Making Lemonade From Ironman Maryland Lemons

Wednesday, September 30, did not start well. When I went to check in for my flight, it said my first flight was delayed and my second flight was changed such that I wouldn't get into Philadelphia until 5pm instead of 2:30 (never mind I booked a direct flight that was supposed to get in at 12:30). I was quite upset and marched straight to a ticket agent. She searched flights, supposedly including some other airlines, and the only improvement was supposed to get me in at 4:30. Fine, at least it feels like it's a little better. I had some time to kill in Austin, got to Charlotte and had more time to kill. Then the flight from Charlotte to Philadelphia was delayed, and delayed some more. As I was on my phone killing time until we we left the gate, I saw a curious post that said something about Ironman Maryland and "options." I had no idea what that meant, so I clicked and it took me to an announcement from Ironman that due to expected flooding from Hurricane Joaquin, the race was cancelled (with a possible new date) and asking people to not even come to the area. I blurted out an expletive at less than a yell but more than under my breath. My brain was swimming in thoughts and questions: "Can I get out of my hotel?" "Should I just get off the plane?" "What the hell am I going to do?" One early thought was to see if there were any other marathons that weekend in the area. Another thought was to go on a road trip of State Capitols and take care of a bit of unfinished business from IM Lake Placid. When I couldn't find any marathons that would work, I decided that if the hotel would give me at least some refund for three of the nights I had already paid, a road trip it would be.

Mount Rainier climb with RMI

Careful readers of this blog (okay, that's probably nobody) might recall that while I did reach the summit of Mount Rainier in 2009, I did not stand at the very highest point, on Columbia Crest. I always meant to go back and remove that asterisk from my highpointing roster, but it was never a priority. Frankly, I figured I could skate by and finish the 50 state highpoints without having to revisit Rainier. However, when I was climbing Denali this summer, two other highpointers shamed me into admitting that I couldn't really say I had gotten to the highest point in the state of Washington. Since I already had a 2013 Rainier climbing permit (from when I did the winter skills seminar in February), and my climbing skills were honed after 20 days on glaciers, I figured this would be a good time to knock it off. Since I don't have a climbing partner, I once again climbed with RMI. I was kind of hoping to climb with one of the guides I had climbed with before, since I would more or less be jumping straight onto the mountain, but it was nice to get to know some new guides. Thanks to these great guides and much better weather than was forecast, I was able to stand at 14,410 feet, as high as I could have gone without leaving the ground. This completed a sort of "highpoint trifecta," climbing three of the most difficult state highpoints this summer (after Denali and Granite Peak, MT). Just based on how my legs felt afterward, Rainier was less challenging than Granite; Denali is in a whole different realm.

Solo climb of Montana's Granite Peak

Maybe it doesn't quite count as soloing Granite Peak (Montana's highest at 12,799 feet), since I did do the technical section with two guys from Salt Lake, but I did free solo the ascent and was fully prepared to go it alone. In fact, I was overprepared and was carrying far too much weight on this trip, which (along with the route itself) made for a miserable descent. Frankly, I would not recommend the Froze-to-Death route to anyone. I haven't done it personally, but I know two people who have done the Avalanche Lake route, and it sounds highly preferable. The technical part, which is after those two routes meet, was a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is really comfortable rock climbing. Of course it's not necessary to ascend ropeless, there was a guided group ahead of us roped up, but there really isn't much exposure on the few truly fifth-class pitches.
In short, it was great to knock of highpoint #38 (especially after failing two years ago), and I would definitely rank it as the second most difficult of the state highpoints I've done so far (and I anticipate it remaining so once I'm done), behind Denali.

Thanksgiving / Connecticut Highpoint

After the Natural Bridge Caverns Du on Sunday 11/28, I flew to New York on Monday for a fairly brief, relatively traditional Thanksgiving with my parents, sister, and niece. I don't think I mentioned it in my post, but the eighth of my recent highpoints, Alabama, is 35th in rank of highpoints by height ASL, and happened to also be my 35th completed highpoint. This was unintentional, but when I realized that Connecticut is ranked 36th in height, I was more than a little bit interested in going there on this trip. It wound up being about the most exercise I got during a week of gluttony.

Southeast Highpoint Adventure

On Sunday, October 30, mere hours after racing in the Run for the Water road race, I got onto my Fat Boy and rode 3,100 miles in seven days. On this cold, crazy, trip I visited eight state highpoints and three capitols. This brings my totals to 35 and 25, respectively. Other than a relatively minor issue with the bike, some rain outside of Atlanta, and trying to keep warm when it was in the 40s, it was a fairly uneventful ride. I did run into a slight problem off the bike, but the only real harm done was a loss of time.

Road/Climbing Trip 2011: Gannett Peak

On Monday, July 11, I set out from Pinedale, Wyoming on a 4-day trek to Gannett Peak, the highest mountain in the state, which peaks at 13,809 feet above sea level, and is part of the Wind River range. Due mainly to the slog of a 16-mile approach just to get into place for summit day, I think it was physically the hardest thing I've ever done, and I'm quite pleased to be able to say that I was successful, even more so that I did it solo, with no support other than following other parties the whole way. I don't think that summit day was that much harder than Rainier was, but including having to cross Bonney Pass both ways, and sections at are steeper than Rainier, it was at least a little harder. However, thanks to better physical conditioning and better altitude acclimatization (I don't think I was below 5,000 feet elevation in the week before this climb), I felt better than I did when I climbed Rainier two years ago. [Note: day 1 and 2 reports were written those evenings, days 3 and 4 were written after returning home]

Road/Climbing Trip 2011: Borah Peak

After a couple days of rest with my aunt and uncle in Bozeman, I drove to Idaho by way of Helena in order to attempt to climb Borah Peak (curiously also referred to at Mt. Borah), Idaho's highest point on July 9. After the most technically difficult I've done solo so far, I was proud to have bagged another state highpoint. But, as the saying goes, the top is only halfway, and I still had a challenging climb back down to my car.

Road/Climbing Trip 2011: Granite Peak Attempt

On Sunday, July 3, I set out with guide Kenny and fellow client Pete in an attempt to climb Granite Peak, Montana's highest point. We were the guide service's first trip of the year, and if we had been successful, we would have likely been among the first people to summit this season. Unfortunately we didn't even make it onto Granite Peak proper due largely to Pete's difficulty carrying the heavy load of gear necessary for the climb this time of year. We did, however, reach the summit of 11,755 foot summit of Froze to Death Mountain.

Pedal Power Wildflower Ride

Yesterday I participated in the Pedal Power Wildflower Ride, benefiting the Hill Country Children's Advocacy Center. I did the full distance, 60 miles, through the lovely hill country. I even tacked on a couple of miles at the end to make it a full 100 kilometers, aka a metric century. Despite this being one of the worst years for wildflowers since I've lived in the area (due to drought conditions), it was a nice ride and we had good weather. I survived the ride, maybe a little worse for wear, in just under 4 hours.

Guadalupe Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands

On Sunday morning, I packed up and drove out to West Texas. When I told some friends about my plans, they were surprised I wasn't riding, but I've done that before and it can be extremely cold riding this time of year, especially in West Texas. I had thought I might spend the night in the town of Van Horn, but when I got there around 2pm, it didn't look all that interesting, so I went on to Guadalupe Mountains National Park and set up camp there. It was pretty warm when I got there, but once the sun started getting lower, the temperature dropped rapidly. I had dinner as the last sunlight was fading and was in my sleeping bag at 7pm (actually 6 local time). I read for a while, then went to sleep. I woke up a couple of times in the night, and started moving again at 5:30 MST.

I had breakfast, broke camp, and started on the Guadalupe Peak Trail at first light, 6:30 am. I felt I was way overdressed - three layers on top, two on bottom, and a warm cap - for hiking, and felt certain of it going up the relatively steep initial section. However, that section was also in the lee of the mountain, and once I topped that first ridge, a cold wind started blowing. The trail also flattened out, causing me to generate less heat, so I didn't have to strip down, I just changed my head gear. While hiking up that first section, I came upon an 8-point whitetail standing in the trail. Fortunately, it wasn't a repeat of my experience in Glacier, as he quickly went on his way in the other direction. Also going on in the first stretch was an evaluation of my right knee, which was bothering me since running Saturday. I took the unusual (for me) step of using trekking poles on this hike, and figured I would hike for an hour, and if the knee was hurting too badly, I would quit hiking. When I got to that one hour point, I was already 2/3 of the way to the top, and the knee was feeling okay. I didn't see anybody on the trail until I got to a backpacking campground where a man and two boys had apparently camped and were starting out for the summit. I was almost surprised when I got to the summit around 8:45, it felt like it should have been further or steeper or something. As windy as it had been on the approach, it was even more so at the very peak, and almost knocked me over once or twice. I had a snack, had the man (who arrived with the boys a few minutes after I did) take my picture, and signed the register. I was worried about the descent, since it's even harder on the knees, but by taking it a little gingerly and using my poles and left knee, I made it down with a minimum of pain a little past 11. While I was glad for the layers I had on at the summit, I was ready to be rid of them at the bottom, even after shedding hat and gloves and opening my jacket up. I took off a layer and drove north to Carlsbad Caverns. I had planned only to get tour information and take a tour the next day, but I found out pretty much all the ranger guided tours were sold out for the week. I went ahead a got a general admission ticket, and went on the self-guided natural entrance tour, and after its 800 ft vertical descent, did the big room tour. The place was a madhouse of people, all kinds of idiot tourists gawking and yapping. When I finished the big room tour, I was going to take the elevator back up, but the line was outrageously long, so I hiked out the way I came in. At that point, surprisingly, my knee was feeling fine, and the paved trail was pretty gentle. It looked like some people I had seen in the big room were just getting back to the visitor center at the same time I was, so the natural entrance was definitely the best way out of the cave for me. I checked at the ticket desk before leaving, and found there was an opening for the Wednesday Left Hand Tunnel Tour, so I booked that. I was thinking I would spend the night in Carlsbad, but the two places I checked didn't have anything reasonably priced, so I headed to Alamogordo. I hadn't looked at the distance that closely, and it was well past dark (but still only around 7pm) when I got into town and got a room.

