…beyond nice.

I’m going on a big scary hike over the long weekend so hopefully I will have pretty pictures from the top of some mountain to post. *fingers crossed* Pray for good weather with me.  And no windstorms please.

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This entry would have been titled “Lake Edna” had we actually made it to our original destination of choice.
From what little I’ve read about the hike out to Lake Edna, it didn’t seem like the hike in would be all that hard, but I was very wrong.

We all met up at Daniel’s place on Saturday morning and drove out to Chatter Creek trailhead.

The trail did not waste any time and started climbing steadily from the start. The sky was clear and the sun was beating down on us mercilessly. Daniel’s buddy Dan is very much out of hiking shape so about a quarter mile into the hike, we took a snack break. Then David ran out of water because he underestimated the toughness of the hike and didn’t carry enough water, so we took another long break for water.

We ran into a group of older gentlemen coming out from their backpacking trip and I asked them if the water at Lake Edna is warmish. They laughed and said, “Well, it’s coldish but you won’t die from it instantly. Still it’s worth a quick soak when you get up there.” Hmmm…I figured I’ll pass on the flash freezing of self. We asked them about the camping conditions and they warned us that it’s not a good idea to camp next to Lake Edna and to camp at the basin before we hit the lake instead because the windstorms at night has been horrendous. They camped at 3 different spots in 3 nights and they were pretty bad wind-factor-wise with Edna being the worst. We decided that would probably be a good idea to camp at the basin and do a quick day-hike to Edna and hopefully Grindstone Mountain.
The climb up continued and there was no mercy shown. After climbing 4.5 miles, the last half mile up the mountain ridge backhanded all of us with steep switchbacks. Right when we got near the top of the ridgeline, the clouds started rolling in. The temperature went from blazing hot to freezing instantly. After reaching the top of the ridge, the trail drops some 400ft into a basin with a good few choice camp spots. David, Casey and I made camp while Daniel trailed behind with Dan. In the end, Daniel carried Dan’s pack up the last bit of climb.

While we set up camp, Daniel went off to look for water. There were snow that we could melt, but Daniel wasn’t sure he brought enough gas to melt snow for drinking not to mention most of the snow was red from algae. We managed to find a nice little creek.

Casey, being Daniel’s very sweet girlfriend brought all sorts of food to share to celebrate his upcoming 40th birthday on Wednesday. She brought brie, grapes and crackers which was such a delight compared to freeze-dried meals.

David forgot to bring hard alcohol for the gathering, so he bought a bottle of red wine for sharing at Leavenworth. We set up camp and sat down to eat. The rain started pouring so we divvied up the food and ran into our own tents to eat. We were all pretty tired so we figured we could get some rest early in hopes of waking up early for a quick hike before we leave.

Daniel seemed to have gotten to the comfort zone with Casey already because he kept farting all night and every time he did, she would crack up and say, “Oh, honey.”

That night the wind howled and raged at us. I could hear the wind build and gather up over the ridge then it would gallop through our camp with so much force I thought it would pick my tent up by the rain fly and I would wake up in a new country the next morning. It was so loud, we started screaming conversations during the quieter build-ups knowing that there was no way in hell anyone was still asleep at this point. We didn’t even try to pre-face the conversation with, “Hey, are you awake?” Because fuck yeah you’re awake.
The next morning, we had more rain. Then it snowed. Yes, it actually snowed on us in August. We decided to pack up and leave instead of trying to do any side-trips.

All in all, the place was gorgeous and definitely worth checking out but make sure you’re in good shape for this.

