Tatoosh Range

The orignal plan this weekend was to climb Mt. Hood. I wish had, because the weather was perfect, but I got out of shape over the holidays, and I know I could not have made it easily.

Daniel and I decided to go to the Tatoosh range just south of Mt. Rainier, and climb to the top of the ridge. The weather was fabulous for winter, and just could not have been better. I wish I'd been in better shape and we actually got some high elevation. There was a temperature inversion and it was 40 degrees at home, but 60 at 5,000'. I went snowshoeing in pants and short sleeves.

I really enjoyed the trip because I got to see a part of Mt. Rainier NP that I'd never seen before. It was great to just get outside and enjoy God's creation for the first time in several months. I feel more alive and at home in the mountains than I do in the city. I really like the Tatoosh range and plan to come back sometime in the summer with a rope to do some climbing and rappelling.

We took our time getting to the top of the ridge, and had to travel as fast as we could be make it back to the car in time. When we were still a mile away from the parking lot, we dropped off the trail and onto the main road, and were able to hitch a ride with a nice couple that was on thier way up. By then my legs were starting to get sore, and they still are.

Update on the Strange Bread.

Ariele brought the bread to a church thing, and the women and children liked, but the one man that tried it did not. I did not either, but am glad that Ariele did.

I can play too...

Cinnamon Raisin Multi Grain bread 2.0

The Cinnamon Raisin Bread has a been a womanly favorite since I first made it a few months ago. I was bored tonight and wanted to do something for Ariele so I got to work on making a loaf. While making it, I decided to see just how bad too much of a good thing is. So, to start with I took out a tbsp of flour and added a tbsp of cold milled flax. Then I decided to substitute flax for butter, and used 2 egg whites instead of one whole egg. I used whole wheat flour instead of white flour and organic raisins. When I was almost done, I noticed that the recipe calls for 3/4 cup of nuts, which I had always omitted. Instead I added 1/2 cup of Adams all natural peanut butter and 1 tbsp of honey to counter the unsweetened peanut butter. I added an extra 1/4 cup of hot water to counter the dryness of the flax. I should have added a bit more.

Ariele still isn't home to try any yet, but I don't hate it. It's still missing something, but that usually means Ariele might like it.

Lasagna 2.0

Despite all the negative hype, it wasn't so bad. A little Cayenne and some cheese made it a decent entree.

Holiday Baking

It's always been a tradition in my family to bake lots of things right before Christmas and give them away to friends and family. It's one of the few traditions I've taken with me even though my wife and kids don't bake. Unfortunately, I didn't bake as much as I had planned, but I still have too much food. I made 2 lbs of fudge, peanut butter and honey cookies, Oatmeal Scotchie bars, Chocolate Chunk cookies and Triple chocolate coffee cookies. They all came out well. My favorites were the triple chocolate cookies.

Before...














During...






























After...

Here's the finished cookies and bars...































My wife helped...somewhat...mostly she didn't complain....































I even cleaned up the kitchen.



































The Day After...

The pictures

Another Attempt on Mt Rainier

As soon as I had healed from the appendectomy, I was back on the slopes of the Mountain, trying to get to the top. We didn't make it, but still had a great time. When we got back to Camp Muir we decided to do some training lower ourselves into one of the crevasses. Here are some pictures, sorry none in the crevasses. I hope to try one more time before the winter. The pictures were taken by a friend.

Mt. Rainier Attempt, 4-5 Jul 08

A glacier from the top of the Dissapointment Cleaver, 12,500'

Little Tahoma Peak from the top of the Dissapointment Cleaver, 12,500'

A rest stop at Ingraham Flats after descending

The view from Camp Muir on Independence Day. Mt Adams in the background above the clouds.

Me at Camp Muir. It was cold.

The bootpath across the Cowlitz Glacier and onto Cathedral Rocks

I've written about Camp Muir several times already, so I won't write much about it here. paradise was pretty cloudy when we left, but we got above the clouds just past Panorama point at about 7000' and it was awesome.

As soon as we got to Muir we went to the Public shelter and met another team of 3 people. Two of them were soldiers from Ft. Lewis, and all 3 had been to the same climbing class I had been to at Pierce College. We talked to them for a while and I decided to spend the night at the shelter so that we could go at the same time as the other teams we'd met.

Left Camp Muir at 0130 in a cloudless sky with a slight breeze. By the time we reached Ingaham the breeze had become stronger, and about the time we got on the cleaver a cloud rolled in from the other side of the mountain and the visibility started steadily going down while the winds went up. Several parties turned around at the top of the cleaver, but we kept going.

