Tues/Weds July 13/14 - Cloud Cap to Timberline Lodge

Two beautiful days on Mt Hood - up and over from the Northeast to the Southwest - an overnight on the Eliot Glacier and a Summit visit - excellent trip, excellent weather - 7th Summit in all, 4th this year, 1st overnight on the mountain - read more in the Everytrail Trip

3rd Hood Summit of '10

The weather finally let up and we set out @10:30pm Tuesday evening (June 22nd) for Timberline Lodge. We left the lodge at 1am without the aid of the Sno-Cat this time. This adds at least 3hrs and doubles the altitude gain of the climb. Our target was the Wy'East Route. But it wasn't to be this day. The approach proved to be too much for my conditioning and by the time we neared Creater Rock I was running out of gas. (The bad weather since April and the chaos at work had conspired to keep me out of the gym and not hiking so I felt the conditioning lagging on the Devil's Kitchen Headwall but because of the Sno-Cat and the adrenaline from the headwall itself, I didn't catch it and now, three weeks later, I'm hitting the wall short of the Hogsback. Because of this, we adjusted the route. Instead of crossing the upper White River at 9000' we continued to the Hogsback and Joe recommended either the Steel Cliffs or Pearly Gates. We opted for the Pearly Gates and to leave my pack there until the return trip. With a couple longer breaks, which helped me keep going, we were falling behind schedule and the Steel Cliffs route doesn't have good options to bail so we chose the easier route. Turned out to be a lot of fun anyway. The Pearly Gates were quite icy and we took the north (left) option which is steeper and narrower. We got one short pitch of technical ice. On the entry, while cleaning an anchor, I'd planted an ice tool in the snow, turned, caught it on my jacket and watched as my tool slid to the bottom of Devil's Kitchen. Okay, so the tehnical ice was now going to be a one tool event. Luckily it was short even if vertical. The rock climbing at Smith paid off, though, it was just a bit tricky and required a lot of trust in the feet. After that it was a real quick march to the summit, but we didn't get there until 10am. Once back at Hogsback we picked up my pack and descended into Devil's Kitchen to get the errant ice tool. Really soft snow by now and pretty hard going, feet kept slipping out on the traverse; finally put the ice axe away and went to hiking poles for balance. From Hogsback to the Top of the Palmer was three glissade tracks (adjusting at the bottom of each to cross to a new fall line so we would arrive at the lifts). Then another hour and a half on snow shoes back to the lodge. We were at the car and ready to leave about 3PM. Pizza at the Ratzkeller in Governmnt Camp and back in Portland at 6:30pm. Long day, good lessons (almost forgot my hiking poles during packing, dropped an ice tool, and gotta focus on training or Rainier next month will be a problem. But a successful summit and a great trip all in all.

This screenshot demonstrates a UI problem I'm experiencing at the moment.

Climbing Season '10 Begins

After a long hiatus, we're climbing again. Lot's of adventuresto report, but first some bad news to report. Jane's Father has been ill for some time and passed away March 13th. Jane and I had just made a trip to visit him in the hospital the week before. He passed quietly under hospice care at home. On 4/18 Jane took his yacht club burgee to the top of Mt Hood in memory.

In January, Jane found a new puppy. A female Samoyed we named Kara (after Kara Thrace of Battlestar Glactica). We brought her home on February 8th at 8-weeks of age. We call her Kara-boo. On the trip to Bend to pick her up, we met with a new guide from Timberline Mountain Guides, Joe. We'd hoped to climb at Smith Rock on the weekend then pick up Kara Monday and head home, but it snowed the whole weekend, so we hiked around Shelvin Park - read the trip report on my EveryTrail Site.

We returned to Smith March 3/4 for two days of climbing - chilly, but nice when the sun came out - the rock and the shoes were cold so the friction wasn't great, but the climbs were a lot of fun. The first day we went to the Cinnamon Slab area and praticed half a dozen of the easier routes. The second day we returned. In the morning we worked on setting and cleaning anchors for top roping so we could go outside more at top rope sites. In the afternoon, we moved to the Dihedrals area and climbed 5-Gallon buckets.

In April we met Joe again (we'd climbed with himat Smith) this time for some more interesting routes on Mt Hood. On 4/18 we did Leuthold's Couloir on the west face. This is a nice route because it's the part of Mt Hood you can see from Portland. We took the snowcat to the top of the Palmer at 3am, crossed Illumination Saddle (stopped there to put on crampons and rope up) and dropped onto the Reid Glacier. After crossing the upper end of the Reid, we entered the Coulier at dawn and summitted at 9:30. The summit ridge from the west is the narrowest. There is one stretch that can't be more thana couple feet wide with a huge drop on either side. So narrow and so steep that the response if someone falls is the jump off the other way or the whole roped team goes down.

On May 6th we took an afternoon and went to Ozone, a basalt wall in the gorge for an introduction and climbed a nice 30meter 5.8 route. Then just last week we returned to Mt Hood to climb the Devil's Kitchen Headwall, a water-ice Coulier east of the Hogsback. Mt Hood Devil's Kitchen Headwall at EveryTrail

Tricky V2

Got back to the gym for the first time today since leaving for China (two weeks away is a long time). Did a quick 5.5 mile ride on the Espresso Bike - this put numbers to the loss over the two weeks - 19 minutes at 196 watts - first time under 200 in quite a while. After that I spent some time on a V2 boulder problem that I first started trying in mid-December. And after a few false starts, I got it today. It was a balance and "feet" problem not a strength problem on a wall slightly below vertical (but crimpy little fingers made it very difficult to stay on the wall). What finally did it was better direction to the crimps and a bump rather than a cross-over hand grip that I'd been trying. Because of the poor fingers, I hadn't been able to shift weight to the lead foot for body position. The bump, and trusting in a small foot chip, while keeping low did it. Nice learning - can't wait to return to it and see if the muscle memory stays. Weigh-in wasn't great, but not bad either - after a week in China and another at work with poor diet management, I maintained below 190 at 189.1.

Back to Work - Off to China

Took an extra week off to extend Christmas shutdown, but wound up responding to eMails and taking calls much of the time (everyone else was back and I needed to get ready for the upcoming trip to China so maybe trying to take the extra week wasn't such a good idea after all). Left Saturday morning for Shenzhen, China to visit three of our manufacturing partners in that area. The plane from SFO to Honk Kong took a more northern route than usual - looked out at just the right time to get an awesome view of Denali in the distance over a frozen Alaska and the Artic Ice Pack! Good visits, but I got another lesson in how difficult it is to maintain diet control while traveling. It's very difficult to record your caloric intake when you're not even sure what half the food is called. And for my birthday, the team went out to a famous restaurant in Hong Kong for a roast goose (wow, talk about a high cholesterol food). I was able to workout several times during the trip which did help keep things from getting totally out of hand. The ferry ride from Zhuhai to Kowloon was fun but with the fog and setting sun didn't get the views I hoped for. Did get some nice views of Hong Kong from the cab ride to the airport and the climb out, but again with the haze, not good for pictures. Glad to be home and looking forward to getting both diet and exercise back on track.

Christmas Break

Well, this has been a tough break for the diet and especially the workout regimen. Finally got back to the gym today. Did a 10 mile ride in 31 minutes on the stationary bike at 217watts which is pretty good for me, but the weigh-in was 194.5 (up 0.7 from a week ago) so the lack of diet control and lack of workout over Christmas did have a minor impact.