9 posts tagged “hiking”
It's been a little while since my last climbing update, and it's been busy. Busy enough that I'm quite ready for a break, in fact.
A couple of weeks ago, there was big talk about heading up to Cashmere Mountain (8501') to knock off another top-100 peak in Washington. The weather kind of turned sour, though, and instead we just went over to Mount Pilchuck (5340') with a bunch of friends. It was supposed to just be a nice easy day hanging out on the trail, and it would have been, except for the swarms upon swarms of bugs! I'd just picked up some DEET containing bug juice from REI, so I thought I would be prepared, but not so. As it turned out, the bugs that plagued us all the way up the mountain were flies, which aren't afraid of DEET. So the only solution was to move as fast as possible. Of course, the problem with that is we were with our friends who don't climb mountains every other day, so their pace was relatively leisurely. Not a problem, except for the bugs... so I decided to innovate a bit by hiking down a couple hundred feet every time I caught up to them. That way, I could keep moving, and I wouldn't have to breathe the bugs constantly. The only solace was at the summit, where the bugs seemed to let up a little. Still, it was a fun day and I got to hike with some friends with whom I haven't been outdoors in a while.
Last week, I took a couple of days off of work, and was really looking forward to our attempt on Mount Olympus (7969'). The approach involves 17.5 miles of hiking on the Hoh River Trail through the heart of the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. It promised to be beautiful terrain, capped with a glacier climb to the high point of the Olympic Peninsula. We budgeted a leisurely 4.5 days... our first day involved just taking the car ferry across Puget Sound, getting a permit at the ranger station, and then sleeping in our car - instead of tent - at the trailhead campground. On reflection, this would be a critical decision.
Our second day, we hiked about 11 miles into Lewis Meadows, arriving in the afternoon and finding a nice sheltered campsite. There were some gorgeous sights along the way... but also a lot of damage in terms of footbridges being washed out and fallen trees, not to mention a number of mudslides and subsidences. In any case, we stayed pretty dry that first day despite an intermittent shower throughout the day. That night, we spent a restful evening, knowing that we only had to go another 6 miles or so to get to Glacier Meadows. It was so dark that night I couldn't see my hand right in front of my face.
The third day was a slog through a constant rain, up about 2700' over 6 miles. I got a new pack for this trip, since I didn't have a proper expedition pack before. I chose the Osprey Crescent 85, and though it's a heavy pack, the suspension and stowage systems work really well to keep it balanced on your hips and back. I also got the rain fly for free, which was critical on this trip. Through 3 days of constant rain, the contents of my pack remained mostly dry. Next time, I'll probably put my critical stuff (down, extra base layer, etc.) in a small plastic bag as well, to make sure. Anyway, by the time we reached Glacier Meadows, I was getting cold and I was completely drenched. And worse, the rain started to seep through tent, ever so slowly, but surely. Not at the seams, where you'd expect, but just because there was residual moisture on the inside of the tent, so the water would wick through the nylon. Good thing we didn't sleep in the tent that first night, because this seepage would have started a day sooner if we had. It was a pretty miserable day and night as it was. By the morning, we'd have a good pint or so of water on the floor of the tent. Fortunately, our sleeping bags were still dry, through careful placement and sleeping pad management.
And of course, all this rain meant that there was no way we'd be summiting. In fact, we didn't even make an attempt from Glacier Meadows. The visibility was horrible and the rain was constant. We decided to pack it up and trudge the entire 17.5 miles back to the car the next day. Our tents were in no shape to stand another night of rainfall, and our decision was validated by the ranger we met at the Olympic Guard Station. He told us that another 3-4 inches were expected overnight. This was a painful day, descending with 60 lbs. on my back with rain constantly falling. J even fell into a creek on one of the iffy log crossings we had to make. Misery indeed.
