…beyond nice.

It hurts to be back this early, both in the physical beat-down sense and mental failing-to-hit-a-summit sense.  Being at the mercy of the weather gods can be rough sometimes.  Still, it’s nice to be freshly showered with a solid game plan for round 2.  I’ll post a write-up of the place when I get some rest.

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Soooo…it’s the big weekend of making an attempt at the most technical climb I’ve done to date…which actually isn’t all that technical (hopefully), but I’m busy pretending I’m a total bad-ass, so leave me to it for a moment okay? There are many ways up Glacier Peak but the short routes all require quite a bit of technical knowledge in glacier traveling, so we’re taking the long painful 34 miles round trip route up.
The weather seems marginally better than last weekend, but I’m hopeful it’ll be decent all weekend. We’re expecting some rain on Saturday which I don’t know what that will mean for us sitting on an exposed rock field, but I’ve spent an entire weekend in town last week in company of many humans, so I’m definitely ready to get back on the trail.
Our tentative plan is, on late Friday, hike in 5 miles then set up camp. Saturday, we’ll take our time to trek in 5-6 miles more in campsite #2. The on Sunday, we pray very hard for good weather and we’ll do the 14 miles roundtrip to the summit. On Monday we’ll run the 10 miles back out. That’s just our “plan”, we’ll see how it goes. This is going to be the longest backpacking trip I’ve done with my buddies Daniel and Fraser, so I might end up killing them on Sunday then I have to do some extra hiking to find a good remote spot to bury them.
Wish me good-luck with the weather…and I hope everyone have a safe and wonderful weekend.

Edit: I just weighed my pack after packing it all nice and tidy-like this morning and the fucking thing is 38lbs.  There were a couple little things that I thought maybe I should bring…like an extra shirt and extra food, but now I figured extra food and shirt will do me very little good if I break my back first.

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It’s been a while since I wrote about volunteering at the hospital.  I was starting to feel that perhaps I’ve gotten jaded to the sight of human suffering…that perhaps suffering has become a banality of its own and that it’s everyone’s own lot in life to deal with…I figured I finally learned how to draw boundaries.
Tonight, I saw a mother pass out from being too distraught by the harm done to her daughter at the hands of her kidnappers.  I watched her sob as her husband held her when she came to while he wiped back his own tears.  I watched the girl’s sister cry along side her family.
I’m not sure it’s possible to draw boundaries when you see people hurting people.  It’s not something I think I can get used to…and more importantly, I don’t think I want to get used to.

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My weekend was so nice and uneventful.

On Saturday, I had a wonderful girl’s night in with Jessica and Alexis…something I hadn’t done in literally years. We drank a lot of wine and ate a lot of desserts while laughing about life and relationships. We laughed so much my cheeks were hurting by the end of the night. It’s nice to recharge my estrogen batteries after overloading on testosterone.

On Sunday, my mom’s new restaurant opened and I stopped by to see what I can help with. Holy sheesh, the place was nice and busy. Her old restaurant seats around 300 people, while her new place seats around 500. We’ve gotten so used to serving about half the number of people that suddenly doubling it, made service a bit of a cluster fuck, but we still managed decently and we all had a good time working together. Oh, and I think my plans on becoming a closet gourmet vegetarian chef will be short-lived, because my mom’s new place is less than 5 minutes from my home, so yeah…there goes the need to cook again, ever.

The weather has been so crappy that one could almost forget that it’s still summer in Seattle except it’s clearly labeled on my calendar that it’s still summer. It has been raining and raining, and mind you it’s not the nice summer rain that is pleasant and warm, it’s the bitter cold digging into your skin kind of rain. Of course this serves to reinforce how happy I was to be at home with the heat turned on instead of sitting on a glacier, but really, we still have a good week of summer left, I would really appreciate some decent weather for next weekend. I know I whine a bit too much about the bad weather, but this year has been terrible at best and this is the first year that I’ve wisely decided dragging me up a glacier with teeth on my boots and an ice axe to cling on for dear life is a good idea…so weather matters more so than times when I needed to figure out which chaser makes cheap tequila taste less like ass.

