Tips about this Site

  • As Jane and I take hikes and climb mountains in our training, I'll post trip reports on my page of the EveryTrail.com website. It's a great place to find GPS data for other trips you might want to enjoy too.
  • I've posted the reason for creating for this blog and a little history at the bottom of this page.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

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.
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Background and the Reason for this blog

This journey started a little over two years ago. In October 2007, overweight, out of shape, and suffering from a severe case of desk job-itis...

Mt St Helens Crater Rim
At Jane's suggestion (Jane's my wife and climbing partner), we started getting out and taking hikes during lunch. These grew in length and duration until the following July (2008), we climbed Mt Hood then in Aug we climbed Mt St Helens and went rock climbing at Smith Rock State Park and took a Glacier Rescue course from Timberline Mountain Guides (TMG) on the Eliot Glacier. We'd belonged to Club Sport Oregon for some time, and these successful outings renewed our interest and activity. We started using the rock gym there.

Mt Hood Illumination Saddle
That winter, Jane decided that she wanted to climb better, so she got serious and started working out with a personal trainer. I was still struggling to get into better shape (still about 40 pounds overweight) because work made a regular workout schedule very difficult. By the spring, we set our sites higher for the second year. We started the season with another ascent of Mt Hood by the South Route then an overnight in Illumination Saddle and another ascent via the West Crater Rim (both June'09). Later that summer we summitted Mt Shuksan in the Northern Cascades during July'09 and attended the Smith Rick Detour where we attended a self-rescue course.

Mt Shuksan in the North Cascades
In Nov'09 I finally found the secret I needed to getting into better shape. I managed to juggle my work schedule so I could join Jane for her workouts and commited to a 1500-1800 calorie diet (still 40 pounds to lose). Since then I've maintained the diet pretty reliably and gotten to the gym about 2-3 times a week though work still makes the workout schedule irregular, I've lost 10 pounds via the diet and exercise.

We're still climbing with TMG for the mountaineering events, and plan to return to Hood this year; maybe Leuthold's Coulior or the Reid Headwall. We also have Mt Shasta (14,179') and Mt Rainier (14,411') planned (that's my motivation to complete the weight loss and increase the regularity at the gym.) Ideally, we'll join an expedition to Aconcagua (22,841') in Argentina a year from now (Jan-Feb'11) and maybe be able to work a side trip from work (I have occassional business trips to Singapore and China) to Nepal for a trip to Everst (no plans to summit, but would really like to climb above the Base Camp to Camp III, the Advanced Base Camp, at 21,300'.)

This blog will chronicle the journey from here toward those lofty goals.