Mt. St. Helens Mother's Day Ski

Emily and I had a rough end of the week culminating with her in the emergency room on Thursday night with a severe migraine, blind from the pain.  The emergency room doctor in Salmon Creek gave her a cocktail of pills which didn’t really seem to do the trick like the IV of narcotics did when we had to go in Corvallis a year ago.  

Her head was still hurting on Friday when she went to see a doctor at the Vancouver Clinic who told her stupidly that she had hyperventilated to cause it..  She said the guys was nice but was super young and straight out of med school.  I made her promise that if it happens again within a year that she will get an MRI done.

Because of her migraine we both decided it probably wasn’t a good idea for her to attempt Mt. St. Helens with us on Saturday which is a 6,000 ft. ascent.  The worst thing imaginable would be her with a migraine on a bright glacier unable to see and skiing down in bumpy snow that would jar her head.  If there were any signs of her relapsing I would not have left but on Friday she seemed to be on the mend and doing much better.  

I barely had time to stop at the store and Panda Express for some grub before Eric arrived at our house to pick me up for the trip with Dominique and Matt.  We quickly jammed all of our gear into the back of his spacious Forester and headed north to the Lone Fir Resort about an hour away to meet up with Erica and Craig and pick up our climbing permits we had bought online for $22 the night before.  

When we arrived we quickly got in line for our permits with our receipts which was a great idea because about five minutes later the line was 30-40 people deep and out the door.  Apparently we had just beat everyone also getting out of work from Portland and heading up there which made Eric’s early pickup totally worth it.  

Traditionally, this is the last weekend of the year that the park service issues unlimited climbing permits.  After this weekend the mountain is limited to 100 people per day.  It has become tradition over the years to climb the peak in a red dress in honor of Mother’s Day.  Because the weather looked crappy on Sunday everyone had come up on Saturday for the sunshine this year instead.  When we picked up our permits we learned that this year the record had been broken with over 650 permits being issued (we learned later that it was closer to 700 people on the mountain).  Yeah... it was going to be insanity.  

We left the Lone Fir with Erica and Craig following us up to the Climbers parking lot at Marble Mountain Sno Park.  After a brief wrong turn we made it to the parking lot just before 9pm and had time to set up our area before the sun went down.  Eric was able to find his friends Kate, Elliot, and Sandra shortly after and we spent the rest of the evening sitting in the parking lot in warm clothes drinking some beers.  We certainly were not alone as there were dozens of other groups partying around us as well.  Around 11pm I gently encouraged us to call it a night as it was getting pretty quiet and I knew other climbers would be getting up early and needed their sleep.  

Eric and Dominique walked down to the lower lot to sleep and Craig and Erica slept in their car.  Only Borish and I were left outside in our bags which turned out to be a bad choice because the upper lot became extremely loud around 3:30-4am when inconsiderate climbers began to awake and make a lot of noise putting on their dresses and yelling to each, as well as accidentally setting off their car alarms on multiple occasions. Needless to say, Matt and I didn’t get much sleep while the rest of our party slept like babies in quiet cars or the lower lot.  

Our alarms went off around 6am (late compared to most of the other climbers) and we all met around Eric’s car to gear up and head out on the trial.  All of us had skis or snowboards besides Sandra so we weren’t too worried about getting a later start.  Sandra had ridden up with Kate and Elliot so she wasn’t really with the group of us 6 who had planned on skiing over a week before.  I had my gps and downloaded iphone maps with me but none of it was needed do to the highway of people we simply had to follow up the mountain the entire way.

We left the parking lot around 7:30 after a group photo and found that we had to hike nearly a mile on mostly dry trail until we hit enough snow to put our skis and skins on.  The past two weeks of sunny 80 degree freak spring weather in Oregon had certainly done its toll on the spring snow pack.  It didn’t take us too long to reach the tree line beneath the worm flows on the southern face of the devastated volcano.  Matt had been skinning along with his phone blaring tunes along the trail but by the time we really started to climb into the open his batteries wore out.  Dominique who didn’t have a split board kicked ass hiking in just her snowboard boots, often staying ahead of us all on the well packed-in trail.

Above treeline on the lower slopes we all chose to start skinning but after some time we found the well trampled boot pack to be a faster option and strapped our skis to our packs.  Matt, on the other hand, declared how much he hated boot packing and chose to switchback all the way up with his split board on, very impressive as the snow was mushy and slick.  