We stopped by our favorite after-camp restaurant, Gustav in Leavenworth. As we wait for our meals, another group of four, two pairs of handsome couples in their early 50s, sat at the table next to us. The ladies look well primped and sat facing me. While they looked over the menu, the “gentleman” sitting closest to me let out a gattling-gun fart - you know the kind where it’s obviously not an accidental squeek. Casey said, “Oh, honey.” Daniel, who was sitting closest to the guy, quickly said, “It’s not me!” I’m laughing my ass off. The wife of the man was clearly embarrassed and said something to him. The man got extremely indignant and replied, “No one noticed!” I looked over at her. She said to her husband, “That girl is staring at you all owl-eyed.” I often sass people with my expressions, it’s sometimes beyond my control. The man turned around to glare at me. I smiled sweetly and told him, “Thank you, sir for sharing your gas. We didn’t bring nearly enough of our own this trip.” His ass was quiet for the remainder of our meal, cheap bastard.

Slide of hike here. 

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I need a new volunteer activity like I need a new sports activity, which I’ve described as needing a hole in my head, but I still pick up new sports activity, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’ve picked up another volunteer gig.

Now before you roll your eyes and wonder what terrible crimes have I committed in my life that I’m trying so hard to atone for, let me just say, I think this is a volunteer thing that most people would love to do if they aren’t so lazy. I found a group that gets together about once a month to do some kind of volunteer activity that involves physical labor and being outdoors. That’s too many flavors of awesome for me to pass up. They do stuff like trail restoration, garden for food bank and build shelters for PAWS.

Last Saturday, we got together at a community garden that grows organic produce for the local food bank through a program called Lettuce Link. Because they don’t use weed killer, the weed was choking the vegetable to death…by the end of the afternoon we managed pull out a couple wheel barrels of weed. The garden looked visibly happier and everyone had a great time.

Later that afternoon, I went condo shopping and almost found my dream home. It’s this adorable little 2 bed/2 bath corner unit condo smack dab in the middle of Capitol Hill with a beautiful view of the city for 390k…and I get to pick my own giant parking space in the garage. I was quite thrilled with the place except for the fact that it doesn’t have a gas-line. So everything had to use electric which wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t love to cook so damned much. I don’t know what the deal is with Washington state loving electric stove so much, all I want is a freaking natural gas stove, why is that so difficult to get around here?

Still later that evening, I went to housewarming party where there was much alcohol and blow to wash away all the filth of too much good deed done.

I had plans to do some outdoor rock climbing on Sunday, but since it was a trip that I have been waiting all year for, it would only be appropriate that the sky would dump buckets of rain that day. I’m not even talking about the light sprinkle Seattle is known for to keep our moldy skin moist, because if that’s the case, we could probably apply some extra climbing chalk and maybe still go for it, I’m talking about giant buckets of water being hurled at us. So, there goes my one climbing trip. I blame my newly purchased rope bag for cursing us. Never buy a new rope bag the day before a rock climbing trip.

Late Sunday night, my mother’s restaurant burned down. When I first heard about it, I thought my father had finally snapped and made good on his threats (long story with too much drama that played like a bad soap opera) but it was electric spark + gas hood thing. Damage to the place was pretty bad with the roof pretty much gone, so it would take a few months to rebuild. I was a bit worried about how my mom would take the whole ordeal, but she’s calmly accepting it as the freak accident that it was and has been moving on with the rebuilding process.

It has been a bit quiet around here lately mostly due to my schedule being a bit hectic, but also because I’ve found a bunch of old Chinese shows that I was very fond of as a child online. The awesome part of the search is that even though I speak Cantonese fluently, my reading skill is elementary level at best so I sometimes have Google auto-translate some of the pages for me and my god does it ever do an amazing job. Reading the awesome plot makes me hang my head in shame in my writing skills. I sent the link to my buddy on MSN to make sure he knows what he’s missing out on by not speaking Chinese. He replied with a plot-line quoted from the page, “A false god stick so vivid “. Combine that with a title like “Bat Legendary” and you know you’re missing out on something amazing. You can’t tell me you don’t feel compelled to learn Chinese so you can watch that after reading such an amazing story…in fact, you can’t tell me you don’t think I’m the most awesome person on the planet for introducing you to a story so beautiful. Really, don’t tell me otherwise, I won’t believe you. And you’re welcome.