During the last couple weeks, I’ve made time to sit down and watch a few movies so that can watch the sequels and I highly recommend these:
-Borne Identity + Supremacy
-Harold and Kumar Goes to White Castle
I don’t think I need to say much about the Borne series, everyone I’ve spoken to that has seen this said it’s great. Harold and Kumar is a movie I’ve heard so much about from my guy friends and they swear up and down it’s great, so I assumed it’s a movie filled with dumb guy humor that I won’t get (like I did not love Superbad)…but I was oh-so-wrong. The movie was fucking fantastic, I laughed my ass off and it gave me a bad case of the munchies.

I was checking out YouTube for videos to an old Hong Kong show that I loved as a kid. It’s called The Bund (aka Shanghai Beach) starring a very young Chow Yun Fat about life in the Shanghai mafia, and I noticed China did a remake of it recently. I clicked on the link to see who they would pick to fill in such big shoes and my god did they ever find the world’s hottest Chinese guy to play the leading guy. I didn’t think they make them that hot in China even though numbers are in their favor that one or two of them would smoke the planet. Normally, I’m not one to go for a pretty face, I have a weakness for geeks and climbers/mountaineers. Yes, when I’m hiking up a mountain and I see some guy pass me by carrying 70lbs without wheezing, I fall in love every time. What? You say he looks 60? Don’t be such a hater, he’s totally hawt! So when I say a guy is hot by looks alone, he’s smoking…some people are hot for having very strong ethnic features, but this guy is gorgeous internationally.

I’d like to note also the quality of China shows are finally catching up and perhaps surpassing Hong Kong quality. They used to be such poor quality that it’s like watching bargain bin porn without the hump-hump.

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Bleh, the weather is looking bad this weekend.  I guess it’s too much to hope that we might get three good weekends during SUMMER in Seattle.  I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out that standing on a sheet of ice while it’s raining/snowing (and also the ice is tilted at a steep angle) is a bad idea.  As much as I hate to postpone this trip for a week, the idea of staying home this weekend doesn’t seem bad at all.  I look forward to doing some yoga and a lot of cooking…and my mom is taking over a new restaurant while her old place is being rebuilt, so I get to play a good daughter and swing by.

Oh, sleeping in my own bed is going to be so sweet but I’m scared that given more time to plan this trip, the gear whore is going to sneak up on my credit card and…oh god too late, she bought a new backpack.

I’d like to take out a moment to complain about how much it sucks to be short, because in addition to not having the long leg stride, the same backpack sized “Small” also carries less.

Now I’m really glad I went out last night and partied my ass off instead of staying home to pack.  There was a party that was thrown as a preparty to a fashion design convention happening this weekend, so obviously there were beautiful men galore there.  Of course 99% of them are probably gay, but hey, a little eye-candy never hurts.

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During lunch today I called in an order at one of my local favorite Thai restaurant…it’s such a favorite of mine that the lady knows me by my voice and she knows I like my order with 2 stars. Scary how predictable I am.

On my way to pick up my order I stopped by REI to return a messenger bag that I bought at the beginning of summer, back when I had hopes and dreams of becoming a road biking bad-ass. It’s almost first day of autumn and the tags and everything are still attached to the bag, so I figured it’s time to surrender myself to being a couch surfing bad-ass.

When I got to REI, I checked my bag for my wallet and found the thing missing. Apparently I forgot to put it back in my bag when I took it out…last night…when the gear whore in me needed access to my credit card so that she can jerk off to a fancy new altimeter. Damn you, gear whore! You ruin my life!

Still, I had a food order sitting at a restaurant with staff that greets me by my name and I have not a dime to my name. So I had to drive my sorry ass back home to get my wallet. Damn you!!!