So that was a pretty painful 35 miles to hike to not make our goal, carrying a bunch of equipment (ice axe, crampons, for example) that we didn't even use. At the start, we all wanted to go despite the forecast, because we all thought it'd be rewarding to make that hike through the rain forest and enjoy nature, etc. And I agree with that still... but it's one of those things that you do once. And that's quite enough, thank you very much. Next time I have a 4 day climb planned and the weather looks rainy, I'm going to head to the movie theater and catch up on some movies instead.
All this brings us finally to Cashmere again. We decided to give it a go this Sunday, starting from home at 4 in the morning and hitting the trailhead right around 7. Most of the distance is covered on maintained trail, with our only hiccup being a missed fork in the trail. It was one of those times when you just keep on truckin' and then you think to yourself, "hm, maybe we should have turned at that last fork..." Fortunately, we stopped and consulted the maps and got back on track quickly.
The climb actually felt pretty easy. In what seemed like no time, we were up past Lake Caroline and looking for a place where our guidebook had told us to depart the maintained trail. We did so somewhere near a switchback, and headed over in the general direction of the mountain. The only downside to all this was that because were doing this is summer, we did have to traverse across a couple of meadows, taking care to avoid too much damage to the foliage. In due time, we gained a ridge and there was a trail of sorts along this ridge right up to the col. We were even treated to a mountain goat sighting. From the col, it's a Class 3 scramble across some boulders and rocks over to the north ridge of Cashmere. This took a while, and I was glad that T had joined us with his experience. He set the pace and picked the route with ease. We were on the summit in 6 hours.
Bugs were again a problem on this hike, but this time we were prepared. In addition to the 30% DEET stuff, I mixed it with REI's "Jungle Juice" which is a concoction of chemicals that are supposed to deter just about everything. And for the most part it worked... I got only bites on my head under my Buff where I didn't have bug juice going. There was one exception to this: humongous horseflies apparently aren't afraid of any chemicals, because those bastards hounded us all the way up and down once we left the trail. And those guys bite! I suppose it was nature's way of punishing us for leaving the trail.
Unfortunately, the descent would take us just as long. Descending a scramble is always worse than the ascent, and this was no exception. It took us what seemed like forever to get back to the trail. And from there, it didn't speed up terribly much because K had developed some horrific blisters due to new socks. We kept the pace pretty steady, but it took us all of 6 hours to reach the car.
After dinner in Leavenworth and the long drive home, I was quite ready to take a break. We had done two 17 mile days in two weeks, and over 50 total miles. We had considered an attempt on Mt. Rainier this coming weekend, but K's blisters mean he's out for sure, and it was the perfect excuse for the rest of us to take a breather as well. So we'll be making another attempt on Mt. Rainier in two weeks, but for the time being, I'm going to hit the beach or something this weekend to relax.
Hiked to Camp Muir (10,080') on Saturday with J. It was my fifth and her fourth time up to Camp Muir this year, and my sixth and her fifth time to 10,000'. A lot has changed in the month since the summit attempt... there has been a lot of snow melt, and also some new snow has fallen. The weather was gorgeous, clear skies all around and in the 60's (F) at Paradise. The only exception to this was on the upper mountain, which was enrobed in a veil of cloud. It seemed like this might be the last "nice" weekend so we got up and headed out of town over the objections of our weary bodies.
The biggest consequence of our late start was that I forgot my National Parks Pass. So we made a $15 "donation" in the form of our entrance fee. No big deal... if there's one place that I don't mind giving extra money to it's Mount Rainier National Park. We got to Paradise pretty late, and didn't start off until after 11 AM.
The hike from Paradise to Pebble Creek was the same that we'd done all summer, though there were only a handful of people compared to the continuous line that could have been expected for a similar day in July or August. One of the groups that we passed along the way was a Boy Scout troop, out on the mountain to earn a merit badge. It was pretty cool to talk with their troop leader about the mountain and the experience. His group seemed pretty psyched about hiking up to the snow above Pebble Creek, which was their goal that day. He said that they might try for Camp Muir next year, and we were able to share some wisdom. It made me feel really good about myself to be able to provide insight on our experience instead of just absorbing from others.