We all caught up with Sandra at the weather station area about halfway up the volcano.  We took a break there for a while eating some food and resting while I wrote messages on some poster board Kate had brought up to our mothers.  I even wrote “mom” on the golden belt of the red dress I was wearing the whole day.  We snapped some photos of all of us holding the signs and soon people around us began to ask if they could also borrow the signs for photos.  They were definitely a big hit.

From there it was a boot pack trudge up to the top.  We took another couple stops to rest but after the last one, with about a thousand feet left I took off out front.  Oddly, my legs weren’t tired at all and I found myself passing person after person as they stepped aside to let me pass when they heard me approaching behind them.  My legs felt so good I almost could have run the last 200m to the top.  Apparently biking, running and CrossFit are paying off.  

Once on top I put on my bibs, puffy jacket, gloves and hat to wait for the others to arrive and busied myself taking photos of the views towards Rainier, Goat Rocks, south towards Hood and down into the massive blown out crater of  St. Helens.  I’m always in awe up there on the rim at how much of mass of the volcano just fell away in the eruption.  It used to be nearly 1,300 feet higher than it is now.  The true summit was further West along the ridge but because I had been there in 2008 I decided to skip it this year and just relax in the sun with everyone else.  

After a few celebratory beers at the top along with sardines and more shot blocks we geared up for the descent.  Matt, being an ex AK heli ski guide, went into guide mode and offered to run sweep and help Sandra down the peak as she was the only one without skis or a board with us.  Sandra had ridden up with Elliot and Kate and wasn’t technically part of our group of 6 that had been planning this climb so when we caught up with them at the weather station we, as nicely as we could, basically said that Kate or Elliot needed to keep an eye on her as Matt and the rest of us had purposely brought skis and boards to enjoy a quick descent.  I felt bad that Matt missed out on the ski descent directly from the summit but he was a good sport about it and from the looks of it Sandra was moving pretty quick down the slopes even without skis.  

I was able to grab some great helmet cam footage and point and shoot footage all the way down the peak, trying to follow each person at one point or another, but occasionally getting over excited a few times and pointing down between them.  Again, my legs were feeling super strong which was definitely a new feeling for me ski mountaineering.  We soon made it down to treeline where we had to take off our skis on a multiple occasions to cross dry rocky areas.  

We had made it to the top in about 7 hours and it took us a little over 2 hours with a lot of stops to get down and back to the car.  On the way out we heard about a couple different mountain rescue events on the mountain which wasn’t surprising given the number of people climbing that day.  The guy who had slept next to us in the parking lot actually was one of the volunteers who helped a woman get down who had severely twisted her knee.  

We also saw a dad who was being really cruel to his son, calling him a pansy although the kid had made it all the way to the summit.  Dominique made a point of telling the kid good job in the parking lot when we saw them later.  Elliot pretty much took off ahead of us down the peak all the way to the parking lot and Kate stayed behind with Sandra to make sure she got down safely. 

We all had a few cold beers that I had stashed in the snow and rehydrated with water and snacks at the cars.  We laid around for a bit chatting and resting before starting to pack up the car for the ride home.  We were planning on possibly stopping for food on the way home but something hit me hard in my stomach and I began to feel truly terrible.  It felt like a mild case of food poisoning and nothing I was doing was helping to alleviate it.  I spent the entire hour and half ride home curled up in the back seat trying to sleep away the pain.  

When we got back to the house I asked Emily to help grab my gear while I ran upstairs and puked.  Puking up sardines may have been the worst vomiting experience ever....  I spent most of Sunday sick in bed, but very thankful that it hadn’t hit me while on the mountain.  It was a terrific trip and I was super stoked to have spent a great day backcountry skiing with Eric, Craig, Erica, Dominique, Sandra, Kate, Elliot and Borish!  Next year Emily will definitely be joining us!

Tarbell Loop Mountain Biking

Today Emily and I headed out to the mountains just Northeast of Vancouver to check out the mountain bike trails.  We left Leo at home because we chose a 19.5 mile with 2,500ft of elevation gain that would have destroyed the poor pooch.  We left around 11am and initially got very lost on some forest service roads in horrible condition.  We were fortunate to have taken my truck and not the new Prius (yes, we picked up a 2013 Prius on Saturday).  

We finally found our way to the Rock Creek Campground and got on the loop ride around 12:30, just as the sun was really heating up.  It was a long 5.5 mile slog up a gravel forest road until we hit the single track at Grouse Point.  From there it was a mixture of clear cuts, and smooth single track for the rest of the ride.  There were a bunch of steep switchbacks to negotiate until we made our way to the highpoint at just over 3,000 feet but from then on it was pretty much downhill.  