I need to get my whoring habits in control or somehow consolidate them to one because this A.D.H.D. whoring is leaving me with too little time to spare. I’ve got plans to climb the most difficult mountain I’ve climbed to date starting tomorrow, and the universe caught wind of that so it has sent me activity invites galore. I promised my rock climbing friends I will go climbing with them tonight…then I have to go to a fashion show with my sister, then I have to go clubbing with Jessica. It would be easy if I’m not a party girl at heart too because I can forgo the partying, but I can’t. Damn you, party whore! And damn you, rock climber wannabe whore!

I’m very excited about this trip tomorrow. Trekking 17 miles and climbing 10,000+ft to get to the top of a volcano will be the most grueling thing I’ve done to date, but like the raver girl that I once was, this is something I need to keep chasing the high. Wish me more luck with the wonderful weather we’ve been having.

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I’ve heard such great things about Spider Meadow and Spider Gap that I tried to solo backpack to it last year. Unfortunately the weather had other plans for me, so I was quite thrilled to be offered another go at it this year.

The drive to this trailhead is quite possibly the worst bumpy ride I’ve come across in all my treks. Still, because I got some one and a half hour of sleep (going to a birthday party, getting sloshed, then going home to pack while drunk is a bad idea) before getting up to meet up with my friends, I managed to sleep through most of that storm.

The first 6 or so miles of the trail was very nice and flat which was great for my cranky still slightly buzzed ass. Having Spider Meadow come into view after slogging through endless forest does wonders for one’s poor disposition.

Then after our legs are nice and tired from dragging our packs across 6 miles of terrain, we had to climb 1000ft in .5 miles to get to a campsite that Daniel promised to be heaven on earth. Because we got to the trailhead decently early and we were pretty fast as a group, we managed to snag the Daniel’s dream spot which is a huge camp space sitting on top of a knob with breathtaking views from every angle.

I found a nice flat spot next to a ledge and started setting up shop.

The view from my tent was insane.

The weather was gorgeous and we were in damned fine mood. We had a quick lunch, then set off to explore Spider Gap. The rock scramble up to Spider Gap was a bit rough, but minus the pack it was very easy. Despite the great weather, it got pretty chilly up at Spider Gap, we kept moving to stay warm.

Soon as we crossed over the gap, Lyman Lake came into view and it looked like a mini-paradise down by the lake. We wandered around until Lyman Glacier came into view, and goofed around a bit more until we got cold, then set off for “home”.

When we got back to camp, we bundled on more clothing and started cooking dinner. After dinner we made hot alcoholic beverages and waited for dark to watch the stars. This is the first weekend we were out without a moon, so the sky was lit only by stars and it felt like we could see every star in the universe. I don’t think I’ve ever clearly seen the band of Milky Way like I did that night…nor have I ever understood more that we were indeed part of this galaxy.

While we were watching the stars, someone pointed out, “Can you imagine that for all those stars that we’re seeing, we’re just another tiny star to them?” It’s strange to come face to face with that. I felt simultaneously insignificant and significant at the same time. I felt small compared to the universe, but important in knowing that I am me and that I exist.

Our buddy, Sto had a cellphone with speakers, he played us music from his memory card and we drank and chatted while staring at the sky. At one point, someone with a headlamp came up to our camp. We asked the person who he/she was and the person never said anything which creeped us out. Then the person came into our light range and it was an Asian lady. She told us she was lost and didn’t know how to find her camp. Sto walked her out to show her the trail back to the general direction that she said she was from. We expected him to be gone for a while, but he returned shortly, “I think I scared her because I was so drunk…but I did show her the main trail and she seems happy enough.”

That night, despite a day of great weather and no wind, a random windstorm struck us. It wasn’t exactly like your standard windstorm with continuous wind, but more of 15 minutes of calm followed by 5 minutes of squall. During one particularly bad squall, I had a terrible image of my tent being blown over the ledge with me in it, so I got up, added extra anchors to my lines, went back in my tent and put on my earplugs.

