Quinault Lodge.

We left town a little later than we would have liked and after stopping over in Olympia for a little dinner we rolled into the lodge at about 11:30pm.  This was a very cool place.  I felt like I had walked onto the set for The Shining.  If I kid on a bigwheel had come around the corner it would have been extra spooky.

This lodge was built in 1926.  Franklin D Roosevelt visited in 1937 and 9 months later signed the bill creating Olympic National Park (inspiration?).  Other than the dining room addition the lodge appeared to be all original.  The fireplaces were huge and had a fire burning in them throughout our visit.  We spent quite a bit of time on the couches in front of the fire visiting and catching up.

This was the rain gauge
showing 13.5 feet for the year

We made one side trip out to the coast.  We stopped at a few roadside areas to check out the "large cedar" as the sign put it.  After a while I picked a random spot overlooking the pacific and we setup our picnic we had brought along.  As we were setting up I noticed a whale rolling along off the coast.  He went back and forth in front of where we were for almost the whole time we there.  About the time the whale show ended a peregrine falcon cruised by very slowly not caring about us at all.  All in all we could not have timed the wildlife any better.

All too quickly Sunday rolled around and we headed back to Seattle.    It was a great weekend and very nice to see my parents.

Riding mountain bikes again!

A few weekends ago Natalie and I headed over to Whidbey Island for the weekend by ourselves.  We have been doing tons of weekend trips lately with groups and decided it was time to get away by ourselves.  We packed up the condotron (our huge car camping tent), bikes, and headed to a campsite at Fort Ebey State Park that Natalie had reserved.

We stopped along the way for a great dinner looking out over the water.  We took our time and just enjoyed being by ourselves with nowhere to be.

We actually took our time a little too much because by the time we got to the campground it was 10:45pm and the gates were closed.  Hmm, well guess we are sleeping on the side of the road.  We put all of our gear into the front seat and inflated our mattress in the back and promptly fell asleep.

About 6am we were woken up to a ranger knocking on the window.  I opened the door and said I was sorry we were sleeping on the side of the road but we had gotten in late.  He said not to worry and to come on in at our convenience.  Just as he was about to walk away he added as though it were an afterthought, "just for future reference in Washington State we close the gates at night but don't lock them".  Ha!  Well at least we were comfortable in the car all night even if we didn't have to be.  We laughed and then went back to sleep until about 9.

I had brought the bikes thinking we could ride along the coastal road but when we checked in the guard mentioned that all of the trails (and there were tons of them) were legit to ride bikes on.  Hmm.

We setup camp and decided to go for a ride.  Before moving out to Washington I use to go out and ride huge loops in the Wilsons Creek Area with a great group of guys.  If I was not working I was out biking.  Then I moved to the mountain bike mecca and hung up my bike.  I guess I got a little burned out and rediscovered backpacking.  It has been a great switch but getting back on the bike the other weekend certainly reminded me why I love riding so much.  These trails were not hard at all but they were right above Puget Sound and were fast and fun.  We had a blast riding for about 3 hours and then headed back to camp to get cleaned up for dinner.

We had a great dinner at the Oyster Catcher before heading back to the silence of the condotron.  It was a great weekend of hanging out with each other.  I hope we can get in a few more before the end of summer.

A Sunday of Practice for Baker

Click the image above for all the pictures

Our climbing date for Mt Baker is rapidly approaching and seeing how our snow travel knowledge is limited our climbing group had scheduled a day to go over these techniques.  Matt and Kent have lots of experience and it was great to get out for the day and learn some new things.

We headed up to Alpental resort which is just little over an hour east of Seattle.  I could not believe how much snow was up there in June.  We had no problems getting on snow right out of the parking lot.

The weather was not quite what we had hoped but the clouds did keep the snow from getting too slushy so that was good for self arrest practice.

We were out there for about 5 hours and practiced snow travel while roped up as well as various ways to self arrest.  My favorite was to arrest and catch yourself as well as a person roped from you that had fallen.  Amazing how much weight you can catch.  Check out the pictures from the link above.  I am pretty psyched with how a few of the action shots came out.

Memorial Day Hike Down Chelan Lakeshore Trail

Click Image For All The Pictures

I have been a little slow posting this because work has been crazy.  But finally the true story will get out!  Well that was dramatic.

Anyhoo, this was an amazing trip.  The plan was to leave Seattle Friday afternoon and make the three and a half hour drive to Chelan to car camp the first night, then catch a boat to our trail (lakeshore trail), have another overnight hiking up to the town to Stehekin where we would stay for one more night and then head back into Seattle.

As has been the theme of my life lately work ran late Friday and it was 7:00pm before I even made it to Laura and Dan's house.  Luckily Natalie had the brilliant idea the night before that even though I was planning to come home first I should still put all of my clothes in the 4runner so that I could just meet her at Dan and Laura's house if time ran short.  So, I pulled up to their house, changed, and we hit the road.