About half way through we stopped for lunch at the beautiful Hidden Falls along the trail which was roughly a 75 foot waterfall just off the trail.  The guidebook we were using was old and said there would be stream crossing and destroyed, old bridges but we encountered new bridges at every occasion.  Along the trail we had great views of Mt. St. Helens in the distance and great weather the entire day.  

Emily did fantastic keeping up with me and she only stumbled once on what turned out on the descent to be a pretty technical ride with a lot of loose rocks, boulders on the trail and big roots at times.  We made it back to the car by 5:15pm, very tired from our long loop ride.  From there it was a 45 minute drive, the correct way, back to the house.  We showered quick and then spent the rest of the evening at a great BBQ at Eric’s place with Leo.  It was the first legit ride on my new mountain bike and I absolutely loved it!  

Smith Rock Hike with Leo, Aaron and Jennie

On Sunday I had wanted to go on a bike ride somewhere with Leo but it was really hot out and his legs were not up for a long ride so instead Jennie, Aaron and I decided to head to Smith Rock to meet up with Holm hopefully and go on a mellow hike with Leo.  

After Jennie’s amazing homemade pesto breakfast sandwiches we headed out to Smith Rock in separate cars to find Holm and Paris who had just gotten there as well and were unpacking their climbing gear to head in to the area for the afternoon.

Aaron, Jennie and I chatted with them for a bit before heading off on a loop hike around Smith Rock with Leo.  Having never really explored Smith I wasn’t sure exactly where we were going and was utterly blown away at the route we took.  

At first it circled around the cliffs near the river where we coaxed Leo out into the water to cool off.  Soon, Monkey Face became visible as we made our way to the backside of Smith.  From there I wasn’t exactly sure which way we would be going until we began to switchback up the hill towards Monkey Face.  

It soon became apparent to me that there was a hiking trail to the top of Smith Rock... a trail that even Leo was comfortable on.  I had no idea.  I’m not a big fan of rock climbing and knowing that I can simply walk to the top of Smith doesn’t give me any more ambition to climb a vertical wall of painful rock to get there!  

Walking past Monkey Face was absolutely amazing and topping out at the cliff facing the upper caves on the rock pinnacle was incredible.  We put Leo on the leash at the top to make sure he didn’t fall off any cliffs and checked out the area.  Leo certainly doesn’t have a fear of heights as he wanted to be right by my side at the edge of every cliff.  

Aaron and Jennie took some great shots of Leo and I at the top and I got some great panoramic shots to the West of all the Oregon Cascades.  It was such a clear day that you could literally see every single volcano in Oregon from Mcloughlin all the way to the south all the way to Mt. Hood in the north.  The misery ridge trail back down to the Crooked River and the parking lot was steep and we saw many miserable youths being dragged by their outdoorsy parents up it as we made our way down past them.  

By the time we got back to the car Leo was overheated and super tired so instead of putting him in the car which had become an oven I passed on heading back down the trail to find Holm and Paris.  Instead, I said goodbye and big thanks again to Jennie and Hartz and made my way back to Highway 97 towards home with Leo who basically passed out in the back of the car.  Another great weekend in Bend!

Paulina Peak Chutes

This weekend I returned to Bend to visit Aaron and Jennie again as well as finally officially climb Paulina Peak.  The weather looked fantastic for the weekend and Aaron thankfully had the day off to go with me.  I had planned on driving over the night before but due to lack of sleep I decided to spend the night at home and then drive over with Leo at 5am on Saturday.  

Thankfully, Jennie was more than happy to watch Leo during the day as we climbed Paulina and she studied for her classes.  She even took him for a long run which was fantastic.  Aaron and I were able to pack up our gear and bikes into the Prius and head over to Paulina Peak to start our ascent around 10:45 in the morning.  

Driving up the Paulina Peak road we briefly thought that it would be open all the way to the lakes but then suddenly we found ourselves at the closed upper gate, a good, 4-5 miles below Paulina Peak.  The road had been plowed but the gate was not open for the season yet.  Thankfully, Hartz and I had our mountain bikes with us.  We packed up all our gear including ice axes, harnesses, ropes, biners, etc just in case we might need them in the chutes.  When I swung my legs over the bike frame and sat down my suspension bottomed out my pack was so heavy!

After a gentle ascent up the access road we came to the bottom of the Paulina Peak road.  We had to make the choice of whether to skin up the long road or go straight at the chutes themselves for a bootpack up them.  We chose the latter and chucked our bikes over a snowbank to hide them before heading into the woods on our skins.  