Next morning we all woke up covered in a layer of fine dust. The gear whore in me is seriously thinking I need to buy a nice single-wall 4 season tent. I don’t even want to think about how much sand I’ve ingested through the night. The wind stopped when the sun came out and the new day was just as glorious as the day before.

We took our time in making breakfast and sitting back to take in the view for a long time before slowly packing.

The place was so beautiful none of us wanted to leave.

I highly recommend a trip to Spider Meadow if you’re looking for a sweet backpacking spot. I’ve heard the bugs can be horrendous there when in season, but since we were there in late summer there were hardly any bugs.

Slide of hike here.

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I’m tired and achy. My hips are chafed from all the long backpacking trips carrying a pack more than one third my weight. The bruises on my legs from climbing Mount Adams and having the strong wind topple me over onto a rock have yet to disappear. I’ve spent the last three weekends with sweat-matted hair covered in dust blown in from windstorm after windstorm. Still, it’s always worth going back if only in hopes to wake up to this:

I will do a proper write-up of the last hike when I have a moment.

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I made big ambitious plans for this weekend.  Yes, it’s called spending time at home…like maybe try sleeping in my own bed.  I’ve got plans to climb another volcano next weekend, so I was really hoping to spend some time in town this weekend.  Every now and then, it just seems like a good idea to sleep in a location where there are less fear of bear attacks and I hear it’s nice to not wake up covered in volcanic ash blown in by 40 mph wind.  Also, I thought I might try to see some of the people that I call “friends”.  I was really looking forward to going to a club, dancing and getting soused at a proper bar instead of out in the woods.

Then I got an email from my buddy, Daniel about an awesome backpacking trip with his girlfriend and our buddy Sto for this weekend.  I told him I made plans to sleep in my own bed this weekend.  His email reply:

You can sleep in your bed later, you should go with us, Spider Meadows!!  I will try and bring some more good food. We wont have this kind of weather until next year, have to take advantage of it.

I really can’t argue with that.  I’ve been wanting to see Spider Meadows since last year and we haven’t had much good weather days this summer and this weekend is looking amazing, I can’t hide from all that goodness.  Also the climb next weekend has me scared enough to want this trip as additional training.

I’ve got a birthday shindig to attend tonight so I better breathe in all the urban life I can tonight for a joyful hungover hike tomorrow.

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This trip almost didn’t happen. First off, we went from 8 people going to 4, to 3 to 2. It came down to just me and my buddy Daniel. Then on Friday about 2 hours before we were supposed to leave, Daniel checked out the weather report and freaked out because it looked like there was supposed to be a windstorm with 30-40 mph wind in the lower areas, so god knows what it would be like up at 12,276ft. He asked if I still wanted to go, I told him, “Hell yeah, I’ve been waiting too long for this trip to pass it up.” In the end, I convinced him it would be worth giving the climb a shot. I called the Mt. Adams ranger station and asked about the weather, they said it should be a bit foggy on Saturday, and clear skies on Sunday (the day we planned to summit). I asked about the windstorm and they said they can’t really predict that but people have been driven off the mountain a couple weekends ago by 80mph wind…I decided to not tell Daniel about that part of the conversation.

After work, we drove off toward the mountain. It’s a good five hours away from Seattle without traffic but since it was Friday before a three day weekend, it took us more than 6 hours to get there. To stay awake for these long drives, Daniel would often play really pumped up hard house or psy-trance music. Daniel, like myself, was a big candy raver back in the days…so as we listened to one of his house mix CD by Steve Lawless, we both started talking about how we missed dancing. He mentioned he might be meeting his sister at Re-bar on Sunday night if we got back in time. As we talked about climbing plans, we got it in our heads that the climb would be quick on Sunday and we would be able to make it back for some dancing without any trouble…obviously we thought only in miles traveled as opposed to altitude gained. Our agenda was to do the first 3 miles with 3800ft elevation gain with our full packs on Saturday, then camp at Lunch Counter at 9400ft, spend the night to get acclimatize to the altitude, then on Sunday climb the last 3 miles with 2876ft elevation on the second day, head back down, pack our tents and leave. Then drive 5 hours home and dance.