Our ferry getting ready to depart

The positive side of getting out of town late was we missed most of the traffic.  We were up and over the pass before we saw the slightest backup.  We headed up and over the pass, into the dry side, passed the fields of wind turbines, and cruised into Chelan well after dark.  We pulled up to the campground after a few exciting moments of driving and arrived at a sign saying the campground was full.  Not surprised, as we had called ahead and were told it would be full, we thought we would ask the helpful attendant wrapping up her shift in the booth (11:30pm).  We pulled up nicely and said, "we know the sign says you are full but we thought it was worth asking, if you are full do you know somewhere else we could camp?"  The response from the booth was "seriously?!?"  Apparently she thought that we meant we needed a campsite for the weekend which is just a little crazier than asking for the night (on memorial day weekend).  Turned out there was a spot and a great one at that.  We setup the condotron (our huge car camping tent), had some wine and snacks and headed to sleep.

Just a few backpackers on this boat

We woke up Saturday to sunshine.  Sweet sweet sunshine.....  We headed over to the ferry which took us 45 minutes up the lake to the Prince Creek trailhead.  The lake was crystal clear like Tahoe or Lake Como.  Just beautiful with huge cliffs in places and rolling hills in others.  We moved through pockets of sunshine and into dark black ominous clouds promising to drench our backpacks riding on the front of the boat.

The boat was filled with backpackers and we could hardly get a seat.  I was secretly pretty worried that this was going to be like hiking at Disneyland.  At one point we heard several people remarking that they had never seen so many backpackers on the boat.  Uhh oh....

We pulled up to our stop.  I say pulled up, we actually just ran into the shore of rocks which I found odd.  All these years and they have not constructed any dock?  We offloaded from the front of the boat and started getting our gear together.

There were what felt like a thousand boy scouts on the boat and they all offloaded and acted as obnoxious as young boys with too much energy do.  Again, I was worried, are we going to be hiking in a traveling carnival?

The first few miles were pretty crazy where we it felt like hiking in a mall but after about mile 3 everyone spread out and we had the trail more or less to ourselves.  We took in the silence and marveled at the snowy peaks and the clear water.  What an amazing place.  We went through pockets that felt like Utah, Colorado, California, and a few sections that reminded me of hiking in Linville Gorge back in NC.

Home sweet home

Our first day was supposed to be 7 miles but the campground was pretty full so we pushed on until we found a spot around mile 8 that was one of the best campsites I have ever had.  We were perched above the lake, and could see peaks popping out of the clouds in front of us, with the the lake to our left and right.  Not too shabby.  We got camp all setup, Dan and I did a cross country trip down the mountain to filter water from the lake, and then we all took it easy.

Sunday we woke up to clearing skies and birds chirping away.  We took our time getting packed up and having breakfast and I think it was getting toward noon before we headed out of camp. The hiking was just as amazing.  We headed through several areas that had burned and the wildflowers were in full bloom.  For some reason I got home with only one flower picture.

We went over some crazy creek crossings, took in the sun that had decided to show up and enjoyed being outside.

Throughout the day we would pass some lucky folks cabins that were tucked away in the woods.  There was not any power or water so many were very basic.  Water piped in from a stream and power was either a solar array or maybe a generator.  It was neat to check out the different styles.

Float plane waiting to load up

About 5pm, after 11 miles of hiking, we rolled into Stehekin.  I was expecting memorial day busyness and too much commotion in too small a space.  I was wrong.  We came into town and it was dead silent, almost spooky because of my expectations.  We walked up to the ranger station and were given our campsite number and permit.  The girls headed off to claim our spot while Dan and I went down to "Store" to pickup beer.  I say "Store" because that was actually the name of it.  This great town had Restaurant and Store.  Store turned out to have quite the beer selection and the prices were surprisingly good considering this town is so remote the only way to get things to  it are to:

1.  Walk
2.  Fly a floatplane
3.  Take the ferry

We stocked up on beer and snacks and headed back to camp where the girls were getting our site setup.  Oh yea, we took a side trip to Restaurant to make a reservation for the night since as the ranger had advised.

After having a celebratory beer and getting camp setup we ate a great dinner at Restaurant and took in the peace and quiet of Stehekin.  I instantly fell in love with the town.  Quick fact, there are a total of 85 year round residents of Stehekin.

We spent the night setup by the lake singing hip hop songs and having a great time.

Monday arrived too quickly and we all rolled out of bed excited to grab some breakfast.  This meal would not be at Restaurant, we instead headed out to a place with a name that is too long for this town, the Stehekin Pastry Company.  We were told we had to check it out before we even got into town.  We decided not to rent bikes to get out there (rented by the hour, how cool is that) and instead stretched our legs and walked the two miles to the bakery.  It was worth every step.  The food was great.  We got more than we could ever eat and left fat and happy.