In very little time we found ourselves at the base of the chutes.  We skinned up them in broad switchbacks until we decided it would be more efficient to just boot pack straight up the main chute.  Hartz took the lead for the first half and then I finished up to the top.  As we gained elevation with the hot sun we found ourselves sinking deeper and deeper into the slushy snow until I was sinking well over the tops of knees.  This was exhausting but the growing views of the Cascade peaks to the west as well as the amazing feeling of being in a steep, narrow chute more than made up for the trudging.

Once on top of the ridge we grabbed some quick food in windy conditions then skinned over to the true summit of Paulina so I could say I officially climbed it.  We walked around checking out the views to the west as well as the huge obsidian flow below us and the two lakes below separated by a massive landslide and lava flow in the middle of the Newberry Caldera.  I was very happy we had come up the cool chutes instead of the boring road to the summit.

From there we took off our skins, locked our heels and headed back towards the top of the ridge.  Upon arriving back where we had climbed up we found ourselves completely confused about which line to take down through the chutes.  On the way up we could see that about half of all the chutes cliffed out and were unskiable, but looking down at them from the top it was so steep we couldn’t tell which ones to safely ski!  We both assessed the area and looked back at my photos on the DSLR until we came to a decision and started heading down.  

Aaron took the lead as he is a more proficient skier and I followed.  It soon became apparent that the chute we chose ended in a cliff of unknown height.  We paused for a second while I used my higher position to scope out the area.  Luckily there was a narrow window of a large rock wall separating the chutes that we could pass through.  We carefully made our way through it to find ourselves in a different chute that ran safely out to the base of the cliffs.  

After a dozen or so more steep jump turns kicking up a decent amount of wet slough with us, we made it to the base of the chutes, totally stoked on what we had just skied.  I paused for a moment to give my legs a rest and then followed Aaron on some broad turns down to the tree line.  From there it was just a slow ski through the woods back to the road with some occasional pushing and duck climbing up some small hills along the way.  

Back at the road we put our skis back on our bags, mounted our bikes and had a really fun cruise down the road back to the car.  The wind had picked up and our skis on our packs acted like sails catching it and blowing us all over the road but managed to get down in one piece, laughing the whole way.  Back at the car we cracked a couple cold beers, at a can of King tiny tots sardines as is tradition with Hartz and I and headed back into town to meet up with Jennie at The Good Life for some beers and then a great BBQ with more beers back at their place with Leo.  What an amazing day!

Smith Rock with Leo

After leaving Ian’s 30th birthday camp out we took Leo for a leisurely stroll through the famous Smith Rock climbing area.  It was a beautiful day and there were climbers everywhere and geese flying all about the river that winds through it.  I took the Nikon with the long lens and tried to capture as many unique shots of the various climbers and birds that I could.  Leo enjoyed the sunshine and I think forgot about his minor wounds from the night before.  

To my surprise I learned about a whole network of amazing mountain bike trails in the area that we want to check out next time we come over the pass.  While we were hiking along a group of mountain bikers passed us who looked like they were having an amazing time.  Although Smith is known as one of the premiere rock climbing locations in the world, I would definitely prefer to bike fast around it then slowly and painfully climb  the walls within it, but most of my climbing friends would call me crazy upon hearing that!  We didn’t stay too long and headed back to Washington to catch an early showing of the movie Oblivian which turned out to be an amazing film!

Ian Roth's 30th Birthday Camp Out at Smith

After leaving Hartz’s place we drove out to Smith Rock and had a fun time trying to follow the “tin foil path” laid out by Nicole Younger to find the camp spot far up on a forest road never intended for Prius to travel.  When we finally did find the group it was after 10pm and everyone was pretty lit.  We let Leo off leash and he ran around with the other dogs.  We didn’t realize the whole area was surrounded by barbed wire and poor Leo in the dark didn’t either, getting himself a little cut up in the legs and a chunk of fur out of his nose (nothing too severe though).  It was nice to catch up with Kalin, Kelly Rice, Cristina, Ian, Coleen, Forest, and others whom we hadn’t seen in a very long time.  Ian was destroyed and I hope he remembered us making it out there!  

Nicole was kind enough to let us crash with her in her massive elk tent/lodge complete with a warm stove and table.  Leo actually ended up curling up next to her on her inflatable mattress for the night (bleeding on it a little too which we felt real bad about).  In the morning we didn’t stick around too long and headed out to take Leo for a hike at Smith Rock because he had been left in Aaron’s house all day on Saturday.