Climbing Mount Lassen, CA

March-June:

~Ruckle Ridge
~Herman Creek
~BigHuck/Grassy Knoll
~Silver Star

July:
~Indian Heaven
~ Norway Pass, St Helens
~Opal Creek
~Mount Mitchell
~ Loowit Falls, St Helens crater base

August-September:
~JMT Leg 1
~Mount Lassen
~Gnarl Ridge, Mt Hood
~Mississippi Head, Mt Hood
~Yocum Ridge via Ramona Falls, Mt Hood
~Wallowas
~Camp Muir
~Lake Ann, North Cascades
~Goat Rocks

October:
~Jefferson Park
~Black Crater
~Devils Peak Lookout
~Grand Canyon Rim hike?

View from lower Dog Mountain

Gorgeous winter day, drove out to Hood River to admire the mountain, and then swung back around to the Gorge to check out the new snow levels. Ruckel Creek looked sketchy and time was dwindling, so I just took a quick run up to Puppy Point on Dog. Great hike, felt good, only passed one other hiker. The snow and ice beyond the lookout were pretty gnarly, so I left that for another, warmer day.

Mount Adams from Greenleaf Peak

Joined a buddy for a snowy hike up Greenleaf Peak today. Creepy clouds below gave way to a beautiful sunny summit, although the path up the ridge was not altogether clear. We ended up doing some bushwhacking, and waist deep snow at the summit caused us to turn around rather than follow the trail to the Red Cliffs. Still, an awesome and relatively remote hike.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.

Mirror Lake, plus a little beyond. Easy, lovely, and a good intro to winter hiking for yours truly. Highly recommended. Easy access, and good for noobs!

Winter 2010 goals:

• Get debt under control
• Buy back furniture and books
• Learn to xc ski and/or snowshoe
• Hike in the snow
• Run 3x per week
• Restart Pilates and become stronger
• Health insurance
• Save for a car
• Become a more competent outdoorswoman
• Read more philosophy, science and poetry
• Aim for perfection, professionalism at work
• Write series of narrative poems based on Hawaiian experience

Summer 2011 goals:

• Take an outdoors leadership course or mountain skills class
• Spend a week hiking the JMT from TM to Red’s w/husband. Climb Mount Lassen and camp at Shasta on return trip
• Explore Washington more, and Oregon’s Wallowas
• Spend a weekend at Sunrise on Mt Rainier
• Finish Camp Muir/section hike Wonderland trail
• Run a half marathon
• Climb more mountains!

A great day on Rainier, relatively speaking anyway. Left at 3 a.m. and took that familiar amazing drive to the park, hitting the trail at Paradise just after dawn. I felt good, the only one on the trail except a handful of deer, and I was not scared, if only because I was within a stone’s throw of the lodge and the setting was so spectacularly pretty it was as if nothing bad could happen. I had a vague notion that I was trying for Camp Muir at 10,000 ft, although from my starting point, Gibraltar Rock looked impossible. But I kept climbing, despite the lack of crampons and slick ice, perhaps stupidly. The weather was perfect, and without a cloud in the sky it was hard to think of a reason to turn back.

Just when I stopped for lunch and to contemplate my next move, a friendly ranger zipping up the Muir Snowfield stopped to encourage me. He pointed out how soft the snow was becoming and that there was a faint scree trail up to Moon Rocks which I could navigate up to Camp Muir even without crampons. “See you up at Camp!” he waved cheerfully and kept trucking. He seemed confident that I’d get there, so I took his advice ~ but quickly found it to be more exhausting than the snowfield. After and hour or more of skirting between the rocks and the edge of the snowfield, I bonked, and it seemed as though my estimated location of Camp Muir was way out of reach, particularly if I was to return the rental car by 6pm. I stopped at Anvil Rock, watching the mountaineers trudge in unison up the snowfield, and felt pretty satisfied with myself… not realizing until scrutinizing my photos later that I was apparently within an hour of Camp Muir! In retrospect, I totally could’ve made it ~ not bad for an impromptu solo hike.

On the way back down, I had another telling moment. I began to slide out of control on a steep incline, and actually self-arrested correctly with my trekking pole. It was swift and instinctual, and filled me with pride. As well as the note to self to buy another ice axe.

Once back in the safety of Rainier’s lush red and green meadows, I stopped to watch bears in the valley. They were far enough away and there were enough people on the trail to Panorama Point by now that I felt no fear, almost as if they were in a zoo and I could study them with pure delight. The babies made little cow noises and roughhoused like my dogs as the mother grazed, while a massive male strolled off into the next valley where I believe I saw another bear through my zoom lens. It was an experience that I might have trouble trading in for that extra hour it would’ve taken to get to Camp Muir, which will always be there, whereas a bear family is a rare treat.

It’s not the summit, and it wasn’t even my goal, but it was rad and I have no regrets. Can’t wait to go back and knock Camp Muir off my list!

Just back from Mt Rainier, and each successive hike this summer has been more gorgeous than the next. I don’t know if I felt quite this strongly before we left for Hawaii and came back, but it’s all-consuming now. Next on the radar in Eagle Cap in the Wallowas, but logistics and waning good weather might force me to save that one for next summer.

So now it’s back to work. I’m enjoying my new job immensely, as long as I don’t start comparing my job to other careers. I still have a little of that, but as long as I’m busy, making money, learning and improving myself, it’s not really weighing down on me. It’s a job, and I’m good at it and I like it. Fine for now, for the summer, especially this summer.

It hurts that summer is ending so soon. I fear the post-Thanksgiving depression threatening all my sunny, healthy optimism already, and the rain is still several weeks off. Yet, I measure myself as a hiker, as a mountain girl, and these are the only challenges I really enjoy rising to. And often, it’s not even the toughness of a mountain ~ Rainier was pretty, like a woman… a big, huge woman.

The Burroughs Trail was one of those things in life I instantly regretted doing without my husband. I brought him to Cascade Pass last month, and we stood under Sahale Arm together, completely unified in our awe of the North Cascades and the blue-green Stehekin River Valley. But I later felt guilty for dragging him right into the path of large black bears on the trail, as spectacular as it was, and I think I felt the need to give him a break. He was also such a great sport on McNeil Point, on that sketchy snowfield… don’t wanna push my luck with my budding hiking enthusiast.

McNeil Point on Mount Hood is my favorite hike within an hour of the city. Indescribable beauty, high altitude, wildflower-laden meadows and rewards within the first gentle mile of hiking. I do believe I converted the hubs to the Church of the Great Outdoors with this one. Fucking spectacular.

Can you imagine stumbling through the wild and coming across this if you weren’t expecting it? Crater Lake is, frankly, one of the most stunning places I’ve ever been. Even in July, with all the tourists, including myself. We camped at Diamond Lake and drank cheap red wine, and woke to freezing temperatures. It was freaking fantastic. I love our life in Oregon, what the hell was I thinking leaving here? I’ve hated and loved this state as passionately as any person, and the landscape has had more of an impact on me than anyone besides my parents and my husband.