Later on, we were on the receiving end of wisdom as we passed an RMI group coming down from a summit attempt. As it turned out, they weren't able to summit because of that cloud cap and the resulting white-out conditions on the upper mountain. It seemed like a real shame, since it was such a beautiful day all around. But up there, weather is a very local phenomenon, where one face of the mountain can have drastically different conditions from another. Or, in this case, one elevation vs. another. One of the guides coming down was the lead guide from our summit attempt, and we were able to chat for a minute or two about the conditions on the snowfield and at Camp Muir. Some crevasses had opened up on the upper snowfield, but there had also been some fresh snow since our last time up, so a lot of the sun cups had been smoothed out. This would bear out nicely for the descent.
There's something very cool about the mountaineering community and the flow of knowledge that occurs between people. Certainly it's not a unique situation... I've found similar communities surrounding similar groups of people, like the hang gliding community when I was a part of it. Then, as now, it's about freely exchanging information to help each other out: "watch out for the winds up at launch" or "there are new crevasses up on the glacier..." We also heard a lot of different languages on the mountain this time: Chinese, French, German, to name just a few. Very cool. What is it about greater urban or suburban society that makes us less inclined to feel that sense of community? Why are we so free with our wisdom just because the guy you're talking to is also carrying an ice axe up the mountain?
Anyway, the hike up to Pebble Creek was about the same as it has been all summer. From there, we noticed that there was new snow on the Muir Snowfield, but there were also areas where new rock was exposed due to melting of the snow layer. We spent a lot more time on rock than we have in the past, which slowed us down a little. Combined with our relative out-of-shapeness (you do lose it quickly... it's only been a month but I can feel it), we were a little slower than our goal: a little over 4.5 hours from the Jackson Visitor Center to Camp Muir. We also took some pictures on the way up... the cloud cap made for some tempting shots. I'm not sure my photos do it justice, but it was worth slowing down a bit to get some photography in.
On the upper snowfield, it got pretty cold. I put my gloves and fleece on at about 9000', a little later than I should have, since my hands were starting to get numb from the cold. At Camp Muir the winds were coming in strong, about 20-30 mph, and the temperature was around freezing. We huddled into the public shelter along with about two dozen other people. Since we got there around dinner time, there was lots of cooking being done. I was pretty hungry, so I downed my relatively inadequate PB&J sandwich and then just rested for a few minutes. I took a few photos of the Cowlitz Glacier at this point as well, which looked very different from the last time I was there. In the month since, the crevasses have really opened up, but with the fresh snow they looked less jagged. It was a sight I didn't expect at all, and I respected the mountain for not just how quickly things can change, but how much.
It was already getting pretty late (we started late since it was so hard to get out of bed), so we got going back down soon after. Like I said, the fresh snow made the descent much, much easier. We plunge stepped most of the way back with a couple of standing glissades thrown in. It was a fast descent too, 2.5 hours back to the car. My knee felt a lot better this time too, probably a combination of giving it some time off, along with the fresh snow, better technique, and better poles. Oh yeah, I should mention here that REI rocks... I went in a couple of weeks ago to return the REI Summit trekking poles that I bought back in March because the mechanism that holds the telescoping parts of the poles where you set them just wasn't reliable (I would have to re-set them at least a couple of times per hike), and finally, one of the plastic pieces separated from the aluminum pole section (making it impossible to twist the darn thing so I could extend it; worst thing was this happened in the field while I was hiking in Glacier National Park, probably 50-100 miles from any store where I could pick up a replacement... just good thing it wasn't a more critical piece of equipment!). Despite my having used the things for an entire season, they took 'em back no questions asked (I could see a lesser store arguing that it was "wear and tear" instead of just being cruddy), and gave me full store credit, which I used to pick up a new pair of Black Diamond Compact Trail poles. These are lighter, and instead of using the twist lock mechanism found in the REI poles, uses a "flick" cam mechanism, which in my humble experience seems easier to use and more secure. I'm pretty happy with the new poles thus far. And I continue to be happy with how awesome REI is about everything.