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Brian’s band, Vulgarizer hasn’t played in a while, but over the last week, they had a string of three shows, Friday in Spokane, Saturday in Everett and Monday in Seattle. I hadn’t seen them play in a very long time, so I figured I could catch them at their Everett show. The biggest treat of this all is that my first love of a death metal band, Maha Ma Waldi was playing with them also.

I might not have ever mentioned Maha Ma Waldi because I haven’t seen them play since I first fell in love with them and death metal some 2-3 years ago (mostly due to the fact that they’re not a local band). I’m Chinese and I grew up listening to Chinese music…I still sing Chinese songs (very badly) whenever I cook, so you can imagine how very opposite of my musical taste death metal might be. Then my best friend, Brian, joined a metal band so I started going to his shows to show my love. I started liking their stuff quite a bit, but I can’t tell if my opinion was completely biased because…well…my best friend is the lead singer, what’s not to love? Still, I had a hard time liking any other metal bands. On the 3rd or 4th show that I saw, Maha Ma Waldi was playing and I just feel in love. They more or less served as a gateway drug in which after I’ve developed a love for one metal band, I was able to appreciate other metal bands. To be fair, there are far more bad generic metal bands than truly good ones…and for death metal more so than most music, bad metal is a fucking train wreck.

What’s so great about Maha Ma Waldi? This isn’t the only reason, but the thing that draws everyone in initially is the fact that the lead singer has one arm…not only that, but the lead singer is also their ONLY guitar player. When people see a dude with one arm going up on stage with guitar strapped around his neck while adjusting the mic, they are naturally going to gather around for some good curiosity stares. Then the guy plays and he just blows everyone’s mind. It is hypnotic to watch him play. And the guy could sing too.

Since it has been at least a couple years, I thought perhaps I was wrong in giving the band too much credit. I figured after a couple years of hearing some good fucking metal, they would become that first crush that you run into much later in life and you wonder what the hell you saw in the boy in the first place. They actually got better. If you ever get a chance, make some effort to catch their show.

The city of Everett was still the butt-hole of a city that I remembered. Why do I say that about the place? Well…I got to the show around 10. I was a bit hungry despite having eaten dinner, so I wanted to get some food. The Subway Sandwich and Taco Del Mar across the street just closed. This was at 10…on a Saturday night…in “downtown” Everett. I ended up paying 3 bucks to get into a club across the street because it was the only place serving food within walking distance. The club was half packed with mostly dudes. I sat at the bar and ordered some food. While I was eating and chatting with the boys next to me, I had no less than two guys come up to me to ask me to dance…to the ghetto booty hip-hop playing. Do you know how desperate a guy has to be to approach a girl sitting at a bar eating her food while talking to two guys and the girl has a full beer glass? Obviously Everett desperate, but yeah…this is not my favorite city to hang out in.

Brian’s band played last that night and he did one of my favorite thing where he pulled a metal singer from the crowd, wished the guy happy birthday and they sand a duet together. Have you ever heard a metal duet? It’s like two war demons screaming at each other, which basically equals awesome.

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Today is our Annual Company Picnic, which should probably be renamed to Annual Company Rain Dance.  It’s not enough that we make games to delight children, we must make rain to delight Seattle because Seattle doesn’t get nearly enough rain.

To join in the festivities, old man Thor is supposed to be making a guest appearance by means of much thunder showers.  Yay!

Since I don’t mind really mind hanging out under a tarp with my coworkers (we’re programmers, we would hide under the tarp even with the sun out)…I don’t actually mind the rain during just about every company picnics.  However, I would like to put the word out there for Thor and his cronies to get the hell out when the party is over and not linger like the unpleasant guest that got too drunk, puked all over everything then became too ill to leave for days.  I’ve got plans to go outdoor rock climbing this weekend, that won’t happen if the rocks are slick and wet.