Tuesday morning I drove down to White Sands National Monument. I cruised through until I got to the trailhead for the Alkali Flats Trail. I hadn't checked the trail out at all, so I just started out with just a water bottle, in my sneakers. If I had known more about the trail, I would have brought more stuff with me. Near the trailhead there were bunches of families, sledding and having fun on the gypsum dunes, which look a bit like ski hills. When I started on the trail, there were two other pairs of people who also seemed like they would be hiking as well. After I had gone about a mile, however, I couldn't see any of them, and in fact didn't see anybody at all until I got back closer to the trailhead. The trail was marked with plastic posts (and lots of footprints), but it was a pretty arbitrary course and surely changes regularly based on the "movement" of the dunes. Travel was not very efficient over the sand- some sections were pretty solid and easy to traverse, while others were soft and caused a lot of energy loss. The back sides of the dunes were particularly soft, and the steepness led every step slide downhill. Going uphill, it made for almost twice the climb, and downhill caused a lot of sand to get into my shoes. For a while I went barefoot, which actually felt slightly more efficient in the soft sand. The sand was cold on my feet though, and it was colder below the surface than on top. The trail turned back at the end of the dunes and the start of an ancient lake bed, and presumably near the edge of the missile range, as there were military-looking buildings in the distance. The signpost there had a distance marked as 2.2 miles, much farther than I had anticipated. It was after 11 at that point, and I would have packed some snacks at least had I realized how far it was. It was around 1 when I got back to my car, and after trying to shake off the sand I had some lunch. I headed about 30 miles south of the monument to the entrance of White Sands Missile Range. Rather than get a permit to drive 100 yards, I walked over to the museum. I rather enjoyed the place, it was really nerdy and full of engineering porn. One of the big claims to fame of the range is that it was the site of testing of captured German V-2 rockets, and allowed the US to catch up to and surpass their knowledge of rocketry. I also have some interest in nuclear weapons, for whatever reason, and WSMR was the site of the Trinity test, and they have a Fat Man casing in their outdoor area. They didn't have much information on my favorite rockets such as the Tomahawk, or ICBMs, but there were several short- and medium-range rockets capable of carrying nuclear or conventional warheads. I drove from there back to Carlsbad and checked into a motel.

I woke up at 7 Wednesday, had breakfast and went down to the caverns. I took the elevator down to the big room and met up with the tour group for the Left Hand Tunnel, one of the early tour routes that was effectively abandoned, neglected, and abused years ago. The abuse is evident in the tailings of the elevator shaft construction piled up at the start, and the broken calcite crust and many feet worth of missing silt slightly farther in. The tour didn't really go that far, distance wise, but the guide offered a lot of information about the early development and use of the caverns, as well as cave biology and development. Since there are no lights along this tour, everyone was issued a candle lantern. It was kind of like my tour of Jewel Cave, but the lanterns were different and many of them rattled when the holder was walking. They did issue one brand new LED lantern, which threw things off a bit as it produces a completely different color light. At the furthest point of the tour was a little cave biology lesson with many millions of years old fossils, and undetermined age (decades at least) bat "mummies." We went back to a larger room for a blackout, after which the guide told an interesting story about giving a tour to a blind woman, which kind of changes the perspective. The lead ranger had some lame songs and more even lamer jokes. His best line of the tour, I think, was after someone asked about things falling in the cave (meaning formations dropping and such, due to geologic activity) and he replied "my jokes fall flat all the time." It was kind of remarkable that he is the fourth generation of cave workers in his family, going back to 1932. At the beginning, he implored people not to publicize the entrance to the left hand tunnel, not that it's a great secret, but he asked if anyone had a blog and I sheepishly half raised a hand. So I won't reveal that it's just off of the lunch room. There's a locked gate, so it doesn't make a big difference any way. Leaving the caverns, I headed back to Guadalupe Mountains NP, and went to McKittrick Canyon for the first time. Since it was already 1pm and the gates to the area close at 4:30, I didn't have a lot of time for hiking, so I went as far as the Pratt Cabin. I thought it was pretty nice, and I really would love to have something like that of my own. The buildings are mainly stone, with some pine timbers, but the setting was magnificent with the mountains looming overhead. I decided to camp in the park again that night. It was a very windy night. While setting up, and while preparing and eating dinner, everything light had to be weighted down to keep from blowing away. I was afraid the tent was going to blow away or collapse. I only used the four anchor points I normally use, I should have added more. Twice, relatively early in the night, a stake pulled out of the ground and I had to go out and pound it back into the ground.

It was a lot less windy the next morning, so breakfast and breaking camp were not as fraught with peril. Since I had abandoned my original plan of doing some backpacking, I thought I would hike in Balmorhea State Park, not realizing that there are no trails and the main draw of the park is a large spring-fed pool. It wasn't too cold out, and they said the water is always around 75 degrees, but I didn't really feel like swimming. I went on to Fort Davis, where I stopped at the Fort Davis National Historical Site. It sounded interesting enough, so I stayed and checked it out. It was a Civil War-era fort, used mainly to protect the San Antonio to El Paso road, abandoned in 1891 when it became obsolete. I found it to be fairly interesting, but the wind was howling, making it unpleasant to walk between the restored buildings. Also not helping my enjoyment was a family with a child constantly crying. There are some short trails on the site, but I didn't want to stick around with the wind whipping the way it was. I figured that it was just as windy in the state park a few miles away, and headed straight home from Fort Davis.

Road Trip 2010, Part 2

It was only a couple of hours ride from Page to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I was held up from getting into the village because of road construction, but I finally did and met up with my parents who were already there for the Grand Canyon Celebration of the Arts, a plein air painting event with a number of invited artists. They were staying at the parks service's training "dorms," more like an average motel, and had arranged to get me a room next to theirs. Nobody was in the office, however, so I couldn't get into my room right away so we went to my parents' room for a little while before going into the nearby town of Tusayan for a luncheon. The luncheon was held at a brand new Western museum (they had their grand opening later that day) with Grand Canyon and Old West history, as well as a very nice collection of Grand Canyon art. The art was probably the real reason for getting the group there, and the man whose collection the art is from gave a little rambling speech about art. After lunch I got checked into my room and dumped all the stuff off of my bike. I went with my parents for a drive along the south rim west of the village. The road is normally closed to private vehicles, but artists were given special permission for the event. After stopping and checking out a few overlooks, my dad set up to paint and I went for a little run. I ran about 2 miles along the unpaved south rim trail, which was fairly level, well maintained, mostly shaded, and of course had spectacular views. My mom picked me up down the road and we went back to the room for a little bit while my dad painted. Later on, we all went to one of the lodges to meet up with some of the other artists for pizza.

Right around sunrise on Tuesday I rode south toward Flagstaff, to the Arizona Snowbowl, which I had briefly stopped at a couple of years ago (but didn't hike to AZ's highpoint). It felt like a decent temperature standing in the parking lot in Grand Canyon Village, but I was soon glad I was wearing my chaps and heavy jacket- a sign in Tusayan said the temperature was 47, which I didn't entirely believe, but it was pretty cool. It warmed up as I went south and into slightly lower altitude, but it started cooling off again as I climbed again into the San Francisco Peaks. I arrived at the trailhead parking area (around 9,000 ft elevation) and changed from riding gear to hiking gear. The very start of the trail crosses a clearing that, in the winter, is a ski trail, then it goes through the woods up to tree line. My first stop was in a switchback right next to a very rocky slope that might have been a nice ski run except that the ski area is on Agassiz Peak, and I was climbing Humphreys Peak. My second stop was right at tree line, just before the trail reached a saddle, where in one direction the trail went to Humphreys and in the other direction went up some subsidiary peaks. I had passed three people who were also going up on my way up, and just above the saddle passed a woman descending from the summit. The end of the trail was all rocky, and in a couple of places a bit hard to follow. The air was thinner up top, but not nearly as bad as Elbert was (being almost 2000 feet shorter at 12,633 ft). However, right at the summit the strong wind brought a lungfull of smoke from the many (hopefully) prescribed burns in the area, which was rather unpleasant. Fortunately it didn't stay too smoky, it was mainly that initial blast right as I summitted. I ducked behind the rock wind shelter, where there were already two women from Indiana resting from their climb. One woman was a fellow highpointer, and she had done some I haven't yet, and she hadn't done Rainier yet, so we chatted and traded notes. It was her friend's first highpoint, and had been sort of dragged along for the trip. I took some pictures from the summit (and had the women take one of me), but visibility was pretty low because of the fires, then started down just ahead of the two women. They caught up to me when I took a long break partway down to air my feet out, retape my blisters (from Elbert), and put on clean socks. Feeling refreshed from the break, I started jogging down, at least over the dirt sections of the trail, and slowing down over the rocky sections. I passed the women again, as well as a number of people going up, and made it back to my bike around 1:30, roughly 5 and a half hours after I had started. I changed back into riding mode, and headed on my way- but naturally I didn't take the most direct route back to the Grand Canyon, I went through Flagstaff and stopped at the Harley shop west of town for a t-shirt. They also had a roadhouse-style restaurant on their property, and since I was hungry I went in for a hamburger. The place was almost deserted and it was "grill your own" meat, but it turned out okay. I got back around 4, got cleaned up, and a little later went to dinner with my parents at the El Tovar Hotel in the village. It was a really nice place and the food was delicious- I had a pork chop, my dad had duck, and my mom had a shrimp dish. After dinner we met up with some of the other artists in the lounge area back at the training center. At one point, it was like back in school with yearbooks, with the artists passing copies of the event catalog for the other artists to sign by the work they submitted for the show.