Anyhow, we got back to the car just as the sun set, lighting up the Tatoosh Range south of Rainier in glorious pinks and purples. And the mountain that we'd just come down from was awash in the glow. We stuck around for a few more pictures and then got out of there. Thanks to a fast descent, we didn't have to break out the headlamps. It's funny about the headlamps because if we make it down before we have to use them, I feel good about our speed, but if we don't then I feel good because I like using them. Hah. It's silly.
Well, there might be one more hike up to Camp Muir this year, but the weather may get pretty nasty pretty fast. So we'll see. If this was the last one, it was a great one.
Crossed the Continental Divide on foot via Swiftcurrent Pass (7250') on Saturday, then hiked up to the Numa fire lookout (6960') on Sunday. I guess you could say these were the first "training hikes" for our attempt on Mt. Kilimanjaro next year... but maybe that's getting ahead of ourselves.
J has worked up the full write-up of the weekend, already, so I won't go on and on like I usually do. It was a really cool Labor Day weekend... didn't get a lot of rest, but even so, we saw barely anything of this vast park. We are definitely going back at some point. One of the neat things that I discovered was that because of its unique position straddling the Continental Divide, drops of water separated by nothing more than a hand's width could end up in such disparate places as the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, or Hudson Bay... there's something very philosophical and deep about that.
Still, this weekend, I'm going to do nothing. It's been a crazy past few weeks, and I just need a couple of days of nothingness.
Hiked to Camp Muir (10,080') again on Saturday, as the final training hike before my Mt. Rainier summit attempt. [GPS Track, ascent in red, descent in green]
With the rest of the team taking the weekend off with other obligations, J and I made the ascent in a speed push, with full packs. We made it from the lower "day-use" parking lot below the Jackson Visitor Center to Camp Muir (a vertical gain of over 4800') in 3 hours, 55 minutes. On the ascent, we stopped only twice: once at Pebble Creek (7200') to have a bite to eat and then at about 9000' on the snowfield to catch our breath and take a break before making the final push.
Since this was the third time I'd made this ascent, and the second time for J, we were pretty confident and knew how to pace ourselves. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, very similar to the first ascent with perfectly clear skies and the temperature in the 70's and 80's back near sea level. Up at Paradise it was about 60, and at Muir it was a little chillier, maybe 50. But I never even put on my fleece the whole way up and down. I was in my shorts and long-sleeve base layer all the way. Sun protection was an issue again, and I made sure to slather the stuff on. Even so, I got the ridiculous "mountaineer" tanlines to show for it. No burns this time for me, thank goodness.
Although this was beginning to be old hat, this climb was not without its challenges. The biggest one, for me, was that in my idiocy I'd forgotten to bring my contact lenses! So I had a choice of wearing my goggles (which cut out only maybe 10-20% of visible light, compared to the 80-90% that is prudent on the snowfield on a clear day) over my glasses, or not wearing my glasses but having my sunglasses on. I opted to make the hike "blind" with sunglasses. This meant that J led most of the way and I simply followed her footsteps, but all in all it wasn't really that bad. In fact, after a while, I forgot that I didn't have my prescription eyewear.
(I feel compelled to note at this point that I did completely, fully recognize that I had the option of simply calling it a day and heading back home. I chose to continue after I tried out hiking for a short distance without prescription eyewear, and found it to be acceptable. I wouldn't have made the same decision if the conditions were anything less than perfect, which they were on Saturday.)
At Camp Muir and on the way down, I even took some photographs while "blind." I'm kind of proud of these photos actually. Hahaha. Not being able to see that well actually really gave my other senses a better feel for the mountain. I was amazed at how much "seeing" I could do with my hands and feet feeling out the terrain and grabbing hand and footholds in various areas. But most of the way was pretty straightforward, just making sure I put my boot where J's boot had just been seconds before.