I asked my buddy, Brian aka BitchTits (not to be confused with my best friend, Brian) if his wife is coming to the picnic and he said, “Kimi isn’t going to picnic because Brian isn’t going to picnic.  I can’t be motivated to drive to Carnation for a picnic.”  He said he hasn’t been to a company picnic since the time they moved it more than half an hour drive away…the last time he went, it was much closer and he got really drunk.  I said, “Wow, you got drunk at a company picnic?  Nice work!  I must have missed that one.”  His reply, “Oh you were definitely there because we got drunk in your car.”  Oh…I guess those were good times.

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I mentioned to one of my backpacking buddy that I hiked Pilchuck over the weekend, and he said, “Wait…did you just admit to hiking Pilchuck? I thought you said you would never do that hike?” He said that because when he related his plans to hike that last year, I made fun of him for even bothering with such a ridiculously easy hike…I would be lying if I said I was too classy to use words like “weak ass” and “pussy”.

Keep in mind, I am a hiking snob and a real big bitch. I haven’t gone on very many new hikes this year because I pretty much hiked everything that is within 1.5 hours driving while fitting my minimal difficulty requirement (8-10 miles with no less than 3000ft elevation gain) last year which means I have to drive at least 2 hours to hit a new hike.

Another reason for my lack of hiking is the weather has been complete shit this year. All of Seattle is still waiting for summer to begin. The weather has been so horrible that I fear we will not squirrel away enough sunny days to survive our notoriously drab fall, winter and spring…hell, we’re barely maintaining our will to live this summer.

Still, it’s not like I mind hiking in the rain, it just seems a bit pointless to drive two hours to hike up a mountain to see fog.
Last week, I got an IM from my old roommate, Dave, asking if I wanted to hike Pilchuck with him and his buddy, Ken, on Saturday. I hadn’t seen Dave in months, so I was more than excited to hang out with him. He’s pretty much the only reason I would agree to drag my disgruntled corpse out of bed before 7 to go on an easy hike.

The only time I’ve hiked Pilchuck was when it was completely covered in snow and I had to snowshoe in, so I remembered it being quite difficult despite it not looking that impressive from stats standpoint. I wasn’t sure how it would fare without the snow.

Pilchuck is every bit as stupid easy as I feared. Because it is an easy hike with great view, Pilchuck draws a huge non-hiker crowd. There is a short scramble to the fire lookout up top which created a terrible bottle-neck for people that are afraid of climbing huge rocks.

One lady in front of me, sat frozen on a rock for a good minute unable to climb back down but was too scared to keep climbing, it took her another minute to realize she could move out of the way to let me and the traffic jam behind me keep going. The view was partially fogged but it was still gorgeous and I had a great time hanging out with Dave.

I highly recommend this place for any newbie hiker, it’s a good bang for the buck. The view is spectacular for the little amount of footwork required but as someone who enjoys an unhealthy dose of pain with my view, this is not a place that I will return to anytime soon.

Slide of hike here.

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This is a write-up long over-due.

The Friday before last on July 27th, my backpacking buddies and a few of my coworkers decided to backpack through Necklace Valley.

I started early on Friday with my coworkers, Mark and Bill and Bill’s girlfriend Katy. My buddies Fraser, Daniel and Daniel’s girlfriend Casey were heading in after work. We planned to meet up in the third lake in Necklace Valley, then hike up to Tank Lakes with maybe a side-trip to climb Mount Hinman the following morning.

The first five miles of Necklace Valley was ridiculously easy, it was so easy it didn’t feel like five miles. There were some suspicious log crossings that had Mark freaked out and holy sheesh the mosquitoes were insane, but aside from that, the early parts of the hike were pretty uneventful.

Then after five miles, the trail went from ridiculously easy to living hell. We all knew about the climb of 2500ft in 2 miles, but I think we all felt that the 2 miles felt like 200miles. At one point, Mark told me, “I think I’ve died and gone to hell but I just don’t know it yet, my punishment is this climb that never ends.”