Wednesday morning I went with my parents to Yaki Point to watch the sun rise. The Grand Canyon is pretty spectacular from pretty much any point and with any light, but it felt extra special at sunrise. We went over to the South Kaibab trailhead, where my dad set up to do a painting and I started on a hike down into the canyon. My mom went with me a very short ways down the trail, then watched as I shrunk away down the switchbacks. It only took me about 25 minutes to get down to Cedar Ridge, which I had confused myself into thinking was as far as I had intended to go. When I realized I had confused the 3 miles roundtrip to Cedar Ridge with the 3 miles one way I had intended, I continued down into the canyon until I got to Skeleton Point, 2,000 feet vertically below the rim, around 8 am. Just below that point was the first view down to the river. There are rapids at the point of the river that is visible, and I could hear them 2,500 feet below. The view was spectacular, and a completely different perspective than looking down from the rim. I probably would have gone a little further down, but I didn't want to keep my parents waiting since they were expecting me to take about 3 hours. I probably wouldn't have tried to go all the way to the river, since it is highly discouraged as a day hike, and the temperature that far down was still over 100 degrees, even though it was so pleasant on the rim. When I started planning this trip, I briefly considered doing a "rim to rim," hiking from the north to the south rim, but what I read didn't recommend it, and the high temperatures down in the canyon dissuaded me. It will remain on my list of things to do "some day" for now. I started back up the trail charging hard, until I had to stop to catch my breath. I took a longer break once I got back to Cedar Ridge, then started the charge back up to the rim. There were quite a few people coming down in the other direction, which made me think "if this is the less popular trail, I'd hate to be on Bright Angel Trail." I got back up to the trailhead around 9:30, just as my mom was coming over thinking she would see me coming back up the switchbacks. We loaded up and went further east to Shoshone Point, which is sort of a narrow peninsula into the canyon from the rim and giving a panoramic view. I of course rushed out to the end, while my mom could barely stand to watch me. It was a really nice spot, and hard for most tourists to get to, so it was quiet and not surprisingly there were a few artists set up in the area. We headed back to the village from there, and after lunch I zonked out and had my only nap of the trip. That evening I went with my parents and the other artists to dinner at the park superintendent's house in the village, along with some other park employees and sponsors of the event. It was informal, with heavy hors d'oeuvres instead of an entree. I enjoyed the whole thing, but especially getting to talk to the superintendent and assistant superintendent. Being pretty high up the food chain of the parks department, they've both traveled all over to various National Parks and I always enjoy talking about the parks. The Grand Canyon superintendent, Steve Martin (no relation), was previously superintendent of Grand Teton National park and has climbed Grand Teton several times, so I was able to talk climbing with him as well. I really could have talked to him all night, but obviously he had to socialize with everybody. Later on, back at the training center one of the artists gave me and my parents a preview of the work he'd been doing as well as that of his roommate. It was all spectacular, and I arranged to purchase one of Cody DeLong's plein air paintings he had done that week. If I had stayed longer, I might have purchased some from other artists as well, but the road she is a harsh mistress.

I got the bike all packed up and left Grand Canyon right at dawn on Thursday. I was dressed warmly at first, and it was cold again in Tusayan, but it warmed up quickly and I packed away the chaps and jacket at the first gas stop, somewhere on I-40 east of Flagstaff. I cruised along the interstate all the way to Albuquerque, NM, where I made a little stop at Isotopes Stadium. For anyone not a big Simpsons or baseball fan (myself being the former), the name for the team (unofficially) comes from an episode of the Simpsons, where the Springfield Isotopes threaten to move to Albuquerque. My favorite thing about Albuquerque (and I can't say I know much about the city) is that the people chose the name Isotopes. I've always thought about going to a game when they're visiting the Round Rock Express, but never have, so since I was already going through the area, I decided I'd stop in for a visit. Since their season is over, the place was practically shut down and I had to find somebody to sell me a t-shirt, and they didn't have much selection in my size. I took I-25 from there to Santa Fe, where I got the coveted picture of my bike with the Capitol. I went in to look around, even though I had already seen the inside in February. When I got back on the bike, it was not happy. It was popping, sputtering, and just plain running like crap. I tried pulling over and shutting it off, to see if maybe it was just in some funky mode and needed to be reset or something. When that didn't work, the only thing I could think is that maybe it was overheated, so I pulled over and parked under a tree for fifteen minutes. I was really worried, and was thinking I might have to get it towed to the local Harley shop or something- but at least I was in a major city and close to a shop. I tried starting her again after 15 minutes for both of us to cool down (it was actually not that hot in Santa Fe, it was hotter in Albuquerque), and whatever Gremlin had been fouling things up had moved on, and the bike ran just fine. I headed a pretty good ways north from Santa Fe, almost to Colorado, before turning east toward Texas. When mapping out the route, I found that if I just added a minor detour, I could add a few new New Mexico counties, so of course that's the route I took. This would have been a perfectly fine strategy, except that it was getting dark, and this was a rural area. I was pretty relieved that I was able to get gas in the tiny town of Roy, even if it was low-grade. It was really dark when I headed out the small road back to the US highway. It wasn't long before I saw one of the most dreaded country sights: the glow of reflection of an animal's eyes. First, there were a whole bunch of deer, and later I saw a solitary deer. I almost locked the wheels up stopping for the first bunch from ~50 mph, but kept my speed down closer to 40 after that. I was glad to make it back to the highway intact, and even though traffic was very light, a few cars felt better than no cars. I stopped for the night just short of the Texas border in the town of Clayton, some time after 9.

I got going a little after sunrise, had the pretty decent breakfast, and headed for Texas. As ever, I didn't take the direct route home, I wound my way through the last 5 counties in the panhandle I had yet to ride through. The riding was pretty standard for a second straight 700 mile day- my back was not happy, I was pretty much sick of my iPod, and I mostly just wanted to be home already. There were a lot of clouds in the sky as I approached Llano and the sun was setting. I could see there was rain in the area, so I pulled over and got on my rain gear just outside of town. Fortunately, I didn't run into any actual rain, but did go through some spots of wet pavement, so it was definitely nearby. I got home around 10 but didn't wind up going to sleep until almost 1. I didn't do much of anything over the weekend, just tried to get caught up with the postal mail and my work email. I would have mowed the badly overgrown lawn, but it sprinkled on and off both days.

The final tally for the trip is 3866 miles in 10 days. Good trip, but too much in too little time, as always.

Road Trip 2010, Part 1

On Wednesday, September 8, I set out on my first long motorcycle trip of the year. I've been doing so much cycling and so little motorcycle riding, I'm pretty sure up until this trip I had put more miles on the bicycle than either motorcycle in 2010. I had originally planned on leaving Tuesday, but I wound up having to do something Wednesday morning, so I left as soon as that was done. It's just as well I had to wait, the whole region was getting lashed with rain on Tuesday from Tropical Storm Hermine. I rode just to the corner station to fill up with gas and check that the bike was running well, and got wet even with my rain gear on. It was a lot milder in the morning, but I still got rained on steadily from Austin to Lampasas, then off and on for the rest of the day. I went through a few areas where it was actually sunny, and as soon as I thought that maybe the rain was done and I could take my rain gear off at the next stop, I would hit another patch of rain. My rain gear didn't do the best job of keeping me dry, the top and bottom of my shirt and the bottoms of my pants got wet. The sunny stretches allowed my shirt to mostly dry out, but my pant legs, and worst of all, my socks, stayed wet the entire day. I finally stopped in Guymon, Oklahoma and got dry and a decent night's rest. On the positive side, I did ride through 7 Texas counties and one OK county I'd never ridden through before.

I got packed up and moving on early on Thursday, and got to the Kansas line right around sunrise. I headed north along the western end of the state to its highest point, just east of the Colorado line. The biggest challenge in getting to the highpoint was riding on gravel roads, but that's not exactly anything new. It was the Fat Boy's third actual highpoint (NE and OH the others), so at least that's something. While I was there a man and (I'm guessing) his two sons drove up, who were fellow highpointers. I took a picture of them in front of the highpoint marker, which is kind of a neat metal sculpture, including a sunflower (the point is called Mount Sunflower, even though it's not a mountain). I rode a gravel road from there to the interstate, and headed west to Denver. The weather had been pretty pleasant, but it was hot in Denver. I went to the Capitol, but there was no place to stop for a picture in front, so I had to get one around back. I parked and went inside for a look around. I climbed up into the dome just as the woman was getting ready to close it down for the day. The view was really nice and the breeze up there was great. I hit some traffic on my way out of the city, but fortunately it was just rubberneckers, and not the multi-car pileup in the other direction. The temperature dropped, from quite nice to downright chilly, as I climbed into the mountains, and then it would warm up again descending from the mountain passes. As I have previously, I went through the Eisenhower Tunnel, the highest (and longest) in the US, at over 11,000 feet above sea level. On the way down, I was chasing a semi that seemed to be on fire, as it was spewing foul smoke. I eventually got off of the interstate and headed to Leadville (the highest city in the US). I gassed up and headed just outside of town toward the Elbert trailhead. I found the turn I somehow missed when I was there in 2008, and found myself a campsite in the National Forest campground. I would have just stayed put for the night, but what I didn't realize at first is that the campground was effectively closed for the season- the restrooms (pit toilets) were locked, but there was no fee at least. The manual water pumps (if they were operational at all) had had their handles removed, so there was no water. I set up camp and rode back to town to get water, and I also picked up some cookies and other carbs for the hike the next morning. It was starting to get dark as I made my way back to camp, which is exactly what I wanted to avoid. That wasn't the real problem, though. I realized, after it was already dark and I had no interest in going back to town, that the batteries in my headlamp were nearly dead. I also searched everywhere and didn't have a backup flashlight anywhere. I used to keep a mini-maglite in my backpack as a backup, but I probably took it out to fly somewhere. Of course there was no moon out at that point, and after a little while the headlamp was putting out only slightly more light than the stars. I managed to prepare and eat dinner, and did find a lighter for emergency lighting. On the positive, I did see more stars that night than almost any other time in my life.