The descent was a little more challenging this time, as we had to get through a band of hard, icy snow from 10,000' back to about 8000'. This was a painful time, as not being able to clearly make out a small difference in shades of white on the snow could mean a slip. I did slip several times while mixing the plunge stepping with short standing glissades. My left knee started bothering me around 8500' and we took it a little easier, but it's still sore even two days later, so I'm pretty sure I tweaked it somewhere up there. The positive note to this is that it's definitely nothing major, and I'm sure it'll be fine with the two weeks off between now and the summit.
Once we got back to the Skyline Trail we decided to take it easy since we'd made such good time, and take as many photographs as we could. There were a lot of other people on the trail, and at times they made good subjects against the magnificent natural backdrop. It was a lot of fun. We got back to the car about 3 hours and 20 minutes after leaving Muir, so it was a slow descent, relatively speaking, but we got lots of photos.
So two weeks from right now I'll hopefully be making a triumphant descent from the summit of Mount Rainier. Until then, lots of rest and just staying out of trouble. Physically and mentally I feel ready. It's just a matter of not doing something stupid like twisting an ankle going down the escalator at the mall...
Hiked to the end of the Bandera Mountain trail again (5157') last night, pushing the speed with light packs. We made it up in two hours, and then took just as long to make the descent, half of which was in the darkness with headlamps.
These evening hikes are just amazing for the beautiful sunsets and dusks that we've been treated to. I didn't have my camera with me this time, but there were lots of wildflowers and meadows along the way. The Bandera trail is unique in the area for its openness almost right from the start. Whereas most of the trails around it spend almost all of the climb in dense forest, the Bandera trail breaks out of the forest within a mile, and spends the rest of the climb traversing rock fields and meadows.
The team (K, J, R, and I) was joined by a couple of J's college friends, who managed to keep the pace quite well. It was nice to be able to chat while making the ascent, even though we were pushing the pace. We wanted to make it to the end of the trail "summit" and then back down past the rocky meadow before the natural light gave out. We in fact made this goal, and then some, as we didn't turn the headlamps on until well after we had returned to the main Mason Lake trail. R and K ran the rest of the descent, and made it down in only 45 minutes.
The other thing we made sure to remember this time was insect repellent. Our diligence was rewarded with pretty much no bug bites the whole time. We were only bothered by a few moths late in the descent who were attracted to our headlamps.
All in all a great training hike, and with only 20 days to the summit attempt, we were pretty happy with the results.
Hiked up to Camp Muir (10,080') again this weekend. Had planned to spend the night, so this time we made the trek with full packs including overnight gear. This added about ten pounds of gear from the last time we made this hike. Combined with a less experienced group, and less favorable weather conditions, we took much more time to make it to the goal this time.
We started once again from the Jackson Visitor Center, and took the Alta Vista trail to join with the Skyline trail. You can compare the different tracks in the PDF file (red for this time, blue for the first ascent). Aside from the start, the only real difference was in the Skyline Trail, where this time we were compelled to stay on the trail since just about all the snow had melted, but last time we were able to take a more direct route thanks to the fact that we could go up on the snow. Aside from that, just a little difference on the snowfield, which resulted from the lack of a truly well established bootpath this time (more on this later).
I was in my new Koflach Degre plastic boots, so the going was a little slow on the pavement and rocks of the Skyline Trail. At this point, we were also taking a lot of breaks and taking time to snap photos along the way. We were still planning on staying overnight at Muir, so it didn't really matter when we got up there as long as we got up there with plenty of time to set up camp and settle in. As you can see from the photos, we were in fog almost immediately, and did not break out of the clouds until well after Pebble Creek, probably around 8000'. Fortunately, it wasn't raining or snowing.
We knew it was going to be cold and windy up there, but I didn't expect it to get that way until we were already at Camp Muir. So it was a bit of a surprise when I found myself breaking out the long-sleeve base layer and, a little later, the fleece, and even later, the wind- and water-proof shell. It was a lot colder this time around, and with the fog and clouds, it meant there were a lot fewer people on the mountain as well. Whereas we had a constant "line of ants" going up the mountain last time, we probably saw only about 30-50 people all day this time, and this included the people who were hunkering down when we reached Camp Muir.