I’ve hiked Mailbox Peak quite a few times this year, so I’m used to elevation gain of 4000ft in 3.75 miles, but doing that kind of elevation gain with 35lbs on my short little frame took quite a bit out of me too. Bill with his long legs and energetic youth was the only one not struggling visibly. He even helped push his girlfriends pack uphill when Katy struggled.
We had all day to get to our first camp spot so we took our sweet sweet time for snacks and pictures of the valley as we climbed. It was hard, but we eventually made it in about 8 hours – still beating out a couple parties to get our sweet campsite on a ledge overlooking the second lake. Unfortunately the mosquito situation was absolutely dreadful next to these lakes that created swampy puddles for their mating haven. We cooked dinner then all crawled into our own tents to avoid being eaten alive. Luckily, we were all so nicely exhausted that we were more than happy to get some sleep.

Next morning, I woke up to the sound of Fraser saying we should get packing so we can hike up to Tank Lakes. We ate some breakfast, packed our stuff and headed up for another 2 miles or so of climbing.

Unfortunately, the trail to Tank Lakes was not really a trail but a choice between climbing loose gravel field or snow field. There were cairns left behind by various hikers to mark the “correct” path all over the place, which pretty much shows that there’s not real trail. At some point, Katy decided she didn’t want to climb anymore because additional climb would mean that much more distance to climb back down with a full pack, so Bill, Mark and Katy decided to camp back near our first camp spot.

I really didn’t want to turn back because I had boundless energy that second day and really after climbing 2500ft in 2 miles, climbing 1000ft in 2 miles was cakewalk. I was scrambling and leaping from rock to rock like my pack weighed nothing.

Fraser led Daniel and Casey around on the snow field which is a bit longer but much easier route. It’s a good thing he did that because Casey did not like loose rock field that I was bouncing around on. Still, Casey is a very strong hiker, and on a ground that is more stable, she was able to keep up and we all managed to get to the top.

When we saw the largest of Tank Lakes, we hooted and hollered because it looked even more beautiful than pictures we have seen of it.

That and we were ready for a short rest. Sadly the area still had quite a bit of snow and the lake itself was very slushy with snow, so dipping our sweaty, nasty self in it was out of question. We dropped our packs and scattered around to scout a good camp site. We found this gorgeous spot with many flat areas to accommodate our tents next to a couple small water pools for easy water access.

While we were setting up, Fraser said, “These pools are more shallow and doesn’t have any snow…I wonder if they’re warm enough under this sun.” He walks into the water, “YOU GUYS IT’S WARM!” This is Fraser, he’s half crazy so obviously, I’m not going to take his word for it. Still, I could use a good washing so I dipped my toes in the water and sure enough, it was deliciously warm. I screamed with delight and quickly unpacked so I could find my bikini.

Fraser and I jumped in first just screaming with glee.

We could not believe our luck in finding a warm pool at 6000ft altitude. Then Fraser asked to be passed his rum while I hurried the others to join us, but Daniel and Casey were still busy setting up camp, so I ran out to grab his flask and my “water bottle”.

We toasted and drank. After more toasting and wading around the water, Fraser asked if I wanted a swap drinks with him. I asked him, “Wait…I thought you didn’t like Grey Goose straight?” He replied, “You mean you’ve been drinking vodka all this time?” I swapped bottles with him, “Fuck yeah! Did you just meet me? You think I would be so lame as to bring water to the pool party? You ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking that of me!” He took a few swigs and apologized, “Oh man, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I thought that.” After that, any thought on climbing Hinman was completely dashed.

It’s just so rare to find such an unbelievable setting to relax in a warm pool with your friends and ALL the booze that we brought. We were all so stupid happy…and drunk.

Out of nowhere, we heard Mark’s voice. He was on some ridge looking down at us. We beckoned him over. Mark would later describe this as, “I thought perhaps I had died, but gone to heaven, because I walked up to this ridge, and there were these lakes with a beautiful backdrop with girls in bikinis bouncing up to me, offering me hard alcohol.”
Apparently, my original crew decided to day-hike up that last climb and when they saw Tank Lakes, the boys decided they were going to split Katy’s pack carrying duty so they could camp up top. Bill carried his and her pack up that last stretch…that’s about 70-80 lbs. The guy is a fucking monster…did I mention he just did the STP bike ride…without any training…200+ miles in one day…on a mountain bike. Nuts.