It was still dark when I woke up Friday morning. I fumbled about for a while getting stuff sorted out for the hike. It started getting light as I was packing the bike back up, and the sun was rising by the time I got to the trailhead. The toilets there were not locked, so I availed myself of one. There was a pretty big group of guys of various ages (mostly 10+ years older than me) that left a couple of minutes before I did, but I caught up with them in less than 10 minutes. I passed most of them before catching up with the youngest at the front. He must have thought I was with his group at first, because he seemed surprised when he turned around and looked at me. After a little ways, there was a flat traverse section, and I decided to jog a little bit. In retrospect, I probably should have saved my energy, but I was feeling strong. I passed an older guy by himself just after the trail started climbing again. He caught up to me when I stopped for a 10 minute break not long after, and he said he was from Nashville. I think he must have turned back before the summit, because I didn't see him again. It was only about 15 minutes after my break that I reached tree line (around 12,000 ft), and took a quick break to put on sunscreen and sunglasses. It started to get steeped from there, and the air was definitely getting thinner. I met a couple coming down who had been at the summit for sunrise. The air was getting really thin by the time I got to the first of several false summits around 14,000 ft. I would only go about 50 feet before having to pause for breath, and every time I restarted from a stop I got a head rush. Fortunately, the trail from 14,000 to the summit (14,440) was not very steep. The wind, which had been blowing pretty good all the way from tree line, was particularly strong at the summit. Thankfully, there are several low rock walls for shelter. There were two people at the summit when I got there. I had them take my picture before they started back down. I didn't stay very long at the summit, mainly because it was cold and windy. I passed a number of people on their way up as I was descending. Some of them were not exactly thrilled to hear how much further they had to go. I passed the big group I had passed in the beginning just before I got back to tree line. I was feeling pretty tired when I stopped for a break just below tree line. I took my boots and socks off for a while, ate something, and relaxed for a few minutes. I was a bit more energetic after the break and clean, dry (but thin) socks, but it wasn't long after that I was feeling pretty sapped again. I pushed myself for a while, but ultimately decided that I didn't really have to rush and took my time. Ultimately, it took my almost 3 hours from the top to the bottom, and it had only taken me 3 and a half from the bottom to the top. I had to do some rearranging of the bike before I could head back down the gravel road toward town. I rode south and then west to the town of Gunnison. For whatever reason, the first chain hotels I tried were full (or only had an expensive room available), so I wound up staying at a small family-owned motel. It wasn't much and the room was very tiny, but it had what I really needed- a shower. I had dinner at the place the clerk recommended, but it was not very good and the steak prices were significantly higher than Austin's. After dinner I used the motel's curious hot tub in a little wooden house in the middle of the parking lot. It felt pretty good nonetheless, and soon after I was socked out in front of the TV.

It was very cold Saturday morning- the local weather was saying 26 degrees, which was pretty much confirmed by the frost on my bike and the several other bikes in the parking lot. I brushed the ice off and packed the bike anyway. I had breakfast along with the owners of some of those other bikes. We chatted a bit about our rides in the area until I finished and got geared up for my morning ride. I had every piece of warm riding gear with me on, and I was still freezing. The temperature had started to rise, but I had not yet begun to thaw when I got to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park about an hour away. I started to warm up in the visitors center, and moreso when I walked down to a view point and back up. Since a ranger program was starting soon, I rode down to the river to the East Portal ranger station. The road down might just be the steepest paved road in the US at 16% grade. The bike wasn't entirely happy, it was backfiring the whole way down. I found the talk interesting- it was about the Gunnison Tunnel, which at the time of its completion was the longest irrigation tunnel in the world, and is now a National Civil Engineering Landmark. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the tunnel itself, since it is still in operation, providing water for the area's fruit trees and other crops. After the program, I rode back up the steep road and checked out the vistas along the canyon rim. It was pretty impressive- very tall and quite steep. I don't have a great fear of heights, but there was one view point in particular where I had a hard time getting the proper perspective, and it kind of made my head start to swim. At another view point, there were rangers who were checking up on two rock climbers who were coming up just across the way (but still on the same side of the river). That was pretty impressive to see, but even more impressive would have been to climb the Painted Wall, which at 2300 feet is not quite El Capitan, but is the tallest in Colorado. It had warmed up by the time I headed out of the park around noon, and since I still wanted to go a pretty good ways, I got back on the road. The sun was getting close to setting as I was riding pretty much due west into Capitol Reef National Park, so I was having some trouble seeing, but fortunately there was very few other cars. When I got there, the park's one campground was already full, so I went on 10 miles further west into the town of Torrey and got a site at a commercial campground. I had a nice little campfire going and had even picked up some new batteries for my headlamp, even though I didn't need it nearly as badly as I had in Leadville, since there was a big artificial light in this campground.

Sunday morning, I had some breakfast, packed up, and headed back into the park. Since my legs were still sore from Elbert and I wasn't really geared for hiking, I mostly just rode to the various view points, even a couple that were down dirt roads. The one hike I did do was to a natural bridge. It certainly wasn't Arches NP with its dozens of arches and bridges, but it's always cool to see those weird formations. I paid the $3 and took the scenic drive, which honestly wasn't that much more scenic than the main road through the park, but it did offer some spots to pull over and take a few nice pictures of my bike. I headed out of the park around noon, and passed through lots more beautiful landscapes. I particularly enjoyed passing through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which is rated as one of the most scenic roads in the country. I would definitely agree, it was pretty spectacular. It would have been nice to be able to explore it some, but that will have to wait for another trip. I did stop and check out Kodachrome Basin State Park, mainly because of the name and that once I saw it on the map, I couldn't get the Simon and Garfunkel song out of my head. It wasn't a particularly large park, and I didn't think the formations looked all that different from the others I had passed, but it was still a nice place. It sucked to pass right by Bryce Canyon NP and Zion NP and not have enough time to stop, but I have already seen them and really want several days to explore them some day. I headed east toward Page, AZ as the sun was setting, and was treated to a typically gorgeous desert sunset. The hotels in Page seemed to be pretty full and while I might have found a better deal elsewhere, I checked in to the Best Western. After dropping my stuff, I went out for food. For as many foreign tourists as there were in my hotel, the town seemed to be pretty dead. I had a pretty good dinner, then headed back. It wasn't too late, since I had gained an hour by crossing the UT/AZ line, so I went for a swim. The heater for the hot tub was broken, but the pool was open. The air was cool and the pool wasn't especially warm, but it was fine once I eased my way in, and I started swimming laps despite it being an irregularly shaped pool and the lights (in the pool) being off.

Holidays

Last Thursday, Christmas Eve, I went cycling. I didn't have much of anything specific in mind, so as I was riding north on Lamar I decided to see a movie. I decided to see Avatar. I had been planning on skipping it since the reviews that looked past the spectacle have said it wasn't a very good movie, but of the movies that were playing I decided that was what I most wanted to see, even though it cost an extra $2 for the 3-D experience. It may have been due in part to it being the first of the new generation of 3-D movies I've seen, but to me the spectacle was enough to make it an enjoyable experience and worth the $8. After the movie, I went to the bicycle shop down the street. I had been looking around at different places about buying a new road bike, and I was pretty much decided on buying it from this shop and that was good of a day as any other. I test rode a few around their parking lot, and decided to go with the Specialized Secteur. There was one I liked a little bit better, mainly because it came with 105 components instead of Sora, but it was more than I really wanted to spend. The Secteur frame is slightly stretched compared with a traditional road bike, which is supposed to make it more comfortable for long rides. I don't have any immediate plans for anything close to a long ride, but around the parking lot it handled more like what I'm used to, not as twitchy as the lower end bike I tested. Since it was getting kind of late in the day and the store was going to close before too long, I decided to lock up my Roma to their bike rack and ride the Secteur home. It was immediate trial by fire, riding a brand new bicycle on the side of a busy street. I had to figure out the gears, handling, and even where I wanted to put my hands since there are three different possible positions. One of the biggest things, though, was getting used to toe clips. It's been many years since I've ridden a bike with toe clips, and to try to remember/figure out how to get my foot back in them after stopping. I've gotten a little more used to it now, but I was not having an easy time with them then. For probably many reasons I was having trouble setting and keeping a good pace. I was fitted for the bike, and it seems like the proper seat height is lower than what I was used to. The gearing is quite different, and with the compact 2-ring front derailleur there's a really big difference between the two. I wound up over-exerting myself and a couple of times had to throttle back to keep from getting a cramp. At least I made it home without wrecking or getting hit or anything.

I woke up around 7 Christmas morning and had enough time to open the few gifts from my parents before heading to the Dallas area for dinner with my aunt, uncle, grandmother, cousin and her family. The day before the Dallas area had gotten a rare snowstorm that actually stuck. On the interstate, all it amounted to when I got there was a little bit of water on the road and occasional patches of snow in the median. Once I got of the highway, though, the road hadn't been cleared as well and there was some slush left in the middle of the road. That (and the expected 50 degree high) made me glad I hadn't decided to ride my motorcycle. We had a really nice home cooked dinner around 1 and a little later exchanged gifts. My cousin's kids (7 and 10) and I played with the little nerf guns she had given each of us for a good while until they went home. I spent the night there at my aunt and uncle's after a rather subdued evening.

Saturday morning after breakfast I left for Colorado Bend State Park, just outside of the tiny town of Bend. I got to the headquarters (all the way into the park) around 1:30 and decided I would take the 2 o'clock guided tour of Gorman Falls. I also signed up for the cave tour the next morning as well as paying to camp for the night. I walked around that area for a bit before meeting the guide, Kevin, and following him in my car to the falls area. At the gate, since I was the only one taking the tour, I hopped in his truck for the last mile past the gate to an old hunting lodge. The falls are actually quite impressive, a stream over 60 feet of travertine. It formed in essentially the same way that cave formations do, where the limestone is dissolved upstream, flows in the creek and then deposits the minerals forming, essentially, a big dripping wall. Kevin gave me all kinds of information about the falls as well as the park in general. He said that there was more water flowing than he had ever seen, so it was nice to see it so full. In some sections the water fell almost like mist, and in a couple of places was a full stream. Another interesting thing nearby was an old car buried in the bank of the river. On the ride back to my car in the truck, there were calls over the radio about shots fired, directly across the river from where I had planned to camp. When I got back to headquarters, they told me they wouldn't let me camp in that area and I could pick any of the regular campsites, that are usually a few dollars more, for the same price. Since there was nobody else camping, I could pick literally any of the sites. After a quick survey, I decided to take site #7. The plus side of camping in that area was that I could have a fire, so I bought some wood. I had planned on waiting to light it until after dark, but as soon as the sun started going down the temperature dropped rapidly from the beautiful 50-degree day it had been. After I got the fire going I made dinner and read the newspaper. I sat in front of the fire reading (my book after I finished the paper) until around 10, at which point it was quite cool. Around 6 o'clock, I saw a car pull in. Since the headquarters had already closed, they must not have had much of an idea of where to camp, because out of literally any site they could have chosen, they set up in the one next to mine. It's not like it was a big deal, he didn't bother me or anything, it was just kind of funny.