In any case, we made our way up the rocky Skyline Trail until Pebble Creek, and finally my new boots were truly at home. Once the snow started, they felt great, and I did my turn kicking steps in the lead. That was the other time-consumer on this trip... whereas we had a very well defined boot path last time, where we could pretty much just follow the person in front of us, this time we had only sporadic boot paths interspersed with areas of confusing and often frustrating trampled snow. These were frustrating in that we had to keep making sure that the path we were choosing was going in the right general direction, and also because the trampled snow was relatively unstable, requiring the lead to kick steps. Higher up on the climb, the temperature was low enough that the snow was starting to develop rime ice, and I briefly thought that maybe crampons might be a good idea, but we reached Muir before that thought fully developed.
The reward for all of this was that when we finally did break out of the clouds, we were treated to spectacular views of the cloud layer and of Mt. Adams far off in the sea of clouds. It was as if Adams was there to personally welcome us after the long climb.
But the climb wasn't over yet. We made it up the last 2000' with stern determination, but I have to admit there were a few points when morale got pretty low. At about 8500', we decided that with the deteriorating weather and the high winds coming in, it wasn't a good idea to spend the night. And that was one of the things I was really looking forward to. When we made that decision, I almost said to heck with it, let's just descend now. We did keep going though, and the whole team (all six of us, including two people we hadn't hiked with before) were able to stand above 10,000', if only for a short time.
As we ate our celebratory meal and snapped a few photos, the wind really started howling. It was difficult to walk in a straight line because the wind kept blowing us off course. A bunch of other climbers we talked with up there confirmed our decision to descend, and we soon began the long march down. There were a couple of glissades along the way, but most of the snow was icy and hard. It was a long descent, made mostly in silence. The cloud layer made navigating somewhat of a challenge, as it was difficult to see more than 20 feet in front of us. Fortunately, the GPS was all we needed to make sure we stayed on track (though we did have compass and map as well, just in case). We picked up a few stragglers on the way down as well-people who'd gone up rather unprepared (some didn't have gloves, didn't have layers, didn't have navigation). It was chilling to think of the people who've been stranded or even died on the Muir Snowfield as we aided these people down the mountain. The snowfield should not be underestimated, and nobody should go up there without all the preparation and equipment, even on a day with good weather. In any case, all this made the descent slower as well, and we finally made it back to the cars just before we would have needed to turn on the headlamps.
It was a long day, 18 hours from door to door, in the end. But it was another good day of training with more weight than the summit attempt will involve, and it was good to try our skills in non-ideal conditions as well. The biggest lesson from this hike, though, was respect for the mountain. We saw how quickly a 40 mph wind can blow in, and what a huge difference the weather can make.
Hiked Mount Si (4000+') yesterday evening, meeting up after J got out of work. After picking up some much-needed bars and a sandwich for fuel, we hit the trailhead at 6:15. Since it had been a pretty warm day, I wanted to make sure we stayed well-hydrated, so I packed our brand-new North Face daypack (courtesy of my mom) with 5 liters. We also both had our Nikons with us, and headlamps. The pack was probably a little over 20 pounds at the start of the hike.
Now Si has always been a little weird to me, because I always feel like it's more of a challenge than it should be. We were pushing the pace pretty hard, because we wanted to make it up for the sunset, but I was really huffing and sweating while I had the pack. J took the pack at about the 2 mile mark, and it was a lot easier (for me, anyway) after that. Unfortunately, the pack isn't properly sized for her, and I took it back from her about a half mile from the top. There's nothing worse than an improperly fit bag, and J was suffering from the straps digging in to her and just making things really uncomfortable. That's one of the big risks of mail ordering or otherwise not being present to get your bag fit at the store. There are adjustable bags out there that mitigate some of this, but it's not ideal to rely on that.
Trials and tribulations with the bag aside, we were able to make it to the base of the haystack in 2.5 hours, just in time to catch a gorgeous sunset. And to be greeted by seemingly every bug on the mountain. We spent about half an hour up there photographing the surroundings in the beautiful glow of sunset and dusk, trying our best to avoid getting too many bites and to avoid getting the bugs in front of the lens, and then affixed our headlamps for the long descent through darkness.