We got to Morrison Camp at 1a.m., car camped and woke up around 9 the next morning to grab our climbing permit from the ranger station. Along with the climbing permit, we got the snazzy poop kit. While we waited for our coffee, I tore through the poop kit…

It contains:
- two paper bags, one of the bag has kitty litter in it,
- a paper towel
- paper with instructions how to use it, the back of this sheet has a target on it with bulls-eye and big X in the center
- a ziplock bag to hold it all together
The idea is, you’re supposed to lay down the target paper, and try to poo on the target…and if you miss, there’s the paper towel to help move stuff. Then you put all the business in the bag containing the kitty litter. Then bag that again with the second paper bag. Then all of that fanciness goes in the ziplock bag.

Daniel looks at all this all wide-eyed and said, “There’s only one kit?” I laughed and said, “How many times are you planning to take a dump on this mountain in ONE night?” He thought about it for a sec and said, “Oh yeah, I’m not sure I’ll even need this.” We didn’t, but we figured it was a good idea to carry it for dignity sake, because nothing shows dignity like carrying around kitty litter for your own human waste.

We got some breakfast in town then headed in. As we drove back toward Mount Adams’ South Climb trailhead we could see the mountain and we hooted happily at the good weather and view.

After we strapped on our gear we started our hike in around 1:20. The weather was clear with some patchy clouds. The early parts of the hike was nicely paved and easy starting at 5600ft,

then for the last 1000ft or so of climbing up to Lunch Counter, the trail was rocky or snow covered.

Breathing got increasing hard towards the end especially with my little frame trying to manage 35+lbs of gear (extra clothing + ice axe and crampons add up). We met these two guys from Boston along the way and hiked in with them for some good trail chitchat.
Soon as we hit Lunch Counter and I was able to drop my pack, I experienced a giddy euphoria that should be bottled and marketed to make me a billion bucks. I tore off my shirt and ran across the rock field laughing (I’m not sure how I didn’t break an ankle; I noticed it was ridiculously rough and uneven the next day).

People were looking at me like I was nuts, one guy did try to take off his shirt because he thought maybe I had the right idea and quickly put it back on because it was cold. Of course I didn’t care and went about setting up my tent while humming a tune. Wind was blowing through the area pretty fiercely but it remain a good consistent 30-40 mph instead of 80, so we anchored our tents down with rocks and all was well.
The view from our camp was phenomenal…we could clearly see Mount St. Helens and Mt. Hood along with parts of the Three Sisters behind Hood. The sunset behind Helens was so incredibly gorgeous.

Then at night, the moon was a little more than half full which lit up Mount Adams majestically in the night. As with most mountain climbs, at a few thousand feet from the peak, the top looks so deceptively close - like you could reach out and touch it.
The wind howling all night long was not a good thing. I now know that it’s always a good idea to bring some earplugs with you on mountain backpacking trips. At some point, because I knew I wasn’t getting any sleep anyhow, I got up, piled on my down jacket and snowboarding pants and walked outside to lie inside a rock wall circle to watch the stars.
The following morning after having barely slept a wink, Daniel and I were still giddy with excitement to climb the mountain. The weather was gorgeous and the mountain looked inviting.

We ate a quick breakfast and threw in extra layers in our packs with some snacks and water and headed off to the snow field. When we reach the edge of the snow field, we put on our crampons and started our slow climb up.

I was very surprised by how nice the crampons feel on the icy snow field. I had expected some kind of awkwardness from having teeth on my boots, but they felt great and made the hike up the snow field extremely easy. The last snow field right before hitting the false summit (Pikers Peak 11,600 feet elevation). was pretty scary steep and I was extremely grateful to see my crampons and ice axe coming to good use and there were moments when we were definitely “climbing” and not “hiking” up the mountain. The air got thinner and traveling became more difficult as we made our way up to Pikers Peak.