I don't know exactly how cold it got overnight, but it was cold enough that when I went to get some water to make oatmeal, the spigot was frozen solid. I ate a couple of granola bars instead, which were so cold I warmed them up in the rekindled fire. I managed to stay warm overnight in my down sleeping bag with two layers of clothes on. I packed up and doused the fire and after scraping off some of the ice on the car, went to join a couple to wait for the 9:15 cave tour. Kevin was the guide again, and we caravaned to a parking area for the somewhat secretive trail leading to the cave. The park has 350 known caves, but the one we were going to, Gorman Cave, is, if I remember correctly, the largest by volume (but not the longest). The trail Kevin led us on to the cave was really nice, especially on such a beautiful morning. We stopped at the top of a box canyon, and then continued along its rim before dropping down to the river bank. We followed the trail along the river for a little bit before we got the entrance to the cave. The cave was pretty nice, but since it was private property until only about 30 years ago, so it wasn't protected and subsequently was filled with a lot of graffiti and a lot of formations were broken. One kind of neat graffito, though, was one dated 1883 that has been authenticated as actually being that old. Since it is a wild cave and the area has gotten some flooding recently, there were several places we had to cross through water. It was never deeper than my boots, but the boots seem to be a bit less waterproof than they should be. I didn't have puddles at my feet, but my socks were damp. We took our time going through the cave- even though we only went about 1000 feet in, we took two hours doing it. We stopped at a gate, after which point the oxygen levels are low and it goes underwater. We didn't take much time retracing our steps to the entrance. We decided to go out a different natural entrance near the one we had come in, which required a little bit of a scramble up a talus slope. On our hike back to our vehicles we took a different route, which took us past an old abandoned gold mine. I chatted with Kevin most of the way back to the car. I drove back to the headquarters and set out for a hike. The first two miles were nothing too special. I took a break at 2 when I got to the road, then crossed over and headed for Spicewood Springs. It was all going just fine until the first time I crossed the creek. Due to two big recent floods, a lot of their trail markers were lost, as well as the trail itself being damaged. Since the park doesn't get that many visitors, and the trails have only been built in the past few years, it wasn't exactly a major, obvious trail to begin with. The markers that they had replaced they only set up for people coming from the opposite direction as I was going. I lost the trail several times, but I knew I couldn't get too lost, I just had to follow the creek. The stream itself was really nice, it had clear water, and there were numerous small waterfalls along the way. It was frustrating trying to follow the trail, and my pace was pretty slow. Finally around 3 I came to a swimming hole that seemed to be more popular with visitors. The path from there back to headquarters was wide enough to drive a vehicle down, so I made quick time that last half a mile. I stopped in and bought a Dr Pepper and complained about the trail. I left the park and got home just before dark.

I had the day off Monday as well, but wound up having to do a good bit of work anyway, but at least I didn't have to go in to the office. In the afternoon I was able to get away and go for a second ride on the new bicycle. I went for a pretty basic ride over to the veloway. I was already feeling fatigued when I got there, so I only did one lap, then rode home. I had originally wanted to take the whole week off, but had too much work to do. I was able to take New Year's Eve off, and around 11 I went for the third ride, which went better than the previous two. I think I managed to find a better pace and what gearing I wanted. I again rode to the veloway and did three laps. I stopped for lunch on my way home, and called it a pretty good ride.

At the end of 2009, the Fat Boy's odometer reads 101921, and the Night Train's reads 7285. That only adds up to just over 11,000, which I'm pretty sure is the least number of miles ridden since at least 2002. I was going to take the Night Train for a little ride today since I haven't ridden it in a while, but the battery was dead. I tried hooking up the charger for just 25 minutes, but it wasn't enough to get it started. Unfortunately Harley batteries don't last very long, so it may be due for a replacement.
As for my bicycles, I don't think I rode my mountain bike at all (and it's been sitting over at Jimmy's for months); the Roma's odometer reads 1362, most of which is from this year since I got the computer last December; the Secteur's mileage is approximately 45, but I haven't rigged it up with a computer yet. I looked into getting a second cradle for the computer I have (since it can do two bicycles), but that would cost only slightly less than getting another one like I already have, so I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet.

And finally, rather than make New Year's resolutions, I thought I would make some goals for 2010:

• Complete riding in all of Texas' 254 counties
  
• At least five state highpoints (this can include revisiting ones)
  
• At least five state capitols (can include touring ones I only photographed)
  
• Enter some sort of athletic competition
  

Costa Rica

On Thursday, November 19th, I flew to Costa Rica for a week of vacation with my parents. I got a call from them before I left for my afternoon flight that there were airport delays because of a computer problem or something, but my flights were still listed as on-time. I had a short layover in Dallas and then a four hour flight arriving in San Jose around 9. While waiting to go through immigration, I picked up some free wi-fi and found a email from my dad saying that they had missed their connection in Miami and had to spend the night there and would arrive in Costa Rica the next day. Fortunately we had planned for this possibility, so I had the hotel information. It was soon apparent that, as promised, a lot of people spoke English fairly well and that US dollars are an accepted currency (in addition to the native colones). I paid $3 to a taxi dispatcher, and got in a cab. The hotel was only about a mile from the airport, so we got there quickly and that's all the fare was. It took a few minutes for the driver and security guy to negotiate that I was in fact a guest for the evening and let me in. The guard showed me to my room and tried to ask what time I wanted to have breakfast, but we couldn't understand each other, so another employee who speaks English called to ask. I had trouble getting to sleep since it was kind of warm and pretty humid, and no air conditioning. I couldn't quite figure out the overhead fan to get it to go fast or at least not hum so much, either.

Friday morning, in what would be a recurrent theme, I woke up with the sun and the many birds around 5:30. I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't, and read my book until around 7. The hotel served a traditional breakfast- delicious fresh fruit, eggs, and rice and black beans. I would have gone for a walk or something, but the neighborhood didn't look very good when I got in, so I just went back and read in the room. By the time I thought that maybe I should take a taxi to see the downtown area, it was too close to when my parents were due in. I wound up finishing my book, Jon Krakauer's new one, Where Men Win Glory, by noon. I checked out and waited on the porch reading a magazine until my parents arrived at 1. After saying hello, we threw my stuff in the car and headed toward our destination for the next two nights near Arenal Volcano. Initially we were driving on what passes for a major highway in Costa Rica- four narrow lanes, the outer ones looking more like a shoulder in the states- we got off on a smaller road that seemed more typical of the roads in the country. It was paved, but there were numerous one-lane bridges and spots where the road had washed out and the road department just put up warning signs. In some cases, the road surface was torn up and there wasn't even a warning. Also there were lots of tight turns as the roads wound along the steep water-formed valleys in the lush hills. It was kind of sad to see how much of the land near the road had been cleared for farming, which couldn't be easy with the steep slopes. Fortunately the deforestation hasn't been anywhere near as extensive in Costa Rica as in many other tropical countries. Costa Rica seems to have realized that the rainforests are its chief asset, and tourism (especially "eco-tourism") is its major industry. When we got to our hotel and our room we found it was very nice and that it would have an excellent view of the volcano, if only the clouds would clear up. After getting settled a bit, my mom and I soaked in the hot tub for a little while. Later we had a pretty good dinner in the hotel's restaurant.

Saturday morning, the volcano was still hiding behind the clouds. After breakfast we went to Arenal Volcano National Park. We weren't far when it started to rain. We all had rain jackets, but my mom's was old and worn out and didn't really offer any protection. She decided to turn back toward the car, and my dad went with her. They let me go on hiking while they kept themselves busy. On my own, I went at my pace, which is of course much faster. I left the hard-packed main trail for a muddy side trail through dense forest. It was my first taste of a real tropical rainforest. The rain came down in varying levels- never too heavy, but never quite letting up. At one point I thought I must have been near a river, but realized it was just that the rain on the leaves was particularly loud at that point. By the time I got back to the main trail, I was pretty muddy from the waist down. I was thinking I'd just head back, but realized I was pretty much at the end of the trail, so I climbed up onto field of large volcanic rocks. If it hadn't been for the clouds, it probably would have been an excellent view of the volcano. In the other direction I could just see Lake Arenal through the clouds. On the way back to the car it was quite evident that a lot more people had shown up since we arrived, and there were a few tour buses as further evidence in the parking lot. From the park, we drove on to what was supposed to be one of the finest craft shops in the country, except that it was closed. At a shop further down the road run by American expats, we found out that it had recently closed, and another place my mom was interested in had closed several years ago- proof that our supposedly recent guide book was out of date. When we got back to the hotel the rain had stopped and it looked like the sky might actually clear. I wanted to go for a hike or something in the afternoon, but there was nowhere I could walk to from the hotel, and driving around it didn't seem like there was much of any place else to go hiking, at least not without some charge. I wandered around the property and found they had something of a nature walk, although it seemed to not have been completed. I sat on the porch of our room for a while, watching for the clouds to clear from the volcano while my dad was painting. The clouds started to lift and seemed like we might actually see the volcano, then another cloud came along and obscured it again. It went on like that a few times until the sun started to set, and more of a layer of clouds rolled in. We went into the small nearby town to look around and ostensibly to have dinner. We went into a couple of shops that had some interesting wood stuff, and that was about the only thing that seemed all that interesting. We were going to have dinner at a place there, but it didn't have anything we were particularly interested in eating and seemed a little expensive, so we just went back to the hotel and shared a pizza.