They had set up camp already on the other side of ridge and both parties were happy with their spot, so we figured we would just stay split up. Not to mention, half of us are completely toasted while the other-half exhausted. After we finished all our alcohol, we went for our traditional drunken walkie. We explored and found the other camp, then wandered around various ridges. The place was just so gorgeous with the sound of distant waterfalls.

We cooked some food a little before sunset then sat down to watch the sun go down. I can’t remember the last time I felt so content – when everything felt right.

Then we had a gorgeous full moon out.

It rained the next morning which made some of the gear a bit heavier to carry out, but provided a much welcomed shade for our hike out.

This trip was so good we were delirious for a week after it.

I highly recommend Necklace Valley as a backpacking spot but remember to bring DEET, don’t mess around with 30% stuff, and go for the Jungle Juice - or wait till the bug season is over. And really push the extra miles for Tank Lakes, it’s really worth it.

Slide of the trip here.

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I’ve done nothing all weekend except for hanging out with a couple friends and cooking up a storm…I still need to write about my last trip (this is like the piles of games I must play and SOON).  Still, I’m alive and I’ve found a wonderful vegan soup to share…soon.

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Upon hearing about my volunteering at Harborview, a coworker of mine sent me this email:
“Wow.  Is this new ‘veggie’ Champagne talking, or did you always do that?”

He wrote that like I was a black hearted bastard up until I stopped consuming animal flesh.  Like somehow, eating my vegetables has made my heart grow five times its size.

I had to disappoint him with reports that I’ve always enjoyed volunteer work even though Harborview is a new thing for me and that I worked at a soup kitchen at the homeless men’s shelter.  Still, I’ve always wanted to volunteer at Harborview.  The thing that finally made it happen wasn’t my dietary change so much as my living location change.  Harborview requires their volunteer to work a minimum of 4 hours in the same time slot each week which to me was and still is a huge time commitment.  When I used to live half an hour away, I knew I couldn’t commit to that kind of time sink. Now that I live a few blocks from there, I am able to make this a possibility.

I like what they do there.  It’s a hospital that is there to truly serve people.  They never turn anyone away just because they can’t pay.  Quite often when they have a homeless person there, they will give them a bus pass to allow them to get back home.  They love serving people so much, they even serve people that don’t want to be there.  Yeah, on Tuesday, I saw a lady restrained to her wheelchair and there’s this beekeeper net looking thing on her head.  I was told they put that on her to keep her from spitting on the police that brought her in.

What do I do there?  Well, I mostly stock stuff and help with paperwork filing.  I walk around and talk to the people that have been waiting for hours just to keep their minds off the wait for a moment.  I bring blankets and pillow to people that look like they could use a nap.  I make a very mean bed.  I’m getting used to seeing people in horrific situation, so if I ever get caught in emergency situations, I can run in, tell people to move aside because I work as a trauma center volunteer, and um…make beds while yelling, “Get this man a BLANKET!”

Even back when I was a shallow party gal, in between making sure my hair looks fabulous, dousing my liver in 80 proof and grazing on cow heinies, I needed some kind of hobby.  Why go out in the street corner and yell at ONE bum to “Go get a fucking job!” when I dish it out to hundreds of them at once?

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We now interrupt our regularly scheduled program for a quick volunteering update:

I haven’t talked much about my new volunteer gig mostly because I can’t tell if I enjoy it or hate it yet. There are times when it gets insanely boring with not even enough papers to file. Then there are nights like tonight when the door swings open and I see a guy projectile vomiting (a la Poltergeist style) what looks like a gallon of blood without exaggeration…and I realize in a hospital setting, boring might be a good thing.

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