At about 0630 and roughly 14,000 feet the winds were stronger and blowing right at us, and we were covered in rime ice from head to toe and turned around within sight of the crater rim. I was afraid if visibility went down any more we wouldn’t be able to find the wands. Conditions got better on the way down, but were never good. It rained and hailed on us between Muir and Paradise.

One of the pickets for the fixed lines below the cleaver was removed by another party. There were pickets for lines above the cleaver, but no lines attached to them. The route was pretty straightforward. There were some crevasses along the route, but none presented any major obstacles. The route was well wanded and easy to find.

I got back home from the mountain just in time. A few hours later my stomach started to hurt, and

Yakima Peak Attempt

My wife and kids were going to see Silver Falls in MRNP today with a friend, and I decide to tag along and have them drop me off at Chinook Pass on their way. The dropped me off at 9:40am and said they’d be back in two hours.

Tipsoo lake was almost completely frozen over, with thin ice signs all around it. There was only one small place where the water was moving. I started at the first turnout that one comes to when traveling E on 410. I knew that I had to travel NE before trying to climb Yakima peak, but didn’t go far enough before I started up. The snow was pretty steep and I put on the crampons after a few minutes. It kept getting steeper, but the snow was good for cramponing.

I had made it most of the way to the summit when I reached the half way point on my time limit. I didn't want them to have to wait for me. I also couldn’t see how to get to the top from where I was. I found a flat spot and took the crampons off so I could do a controlled glissade down. When I reached a line of trees and another slope, I didn’t feel comfortable going down, so I went further N and found the saddle that I should have climbed to begin with. I took some pictures, then glissaded down and jogged around the bend back to the turnout.

Unfortunately, my ride came an hour later, after I’d eaten all my food and drank all my hot cocoa. I should have been better with the route planning, but I’ll back, and get Naches peak as well next time. It was still a great time, and a great practice with my gear. I also found out that a box of couscous is more than enough for lunch, no matter how hungry I feel at the time.

Camp Muir, Part 1

I’ve been planning to climb both Mt. Adams and Mt Rainier this summer, so when I found out I had Friday off, I thought a trip to Camp Muir would be great rehearsal of sorts for those two climbs.

We left my house at 0700, which turned out to be later that I would have liked. The weather had gotten in the way of climbers for a few days, and would do so again tonight. It could not have been more perfect for a day hike. It was cool, with a light breeze and only partly cloudy. There was a large lenticular cloud around the summit, which made for some good photos, then it blew away so we could see the whole mountain.

We stopped at a viewpoint to take some pictures and then went on to the Paradise lot. It was my first time seeing Paradise since the renovations, so I got a bit turned around, which impacted our trip. We started near the Paradise Inn, and it took some time to realize that I’d started us too far East, so we had to climb up a steep ridge, in 8 inch snow the whole way. After quite a bit of traffic we reached the top and got to the main bootpath heading to Muir.

The route was well flagged, and not too steep until we got to Pebble creek, just below Panorama point. This was at 7,000 feet, and from there we had only 3,100 feet on endless snow slog to go. Most of the time I looked at the ground at the view behind me. I tried not to look up. I got my steps and breathing into a good rhythm and tried to stay that way. There was always a daunting ridge in front of me. It would seem like I was getting close to the top of it, and once I did, there was another one there waiting for me to climb it.

I led most of the way, but as we got near the top, Paul passed me and I started to lag behind. The last 1000 vertical feet were brutal. My legs and calves started to hurt and I had to stop a few times to stretch them. I could see the huts, but didn’t seem to be getting any closer. In the last few hundred vertical feet, even muscles in my hips that I didn’t know I had started to hurt. I limped up to the camp and we straight into the shelter to take off my pack and get out the water and food.

The public shelter was very nice for the location. There was plenty of bunk space, and counter for cooking and shelves for gear. The bunk space was really a sheet of plywood a few inches off the floor, and another a few feet above it, but I still would have liked to spend the night. I put on my new green fleece jacket that my wife’s parents bought me, and heated some water for some water while Paul got the food. Paul and I are both from SoCal and we were amazed to meet two others in different parties from that area. One of them had run out of fuel, and so I gave him what was left from my stove.

After about an hour we left to head home. I wore my rain pants and glissaded much of the way. After the rest and food I felt better and practically jogged down much of the mountain. It’s 1am so I won’t say too much more about the descent. I did get a lot of snow in my boots. After I knew we were almost there, I climbed to the top of a hill, looked ahead and felt my heart sink when I saw we weren’t there yet. Then I looked to my left and was relieved to see the parking lot 100m away.

It was a great trip, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I will be spending much more time at the gym and on the trail in the next few weeks. Below are lots of pictures.

Lenticular cloud from the viewpoint.

Paul and I at the view point.

Gibraltar rock.

Can you hear me now? She couldn't, because he has sprint.