Sunday we got up, had breakfast, checked out and headed on to our destination for the next two nights- the town of Monteverde at a higher elevation in the "cloud forest." Monteverde is not very far, as the crow flies, from Arenal, but it takes a while to get there over narrow winding dirt roads. Along the road we stopped at a place with waterfalls we had picked up a brochure for. The place was called Viento Fresco Waterfalls, and it lived up to its windy moniker. The poorly translated brochure might have been a warning, but the guy selling tickets only spoke a little more English than any of us spoke Spanish. After his pidgin description my mom correctly surmised that it would be more walking than she cared for. The dirt road we had already come across from Arenal was enough to convince us that we had made the right choice in upgrading the rental car to a 4x4, but the tiny single-lane "road" down to the parking area for the waterfalls really required it. Either my dad and I or the people in charge of the place (or both) are not the best judges of distance in meters, and it seemed as though we should have already come to the trail when we saw a trail heading up. We thought it must be a trail to the first waterfall, even though it wasn't marked. We hiked up and found that it only led back to the narrow road we had been coming down. We did get a close-up view of a few vultures taking off, so it wasn't a total waste of energy. We got back to the car and drove just a little further to the actual parking area, where there were signs pointing to the waterfalls. The trail wasn't great- fairly steep concrete steps that were a little slippery and a "railing" that was more like irrigation tubing. The first of the four falls of one small stream was the most accessible, and the others descended from there probably about 500 vertical feet to the lowest one. The first one was nice and they had added a small dam for people to be able to swim. The second was nice, with the water dropping from around a big boulder, and with miniature caverns behind the falls. The third one, however, was the most dramatic at over 200 feet. It looked as though it was set up to allow people to get into the water or even stand under the falls, but it seemed to me like it would not be fun to have water falling that far and pounding on a person. It seemed as though the place was set up to have plenty of visitors, but we didn't see anybody else while we were there, and in fact according to the visitors book we were the first since Thursday. We decided not to go down to the fourth falls, which was more like a slide than a straight shot like the others. I had some water and a snack before we started making our way back up to the parking area. The drive back up to the "main road" was challenging, but fortunately our car was up to it, and it didn't prove to be a problem. We continued along the dirt road through the beautiful lush green valleys through the small tourist town of Santa Elena (ah, paved roads) to the even smaller "town" of Monteverde and to our hotel. Before we got to the hotel, though, we toured a butterfly garden with four enclosures meant to represent different areas of Costa Rica. Also on that tour was a colony of leaf cutter ants in a glass enclosure to see their fascinating lives. It turns out they don't actually eat the leaves, they bring them in to feed a fungus, and the ants eat the fungus (or a byproduct of it, I'm not certain which). Right near our hotel we stopped at a cheese factory. It wasn't in operation, but we did buy some cheese, which turned out to be quite tasty. Once we got settled in our room we made arrangements for a guided tour of the nearby National Park in the morning, then headed into town. We wound up having a delicious dinner at a small tapas restaurant owned by an American expat.

Monday morning we had breakfast early, then met up with our guide and another couple staying at the hotel for a tour of Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve, a short distance up a muddy road from where we were staying. The reason we decided to hire a guide rather than just find our own way was in hopes of seeing the famous but hard to find quetzal, a colorful bird with a long tail. Our guide was from the area and spoke excellent English, and knew the flora and fauna of Costa Rica in general and specifically in this park. It was also nice to have the guide because none of us had thought to bring binoculars and the guide had a spotting scope on a tripod so we could see things we'd never be able to see with our naked eyes. There were a number of birds flying around, but most of them jumped around too quickly to get a real good look at. We walked to one area where the quetzal had been seen, I believe it was near a nest. The guide pointed out lots of the plants along the way, including numerous orchids, most of them very tiny. Most of the trees were alive with epiphytes that live off of nutrients and water in the clouds that pass through pretty much every day of the year. We waited around in that first spot for a little while, all of us with our eyes peeled for any possible sighting. After not seeing anything there, we moved on to see if maybe we would spot it elsewhere. Whenever we passed other groups, the guides would confer as to whether they had seen a quetzal or if they had heard anything, which was nice to see the cooperation. After coming up empty in that area of the park, we went back to the entrance for a quick break and then went into another area. We went pretty much straight to a large tree bearing small avocados, a favorite food of the quetzal. In all likelihood a bird would be at that tree sometime in that next day or two, but since we didn't have that kind of time, we headed back having seen a lot of and learned a lot about the cloud forest. In addition to all the stuff about plants and wildlife, he said he had climbed Cerro Chirripó, the highest mountain in Costa Rica three times, which is something I would have liked to be able to do but didn't have time for this trip. We ended the tour at a shop near the entrance with several hummingbird feeders and lots of hummingbirds, in at least six or eight species, but probably a lot more than that visit them. We went back to the hotel and had a simple lunch. Later my dad dropped my off back at the entrance to the park, where I got a trail map and the woman gave me some information about the trails. I started out on the trail up to the continental divide. The first stretch of trail was pretty nice and hard packed, but then it connected to a muddy dirt road. It was pretty cloudy up at the continental divide. I could see maybe 100 yards or so toward the Atlantic, and could just make out the Gulf of Nicoya, but not the Pacific proper. Nonetheless, it was a really nice view. From there, I would have taken this other trail, but it was closed off. I headed back down the 'Camino' (road) trail until I got to another trail that led upwards. I took that until it intersected another trail that went even further uphill. When I was near the crest of that trail, I came to another trail. The woman at the entrance had marked on my map that this trail was closed, but there wasn't any barricade or anything on the trail itself marking it as closed. Figuring that it led to some overlook or something of interest, or perhaps that it was some other trail entirely, I headed up it. Not far from that intersection, the trail turned from easy-going concrete blocks to slippery tree slices. The slices had, at some time, had wire mesh on them to provide traction, but almost all of it was gone. I hadn't seen anything particularly interesting when the trail started downhill. At that point I was sure that I was on the trail that I had been told was closed, but I figured that I had come this far and there were no warnings or anything, I would continue on. The trail heading downhill looked more like a dry stream bed than a proper trail. It was slippery and had big steps. Most of the way down I was just hoping that I wouldn't have to turn around and go back that way. When I came to the end of that trail at a 'T' junction with another trail, it was blocked off to the left. I started to the right, which I was pretty sure was the same trail that was blocked off near the divide. I soon saw why it had been blocked- a boardwalk through a swampy section had been heaved up when a tree that had been standing next to it fell. The boardwalk ahead was up about waist high and canted precariously to the right. It seemed far too dangerous to proceed, and I headed back to the rough trail I had taken down. I certainly didn't mind the hiking itself, and in fact I felt much better than I had when I woke up congested that morning, but I was a little ticked off. I cut a piece of the caution tape blocking the trail that our guide said was closed because of a landslide, and made my way back up. At the top I tied the tape around some vegetation across the path, hoping at least to warn the next person who might come along. When I got back almost to within sight of the entrance station, I took another trail heading away to go to a "sky bridge." The bridge across a narrow valley was metal with a grate for a deck and shook noticeably when anyone walked on it, but it gave an incredible up-close view of the canopy of the trees. The bromeliads, orchids and other stuff that normally lives way up high was almost literally within reach. After taking some photos and enjoying the view, I hiked back to the entrance station. I was pleasantly surprised to see my parents were sitting there. After cleaning myself off a little bit, we went back to the hotel and I more fully cleaned up. We went to town and had dinner at the sister restaurant of the the place we had eaten the night before, with "nuevo latino" cuisine. It was also delicious.

We had breakfast early again Tuesday, and the around 7 I was picked up for the "canopy tour," really just a series of zip lines (not meant to be educational), that I had signed up for, but my parents had no interest in. Apparently the Monteverde area is the origin of the canopy tour, and it has several choices. The woman at the hotel had suggested this one, eXtremo, since it's newer and has longer runs than some of the other places. Since I was the farthest from the place, I was the first picked up by their van. We picked up more people in Santa Elena at a few different places. First was a couple who I never quite figured out where they were from, possible Spain or Italy. Also in town were two guys from Israel and two guys from Montreal. At our last stop we picked up a couple from Colorado that had actually been at the restaurant we were at the night before, and an Indian couple from San Francisco. We all payed up and got outfitted with the safety gear- a climbing harness, helmet, and a pair of gloves with a thick patch of leather. We got a quick lesson in what we needed to know and do, and learned that the leather on the gloves is to steady and slow oneself on the line. With that, we climbed up a staircase to the first line. The first two lines were pretty short and since they went quickly required quite a few guides, more than I realized at first, in order to have one at each end of each line. Those two were pretty quick and easy, after the initial instruction to sit down, hold rope with one hand and put the other on the line. When we got to that third line, however, it was a lot longer and more unnerving. The woman from Colorado balked at first when she looked out, but calmed enough pretty quickly and went across. I don't remember the exact sequence of the, I believe, 14 different lines we did, but the longer ones crossed a picturesque valley that might have been some sort of farm. We crossed this valley four times in total, with other shorter lines on each side. One of the short ones was the fastest, with a simple arresting system at the end. The second fastest, however, didn't have the arrester and they told us we had to start braking ourselves in the middle of the line, and to stop using both hands. I was pretty unsure of changing up anything about the traverses and moving my left hand from the safety lines to the zip line. I managed to do it, well enough that I didn't have enough momentum at the end and had to "crawl" along the wire, running over my glove with the pulley a couple of times. The last thing we did before the final wire was the "Tarzan swing," jumping from a high platform, swinging out into the trees and being caught on a lower platform. I say jump, but really the guides pushed everybody off the platform. It's one thing to intellectually know that everything should be fine, but it's not easy to take that step off of a fairly secure platform into nothing. For me the scariest part of it, other than the first step, was the initial couple of feet of freefall before the ropes tighten and take the weight. The swinging part was pretty cool, and it almost seemed like we would hit a big tree at the far side. Not everybody opted to do the swing. The two Israeli guys were first, and the second one balked after his friend went and he saw what it was like. That made me second, and I got to watch the other people from the lower platform. Only one of the three women opted to jump, and all the other guys did. There was a fair bit of hiking involved, seeing as how gravity only works in one direction, and we wound up exactly where we started. Of course I don't mind, but for most of the time I was following the much younger Canadians and it definitely got my heart going keeping on their heels. Possibly the longest hike was from the Tarzan swing to the last cable, which is nearly 1km long. Most of the clients made it to the launch point before the last people and guides arrived, so we had a good chance to stare it down. The last line was where the "Superman option" kicked in. I hadn't chosen to pay the extra $5 for the privilege of going down head first, and with a second single pulley to hold up my legs behind me. The six people who had chosen to go Superman style went first, then the rest were sent as couples to have enough weight to get a good speed. Since I didn't have a partner, I went with one of the guides, who was in charge of any braking. We had some time after we turned in our gear before the van got back with the 10:30 patrons and to take us back. We mostly talked about our respective Costa Rica trips, most of which were a lot longer than mine. I was dropped off at my hotel at 11:30, as promised, showered, then we checked out and headed for the Pacific. As seems to be the Costa Rican way, we weren't going very far but it still was going to take several hours. We arrived in Manuel Antonio mid-afternoon and checked in to our hotel. Our bungalow didn't have a view of much of anything other than vegetation, but the nearby pavilion had an excellent view of the Pacific. The place we stayed was spread out over quite a bit of ground, and had a variety of rooms, the most unusual being one converted from an actual passenger plane. The hotel also owns a restaurant across the street with a military plane inside of it.