Too quickly it was time to pack up and catch the ferry back to the car.  I cannot wait to get back to Stehekin.  We were planning trips to return on our boat ride back to the car.

Mailbox and Si in 1 Day / Walking like Frankenstein today

Mailbox peak last summer

So in preparation for various mountain climbing plans this summer (Mike and Katy are doing Rainier and the usual gang of four are doing Baker) the stupid idea was hatched to do Mailbox peak followed by Mt Si this past saturday.  It sure sounded like a great idea at the bar and truth be told it really was a great day of hiking.

Mailbox peak this past weekend
(the mailbox is under our hands)

So just to recap this brilliant plan.  Mailbox peak climbs 4000 feet in 2.5 miles, easily the steepest trail I have ever hiked.  It is an out and back so the downhill might be worse as you beat your knees into the ground.  Then it is a quick drive to Mt Si which climbs 4000+ feet over 4 miles.  

We got up Saturday at 6:15 and were on the road by 6:45 with coffee in hand.  We all met up and headed to the Mailbox peak trailhead.  The weather was cool and threatening to rain but held off the whole day.  The clouds rolled in and out letting us look back down to the lush green valley off and on.  At one point I just kind of got in the zone and hiked up ahead by myself enjoying the snow, mist, and clouds.  Mike and Katy were testing out boots to hike Mt Rainier in (which weight about 19lbs each) so they were really weighted down.  The gang of four (Natalie, Dan, Laura, and myself)  made it up to the top in a time that surprised us all, checked out the top and headed down before our body temps could drop too much.  We passed Mike and Katy on the way down not too far from the top and were happy to see they were in good spirits despite the torture devices strapped to their feet.

Back at the parking lot we all agreed that the first leg of the trip had gone well.  We ate, and rested until the whole group was back together and then headed off for mountain #2.  

The hike up Si went really well, we just chatted away and before we knew it we were near the top.  The last 100 yards I was pretty much ready to be finished but overall we all felt great the whole hike.  We all ended up running down the first half of the downhill just to save our knees a little.  I ended up running nearly the entire 4 miles back down.  It felt great to tear past the mile markers.  4, 3.5, 3, 2, wow I am almost at the parking lot, 1, well I will keep running now, and bam I was done.  Peeling off boots has never felt so good.  We had a celebratory beer in the parking lot and then headed out for food.  

What a great hike.  I can certainly say we are all ready for our respective climbs.  Next weekend is a long weekend of backpacking.  Heres hoping the weather will cooperate.

Back in Georgia for a few great days!

 More Pictures Here (click me)

Our Cabin

Since a little before I was born my parents have been visiting Vogel State Park in north Georgia.  When I was born the tradition somehow shifted over to going up there at Easter.  When I think back over the years if I had to identify one place where my love of the outdoors started I would say it is this park.  Before my memory begins my dad was carrying me around in a backpack (sometimes getting lost) through the trails surrounding this park.  I learned to fish, hike, and enjoy being out of the city, in this place.  So you can imagine how excited that I was heading back to a place that holds so many memories for me.

I missed the last few years since Natalie and I moved out to Seattle but this year I headed back.  This year Natalie was not able to because she was covered up with work and it did not line up with any of her holiday time but I hope next year that will be different.  I caught a red eye flight into Atlanta, leaving Seattle at 11pm Wednesday night.  This put me on the ground in Atlanta at around 7am.  I took the train down to near my parents house where they met up with me and we headed back to the house.  I pounded a coffee when I landed so I was feeling pretty good.  I think at that point I was powered 1/2 by coffee and 1/2 by excitement to be back in Atlanta.  My parents put me right to work re-hanging a bird feeder that had been knocked off the house.  Always a good idea to be climbing 30 feet up in the air after 4 hours of sleep.  :)

We grabbed some lunch and headed up to the mountains.  After a few hours we arrived and it was exactly as it was 4 years ago when I had been there last.  Barely any cell service, no tv, no phone....  perfect!!

  

Family Picture

My brother got in later that night and we had a great time catching up.  The four of us spent the next 4 days just like we always did each Easter.  We hiked, lounged around, visited with each other and were not bothered by the real world at all.  Palmer and I even got in a full day of fishing on the Toccoa river with a guide (best Christmas present ever).  The fish did not want to cooperate but we managed to get 7 in the day and it was a beautiful day.  It was great being back out with my brother who I do not get to see enough.  The day came to a close way too soon and we headed back to the cabin.  

The whole trip actually went way to fast but that just means it was a lot of fun I suppose.  It is pretty cool being in a spot where some of your earliest childhood memories are from.  The place is still exactly the same and it is just as hard to leave each year.

Hopefully Palmer and I will work out a fishing trip on this coast soon and I think my parents will be out in the next few months as well so it will be good to see everyone again.

Looking forward to being back at Vogel again next year.

Lady Slipper