Descending through darkness is obviously not an ideal situation, but with our headlamps it was easily accomplished. We took it fairly slow, as far as descents go, making sure we saw where our footing was before taking the step. This close to our Rainier summit attempt, the last thing we need to do on a training hike is twist an ankle.
We made it down to the car at 11:15, and when we turned off our lights, we were able to enjoy a moment of pitch blackness under a black sky studded with thousands and thousands of stars. It's amazing how beautiful the stars can be out there, and I must admit that I don't get the chance to enjoy that often enough. All in all a great hike, though I think the trail technically closes at dusk, so we weren't supposed to be out there hiking through the darkness. It's a good thing the park service didn't close the gates to the parking lot, or we wouldn't have been able to get the car out. We thought maybe they just don't bother closing them, but when we passed the parking lot for Little Si, they were quite closed. So it's fortunate that the ranger noticed our car there and just left the gate open. Probably not something I would count on in the future.
It wasn't a good weekend for training, with lots of parties and visitors from out of town in the picture, but we did make it out to Rattlesnake Ledge (~2050'). The Ledge is probably one of the most popular short hikes around here, as it's not too difficult, can be done in just a couple of hours, is in excellent condition, and is quite a short drive from the greater metro area.
We hit the trailhead just before 9 AM. One thing I've noticed is that, on these short hikes, hitting the trail early makes all the difference in terms of the kind of folks you run into during the hike. In general, the very early morning people tend to be more "serious" users... on our way up we saw quite a number of trail runners coming back down, for example. On our way down, though, we saw a lot of people who were "weekend warriors" who obviously enjoyed hiking, but who did it only on established trails during the summer. These are the folks that didn't want to get up too early but still knew the night before that they wanted to go hiking. If we'd stuck around 'til afternoon, there probably would have been a lot more families with kids and people who'd kind of woken up without a plan for the day, saw how nice it was outside, and said "what the heck, let's go for a hike." Not saying that anybody is better or worse than anybody else... just that I've noticed these little trends while I've been out there. Goodness knows that it really wasn't that long ago that I was part of the "wake up and decide to go hiking" crowd.
That said, I have noticed that in general I don't like to do training hikes when there are a lot of less serious users on the trail. Maybe this is because I'm a snob, but there's a definite difference between people who have been out there a lot and kind of know the etiquette, and people who don't. Sharing the trail with others is one of the most fun things about hiking, and I enjoy the possibility of meeting people out there as much as anyone. But when there are a lot of people on a trail, it really helps when everyone knows the conventions and "rules" so to speak.
Anyway, I'm not quite sure why I decided to bring this up in this entry, because we didn't run into any problems at all during our hike. In fact, we had a couple of good conversations with people who were intrigued at the fact that we were doing a 2 mile hike with 1200' of elevation gain in the middle of summer with full pack, avalanche shovel, and ice axe. It must have been quite the strange sight. But weight is weight, and training is training... though I hardly broke a sweat during the whole thing. Actually, it felt quite good to be out there, and last year, I probably would have considered it a moderate challenge without a pack. So progress has definitely been made in terms of conditioning. It's funny how little you notice something like how in shape you are until you go and do something that you used to think was hard, and suddenly it's a walk in the park.
So I finally took the camera out there, and I'm glad I did it on an easy trail to start, because I had some issues with securing the camera in a way that was both easy to use and safe for the camera. After some fiddling around, K showed me how he does it, and it worked a lot better. In any case, we made it up in 55 minutes, and then spent some time just hanging out on the ledge with some other folks who were there, and taking in the view. We made the descent in about 40 minutes.