The thing I’ve found to be most difficult about slogging up a mountain past 9,000 ft is the constant internal battle. There is an internal battle going on that I come closer and closer to losing with each step. I feel faint. My head hurts. My legs are tired. This sucks. Why am I even here? What the hell am I trying to prove? This is so stupid and pointless, I should really turn back. I miss oxygen. It’s going to really suck if I pass out here. Oh god…is my vision blurry?
I know this isn’t something that happens to only me because I can hear other climbers reciting the mantra of “Mind over matter.” While Daniel and I were breaking for a quick snack at the false summit, there were a few other groups doing the same thing. There was a group of five guys chatting, one of them decided he was done but one of them was a little undecided. His 3 friends were trying to convince him to push for summit, he replied, “The wind is blowing too hard, it’s getting too cold. And it looks like a fog is rolling in, so we won’t see anything when we hit summit anyhow.” It was like that guy was inside my head, but unlike him, I was quite rejuvenated by snack break. I smiled at him and said, “Would it help your cause if I called you a pussy?” He replied, “Oh hell no you didn’t just say that…” and got up and picked up his pack.
We all continued onward together.  The first bit of trail from Pikers Peak heading towards the true summit was pretty flat and helped in boosting moral:

Then there was a particular nasty loose rock/sand field that we had to climb up where for every two steps that we took, we slid down one, sometimes more. It was excruciating, horrible and demoralizing. Every time I slip toward losing my internal battle I see the guy I just indirectly called a pussy right behind me and I turned back and pushed on. Haha, who’s a pussy now!? *weeps on the inside* On the final snow field to the summit, everyone was taking a couple steps, stopping for breathe, rinse, repeat. Then summit.

The wind was biting cold, but the sky was clear and oh what a glorious day it was. We could see Rainier, St. Helens, and Hood clearly. Everyone was smiling and congratulating each other.

Daniel and I hung out at the summit for a bit for still more snacks and some Advils to chase the growing altitude headache. Then we headed back down. Downward travel was nice and easy, without any fight for breathe. When we hit the big snow field, I changed into my snowboarding pants for some delicious glissading action. The thing I’ve noticed about glissading is that it only looks scary, but it’s actually kind of hard to pick up any real speed. In fact, my new recommendation for anyone that is sliding uncontrollably down a snowy mountain to try to sit up and go, “Wheeeee!” You’ll stop dead on track the moment you do that.

We got back to camp, packed up and headed back out. My headache was killing me despite our descent from high altitude, I think it was partly caused by severe dehydration because I avoid drinking water so I wouldn’t have to pee so much…because it’s impossible to find a hidden spot to pee on a big open mountain. I took a quick ten minutes nap while Daniel went to get coffee for the drive back which seemed to help the headache. We looked at the time and realized we wouldn’t make it back on time for dancing (not to mention we were both more like two dry ragged corpses)…so we settled for some nice food before driving back.
As we drove back, Daniel put on still more pumping techno music and we slowly eased out of our altitude recovery and thought…yeah, maybe we could make it back for clubbing. We chatted happily and thanked each other for pushing for a wonderful epic trip. As we approached Seattle, Daniel started fading…I talked to him about climbing other mountains to try to maintain his energy level. He said he was probably going to bail on his sister.
I got dropped off around 11:30, took a quick shower and got to the club a little before 12:30. Daniel showed up right about the same time…apparently his sister left him a message, so he felt obligated to show…but he found out after we got there that his sister bailed thinking he wasn’t showing. I thought he was going to take off too, but the music was too damned good and so we had a couple Red Bull Vodkas and danced right until the place closed.
Dancing was my favorite thing in the world up until I discovered hiking (I think it was Daniel’s favorite thing too), so I can’t tell you how wonderful it was for both of us to hit Adams summit and dance to some fucking awesome house in the same day. Now that’s a day that I would label as “beyond nice”.

Slide of the hike here.

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