On Wednesday morning, after waking up to the sound of howler monkeys, we went down the street just a short ways from our hotel to Manuel Antonio National Park. The main draw of the park is its beaches and relatively pristine jungle. Because it was a little unclear where the official entrance was, we first went to the "new" entrance station (still under construction), which is farther from the beaches than the "old" entrance. We got our tickets, and my parents drove to the old entrance while I made my way from the new entrance. It started out as a sturdy trail, really more of a primitive road, through the jungle. Since it was early and there was nobody else, I did see some wildlife- several Morpho butterflies, birds, and possibly a sloth or two, but it was hard to tell since they didn't move and they were kind of high up in a tree. A little later, on the narrow foot path to a viewpoint, I passed under several howler monkeys who seemed to be sharing the morning gossip. The viewpoint itself wasn't really all that impressive, just looking over a small bay. I hiked back down to the trail leading to the more secluded beaches of the park. I went past the "fourth beach" toward the fifth. The trail pretty steep and slippery as I got closer to sea level, and it was a good thing there were ropes to keep from slipping since I was just wearing my sneakers. When I got to the "beach," I first found a family of raccoons, then saw that the concrete stairs that used to lead to the water were destroyed, and finally that the beach itself was pretty much gone too, there was more of a patch of debris. I made my way back up the slope and back toward the beaches, sweating in the sultry jungle. I met a couple going toward the end of the trail and kind of tried to tell them there was nothing there, but they weren't native English speakers and probably, like me, felt like they had come too far not to at least see what's there. At beach four I sat down on a log to take my shoes off and get my feet wet. The beach was pretty small, but there were only two people there. I wandered around a bit, but not too far since I hadn't bothered to put on my sandals and the rocks were pretty sharp. I foolishly was lulled by the placid waves to get closer to the water, just as a bigger wave came along and half soaked my shorts. While I was there hanging out for about a half hour, I saw this cool iguana hanging out on the rocks. I knocked off a layer of sand and put my shoes back on to go find my parents on one of the larger more accessible beaches. When I met up with them around 9, the beach was sparsely populated. It started filling up pretty steadily, and by the time we left around 11 there more people than any of us really cared for. While we were there, I went walking on some rocks, the surf splashing over me with every wave. I also went for a little swim, figuring that being in the lee of a small peninsula it would be the calmest ocean water I'd likely ever find. I could definitely feel the rip tide, but overcame it easily enough to go out a fair ways from shore. I'm really not that great of a swimmer, and I headed back when I started to feel the slightest bit tired. My dad painted most of the time, but he and I did the little hike around the peninsula. As we packed ourselves up to head out, a "gang" of white-faced monkeys had moved in looking for unsecured food. They managed to get some cookies or something from some people's stuff near ours. The one thing I hadn't contended with by going through the new entrance was that the old entrance requires fording a small tidal stream. The tide had gone out since my parents had crossed earlier, but it still required getting wet (or crossing the land sharks' boats). I just plowed straight through the waist-deep, kind of icky, water. We went back to the hotel and cleaned up, then went for a bit of a drive and lunch. We ate a Tex-Mex place with an amazing view overlooking the Pacific. I had been thinking of walking back to the beach after lunch, but I was so full and it it was already almost 2 when we got back to the hotel, I just laid down for a little while. I went in search of something I had seen earlier for the first time since arriving in Costa Rica- Dr Pepper. When I got to where I had seen it chained against its will, I was horrified to find its entire environs had been spirited away. I asked at the desk, and the guy told me they had moved the fridge (which had been sitting outside their closed cafe below), but assured me that Dr Pepper was available in the local grocery store. I had looked when we had been earlier and certainly I would have found one had it been there. I actually didn't have much caffeine while I was in Costa Rica, Dr Pepper being my main delivery system. I naively thought maybe this was actually what I needed to kick the habit and I would lose some weight (from the lessened sugar intake), but it wasn't long after returning home that I was back to my 2-a-day habit. Later I walked down to the pool and sat drinking a beer and enjoying another magnificent view until it started to rain a little. I went back to the room and my mom and I went to the pavilion to watch the sunset. We had a simple dinner in our room, which had a kitchenette.

We packed up and headed out Thursday morning, taking the same road along the coast we had come in on. We stopped at Carara National Park, known for its macaws. We paid the entrance fee and the guy gave us the locations of a couple of known nests. The first section of trail was wide and hard packed, with informational signs along the way. As we got to connecting trails, they got smaller and more primitive. In one section, about as far from the entrance as we went, the trail was almost obliterated by a fallen tree. Midway we crossed a bridge over a stream and came to a small hut. It was somewhere in this area that the guide told us there was a macaw nest, but not quite following his explanation, it took us quite a few minutes to finally see it, way up in a big tall tree. It was far enough away that I could barely get a decent photo (as is evident here). We just stood watching as another one came out of the nest. They're magnificently beautiful and it would have been really nice to see them closer, but that's probably not possible outside of a zoo or something. We went for another loop of trail, and as we were getting back to the hut my dad spotted another macaw overhead. When we were almost back to the entrance, some people told us there was a toucan spotted near there. Luckily it was still hanging around when we got there, but again it was hard to get a good look or photo of it. Another thing we saw a few places along the trail were "highways" of leaf-cutter ants with a constant back-and forth between the nest and the tree whose leaves they were harvesting. From the coast we headed back toward San Jose, with enough time to do something else for the afternoon, but not really enough to see any of the other National Parks. My mom wanted to go to one of the numerous botanic gardens in the area, but left it up to me as to which one. I made what would turn out to be a fairly unfortunate choice of one east of San Jose, Lankester Botanic Garden in Cartago, mainly because the guide book showed a nice church in that town. The gardens were actually really nice and diverse. They even had a Japanese style garden and a cactus area. One of the things my mother really liked, and even I thought was pretty neat, was their orchid house. They had more of the large style of orchids that most people are used to seeing than the tiny ones we had seen in the forests, but they had those as well. We drove back into the town and parked to have a look around the church. There was some kind of service going on, so we quietly checked out the interior. It would certainly not make it very high on my list of the most spectacular churches I've been in (if I even had such a list), but it was still a nice place and more impressive of a building than anything else we'd seen. It didn't take that long after leaving the town that the unfortunate side of its location kicked in. Since we were east of town and we were staying by the airport (on the west side of town), we had to cross through San Jose, and it was around 5 o'clock. Traffic was horrendous, and if there was anything akin to an American superhighway around the city, the GPS didn't guide us that way. At one roundabout, the GPS gave misleading information which led us the wrong direction, and getting back took several minutes. There was one place that was under construction where traffic barely moved. Throughout all of this traffic were tons of small motorcycles and scooters that, to me, seemed like they had to be crazy zipping in and out of all the cars and trucks with barely inches to spare in some cases. We finally made it to the hotel, the same place I had spent the first night, around 6:30. We had dinner there, which wasn't bad, but hardly in keeping with a traditional Thanksgiving. I did have a pork chop that was more like ham, which is something we usually have around the holidays, so there is that at least.

My flight Friday was about an hour and half before my parents', but around 9 we just checked out and all went to turn in the car, then just hang out at the airport. My carry on bag was flagged going through security. It turns out that the small first aid kit I usually carry in it includes a pair of scissors, something I don't think I'd ever even realized. I'm fairly sure I'd brought it with me on a plane in the past (not to mention flying to Costa Rica), and never had an issue. For some reason the security person insisted on taking a roll of bandage tape from the kit as well. Curiously, I later realized there was another roll of bandage tape in my bag that I had bought in Seattle. I bought myself a tshirt with the logo for Imperial, the Costa Rican beer I had enjoyed. I was going to buy a bottle of Costa Rican rum as well, but by the time I decided on it, they said it was too late to get it to me on the plane (I couldn't just take it with me). While I was milling around one of the shops, I sampled a chocolate covered coffee bean. I didn't love it at first, not surprising considering I like the smell of coffee but not the drink itself, but it had a sort of addictive property to it. I almost bought a bag, but didn't think I'd really like that much of it. However, it stuck in my mind and I picked up a small bag of them at my local market (origin of the beans unknown). My flight back to Dallas was problem-free, I cleared immigration and customs quickly, so I had a little time to kill. I sat a bar for some beer and college football. The woman sitting next to me works at Taos Ski Valley, which re-ignited my desire to finally go skiing again, and also brought back memories of climbing Wheeler Peak, New Mexico's highest point. Depending on everything else, I'm hoping to make a trip out there this season (or somewhere else, for that matter).

