Quick trip to Alpental

Sunday Natalie and I got out into the snow for a really nice back country ski tour.  I recently finished a back country setup for Natalie and wanted to find somewhere close to test everything out with her before we made a real road trip somewhere.  Luckily for us Alpental ski resort, which is only an hour from the house, has not opened for the season yet.  There is pretty good snow cover everywhere but the weeds are still sticking up.

Natalie was not feeling so hot but she was a trooper and headed up anyway.  At the house the sun was shining and the sky was blue.  We were a little sad that when we made it up to the mountain the blue skies were replaced with clouds but there was very little wind and the snow was in great shape.

This was my first trip up to Alpental so we wandered around for a little while trying to find the easiest way up.  After a long traverse across the resort we headed up.  We were out for about 3 hours and got fairly high on the mountain before taking one nice long run back to the car.

It was great being out with Natalie on such a nice day.  I love that my wife is game for getting out in the cold and skiing around for the day.  I am hoping that the resort does not open for a few more weeks so maybe we can get another trip or two in up there.  Nice only driving a hour from the house rather than the normal two and a half or three to Mt Baker.

First backcountry snowboarding day of the season

Ok, I really will get the Italy posts up soon.  Until then I thought I would put up a quick post about this past weekend.

The snow has started coming down up in the mountains and it was time to go visit it.  The plan was pretty simple.  Ross and I headed out of Seattle at 6:30 Sunday morning headed to Mt Baker.  We headed up to Heliotrope ridge.  This is the same approach I used a few months ago when a group of us climbed to the top of Baker.

There was a lot more snow than I expected.  I had to not only be in 4wd to get to the trailhead but I also had to put on chains.  In November?

We hiked the first little bit and started with a sketchy river crossing but past that we split the boards and skinned up.  It took about two and a half hours to get to the toe of the glacier and we climbed for about two hours past that.  It was slow going due to the wind moving around the snow.  Some places were were knee deep super soft snow and then we would round a bend to a wind scoured face that we had to be very careful to keep an edge on.

After two hours of climbing the day was getting late and the weather started to turn on us so we put the splitboards back together and pointed them downhill.  What a blast!  We dropped 1000ft of elevation gain in no time.  The snow was fantastic and neither of us could wipe the smile off of our face at the bottom.

Only a few pictures due to the weather and high winds.  Hopefully this is another start to a great season.

Still working on the post for Italy but until then...

I am way behind in my posting.  Still working on going through the 2000 photos we took in Italy and getting posts together.  Stay tuned for those and a few other trips but just to hold you over I just ran across a video a long lost friend of mine from Boone made.  Amazing stuff.  Will catch up with you one of these days Brad.....


Shoot the Trails 2011, Brad W on pinkbike.com

Amazing hike up Mt Tenariffe last weekend

Click for more pictures

This summer has been a blur so far.  We have been visiting family in Denver, hiking a bit, went to see Phish at the Gorge Amphitheater, I had a great weekend with the guys up in Vancouver for my buddy Dan's bachelor party, and so much more.  Summers in Seattle are pretty nuts because we try to pack a whole year into 4 months of summer.  It has been a blast but has gone by so fast.  Natalie and I are just about to head out to Italy for a belated honeymoon so stay tuned for pictures from that amazing trip.  We cannot wait.

Getting back on topic for this post though we checked off a hike recently that we have been wanting to do for quite a while.  We made a few wrong turns but in the end we made it to the top of Mt Teneriffe.  This is right next to Mt Si and Mailbox peak which we have done numerous times but I have to say this was much better.  There are far less people and the view is amazing.  All in all a great day to be out hiking.

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.