We were down by 11, and then it was off to the races as we had to get N back to Seatac for his flight. He made it with no problem, and on our way back, J and I decided to hit REI on the spur of the moment. Well, it's a good thing we did, because I ended up picking up a pair of never worn-on-the-trail Koflach Degres for $125, which is something like 60% off. Apparently, someone must have bought these mail order and returned them. Quite the nice find. The Gear Garage is the cheapo mountaineer's best friend... J also picked up a pair of used Asolo plastic boots and Grivel G12 hybrid crampons this weekend at Second Ascent, our other favorite store in town.
So it was a pretty low key weekend, training-wise. I'll be taking next weekend off to travel, so that leaves just three weekends between now and the summit attempt. As I mentioned before, I feel ready, but knowing that there isn't a lot of time left can still be a little daunting. We'll probably do Camp Muir again for one of those weekends, and there'll probably be another major summit attempt on one of the Cascade mountains, maybe even Mt. Adams in a one day attempt, but that's pretty much it. We're planning to take the weekend before the summit attempt off from any major training. So like the views from downtown, Mt. Rainier is definitely looming large in my consciousness.
Hiked up to Camp Muir (10,080') on Mt. Rainier on Saturday.
Buoyed by the successful attempt on Mt. Adams, we were a little bit, dare I say, cocky going into this weekend. Hardly any pre-planning went into the venture, save for the last minute "who's going to drive?" discussion on Friday night. Nonetheless, I did feel quite prepared for this, having gone over the route a million times it seemed on the maps. This wasn't the first time we'd planned to do Muir... just the first time that we actually had weather we were comfortable with by the time we got to the trailhead.
The first part of the hike is on the Skyline Trail, starting from the Paradise parking lot at about 5500'. Right now, there is major construction underway at Paradise for the new visitor center, so M and I made sure to get out there bright and early, finding a prime parking spot just outside the current visitor center around 8:40. R, K, and S met us shortly after, but we dallied until 10 waiting for Z and H, who are going to be making a Rainier attempt the same weekend as us but in a different party. Unfortunately, the communications got crossed somewhere and they were nowhere to be found, so the five of us finally just set off on our own.
The Skyline Trail is paved for a ways, and then continues on a pristine rock and gravel trail until Pebble Creek. We hit the snow not too far in, while we were still on the maintained trail, but because the bootpath was so well defined, gaiters weren't even necessary (though I did put mine on at some point). After Pebble Creek, K and I started to break away from the others, keeping a determined pace with minimal breaks. There were a lot of other hikers and climbers on the route, with the perfect weather, so the line of ants going up the white snow seemed to stretch forever in both directions. We decided to forgo breaks after noon, pushing for two hours without stopping to make Camp Muir in just over four hours. It was a good pace, and I felt great, having been reinvigorated by the week off.
Muir was a little on the chilly side, with a steady wind of 15-20 mph coming in, so I was glad that I had my fleece and shell. The sun protection worked a little better this time, but I still got a couple of minor burns because I wasn't as vigilant as I thought I was about putting on the sunscreen. The other difference between this week and Adams was how hungry I was at the top. Probably because of the skipped break, I found myself wolfing down the sandwich and banana I'd brought, and then (in a moment of questionable judgment) consuming R's egg sandwich that had fallen on the dirt earlier. Ahem...
We spent about an hour up there, and at long last met up with Z and H, who'd arrived moments before us. Once again, we were treated to a beautiful panorama, though this time we got to look out on Mt. Adams with the satisfaction that we stood atop that great mountain two weeks before. The seven of us marvelled too at the rest of the route... the summit tantalizingly close. Of course... the enormous jagged crevasses were standing guard over that seemingly short distance.
The glissading was slower than Adams, unfortunately. The snow just wasn't as slick, and the slopes weren't quite as steep. Still, I can't complain about the descent too much, as we made it back to the visitor center in about 3 hours, mixing the plunge steps with the glissades whenever possible. We ran into one of our instructors from Climbing School as she was leading a summit attempt up, and we chatted a bit. It was pretty satisfying to hear her say that we were doing good training-wise with a 4 hour ascent to Muir.
Man, don't ask me about the pictures. I had my camera ready to go and then forgot it as I left home. Ugh.