Saturday, after participating in the Chuy's Parade with the HOG chapter, I went to Threadgill's and had myself a nice turkey dinner with dressing and cranberries, and took home a slice of pumpkin pie for later.

Seattle/Rainier Trip: Climbing Rainier

Sunday morning, 8/2, Sean (a co-worker) and Marisa (his wife) picked Stef (another co-worker) and me up from the hotel we spent the night in by the airport. It quickly became apparent that there was a little too much stuff in the car already to add to people in any sort of comfort. Adding in that we each had a big and small bag, it became a perfect problem for a bunch of engineers to solve. After pulling a bunch of stuff out, throwing away any garbage, we managed to stuff everything back in with just enough room for everyone to sit down. It would have to to for the two-hour ride to the motel in Ashford. The car was so full, I could only see Sean directly in front of me. However, I was fortunate to be on the side of the car that did have occasional views of Mt. Rainier as we approached it. As if we didn't have enough stuff, we stopped at a grocery store for provisions. We arrived at base camp, which includes a motel, a coffee shop, a snack stand, and a climbing store in addition to the headquarters of the guide service we had hired, Rainier Mountaineering Inc. We arrived around noon and got some food from the snack stand, but their service was so slow that day that even though I ordered right after he did, Sean was finished with his burger by the time I got mine (and he was not eating particularly fast). We looked around the store for a while, and then fortunately our room was ready earlier than promised and we had a chance to unpack the car and gather our gear for orientation. At 3, we met our head guide, Billy, and one of the other parties we would be climbing with- Mark and Kyle, co-workers from Michigan. The other party- Robert, his brother Loren and his wife Juan arrived later. We started by introducing ourselves, then Billy gave us a slide show introducing us to the mountain and the route we would be taking. Then came the gear check, going over everything from head to toe and all safety gear. The only thing I was missing was a second upper insulation layer. After we went through everything, we went back to the store, where I bought a soft shell jacket that was on sale for a good price. Unfortunately, it was too good of a bargain for Stef to pass up, and they only had it in one color. Oh well. It turned out to be a pretty good purchase, I wore it the entire second day of the climb, to the exclusion of the fleece shirt I had brought. We drove to a nearby town to get some more groceries, after having re-evaluated our stocks, and Subway sandwiches for dinner/lunch the next day. I had trouble sleeping that night. The area was just coming down from a record heat wave, and we were in an attic-like space without much ventilation.

I got some breakfast from the coffee shop Monday morning. We all packed up our gear for the day and met up at 8:15 to go to the park for mountaineering class. We changed into our plastic mountaineering boots on the bus, forcing us to get used to them a little bit on the ~2 mile hike up to the training area. The class started pretty basic- to take deep breaths, how to walk on snow, how to hold the ice axe, and how to come straight down a snow slope. Then we learned arrests, what to do in case we or anyone we're tied on to falls. In the afternoon we learned about walking with crampons, and then walked to the top of a fairly steep slope roped in two teams. The last new thing was walking on rock with crampons. This proved to be the worst for me. After hiking all day in the plastic boots, my ankle was pretty tender. Any rolling that put pressure on the inside of my left ankle caused pain, and on the rock it was much worse than the snow. Having pretty much learned everything we needed to know, the last test was to hike up another steep snow bank on our way out. As a test, the assistant guide, Elias, grabbed the rope right near Marisa to simulate a team arrest. Quite unfortunately, this twisted her previously injured knee which she had spent a lot of time to rehabilitate. She made the hike back to Paradise alright, but she dropped out of doing the actual climb. Back at base camp, we iced our various painful joints, and had pizza from the snack stand for dinner.

I slept better Monday night, but still woke up at 6. I went and sat outside for a while, and because I got a little chilly in the 52 degree air, I made the regrettable decision to hike in my fleece pants instead of my shorts. We started out of Paradise around 9:30 and it wasn't long before I was sweating profusely. I didn't let that slow me down, though, and after the first break I was hiking immediately behind our third guide, Gabriel, an Argentinian whom Sean and Stef had climbed Aconcagua with. I talked with him about climbing and various other things. Our second stop was on the Muir Snowfield. By that point, we had gained enough elevation that the breeze was pretty cool, so I put on my base layer shirt over my t-shirt. It was at that stop that we changed from our casual footwear (flip-flops in Billy's case) into our mountaineering boots. I was pretty quickly sweating profusely again. The next two stops I put on my jacket while we were stopped, but put it away before we started hiking again, which was much better as far as regulating my body temperature. The fourth and final "maintenance break" of the day was within sight of Camp Muir. Being sweaty and a bit tired, it was tantalizingly close, but agonizingly still a half hour away. It was good, then, that I was behind several people for the last leg, and I couldn't really see it when I looked up from the footsteps of the person in front of me. It was about 2:30 when we arrived at our night's accommodations, RMI's private hut. It was not much to look at, 2x4s and plywood, and consisted mainly of the closest thing to a rack I've ever seen outside of a ship. We were actually quite fortunate, in that we didn't have to bring tents or sleeping mats, and that we were their only summit team that day. Normally there would have been twice as many people that time of year, but what would have been the B summit team went a different route. We had some room to spread out our stuff on the three-level wooden bunk. I took the middle of the middle bunk laid my stuff out to prepare for the summit. Billy came in to give us a talk around 3:30, then we had time for dinner before we our appointed 6pm rest time. I barely slept the whole night. My ipod as a noise suppressor maybe wasn't the ideal choice, as it seemed there were several times where I was just about to drift off and the music woke me up again. Also not helping matters was that everything seemed to be very connected. So, while I couldn't hear people moving around or whatever, I could feel the bunk moving. I did get some sleep, but at 11 o'clock, the start of the window in which Billy said he would wake us up, I was awake. I stayed in my sleeping bag, but there was a parade of people going to the bathroom or whatever. It was about 12:15am when Billy did come in to wake us up. They brought hot water for breakfast, which I used for some oatmeal.

It was about 1:15 when we were geared up and roped together in teams ready to leave camp. In the night, Loren had gotten an upset stomach and decided not to join us, as did his wife. This required re-balancing the rope teams, and I moved from Stef and Sean's team with Gabriel to what was then Robert and Elias's team. Billy, Kyle and Mark led us out of camp onto the Cowlitz Glacier. It was a beautiful night, the moon was almost full, and really not that cold. I was wearing long johns and fleece on my legs; and my t-shirt, base layer, and soft shell jacket on top. Of course we were wearing our full phalanx of safety gear: helmet, climbing harness, avalanche transceiver, crampons, ice axe, and all. We crossed the Cowlitz, and then went up the Cumberland Gap, a loose rocky lump leading to the Ingraham Glacier. Our first stop was on the Ingraham, just past what daylight would later reveal to be an active rock fall area. I had left my iPhone on in my parka pocket, and when I put it on, it got phone service for the first time since Sunday and informed me I had a voicemail. I thought about it, but did not retrieve it nor post to facebook. The second stretch was definitely the most physically grueling. We had to cross the glacier quickly to avoid ice fall hazard, while snaking around gigantic crevasses. It was fortunate that it was dark the first time across the Ingraham. In the dark, we only knew that we were stepping over crevasses, the largest step being a full long stride. Coming back through in the light, it was clear the potential danger from seemingly infinitely deep crevasses, the giant seracs looming above, and a few narrow ledges- one which dropped off the mountain on one side, the other side dropping into a crevasse. And that was, physically, the easy part of that stretch. Then we had to climb up the Disappointment Cleaver. It was a mix of loose rock and hard rock requiring big steps up. It was not very kind to my ankle, but it hurt less than I had feared it might. Robert and I started lagging behind the other teams on the Cleaver, which actually turned out to be to our benefit. Because the route wasn't marked properly, the first two teams had to turn around and downclimb to where we were, then take a different route up. By the time we got to the top of the Cleaver, I was beyond ready for a break. I was tired, but was confident a little break would rejuvenate me. Robert, however, wasn't feeling as confident and felt like he was slowing us down. It must have been disappointing to have to turn around, but he made it a lot further than most people on Earth ever will. He and Elias climbed down to Muir while I joined Stef, Sean and Gabriel on the way up. Climbing the Emmons Glacier was not easy, it was quite steep, even following switchbacks dug into the snow, but it was definitely easier, physically. That was when the mental aspect started to become more prominent. I was feeling tired, and had to push myself for almost every step, especially after almost an hour of climbing. I was definitely feeling the effects of altitude, as well. It wasn't anything severe, I didn't even have a headache at that point, but it felt like I got less out of each breath, and I had a major loss of appetite. They all but forced us to eat and drink at each stop. At the first stop on the Emmons, I was still able to eat a Clif bar and drink water, but it just seemed to sit there in my stomach. At the next stop, the last before the summit, I all but had to force a granola bar down my throat. At the summit I only had half of a Clif bar. The Emmons was solid snow most of the way, until we got near the top and there were a few crevasses. I was pretty exhausted when we finally made it to the summit crater around 7:15. I had already scrapped my plan to continue up to the very tippy-top, about 100 feet vertically above where we came in and dropped our bags. Sean and Gabriel were the only ones who went up, while the rest of us laid down on our packs. I actually started dozing off. We were quite fortunate to have really good weather, so it afforded us some time to relax. It was pretty cold and windy, but there were only wisps of clouds blowing around. When we went to leave we had been sitting in the cold long enough that even with our down parkas on, most of us were shivering. Billy kindly allowed for a quick stop on the descent so we could keep our parkas on for a few more minutes. Very shortly into the descent, Stef's knees started giving him serious trouble. We distributed the gear he was carrying among the other three of us, which seemed to help him. We still had to go more slowly, and there were a few times that since I was in front of him, I almost pulled him over. I, on the other hand, started feeling much better on the descent. The air was getting thicker and my energy and appetite were returning. My problem then was hydration. I had, as recommended, only brought two liters of water for the summit push. I was really thirsty coming down and I had to ration what water I did have. After our first maintenance break of the descent, I was down to less than half a liter. As we kept going, I was thirsty enough that a couple of times I chipped off and ate a bit of snow. The trip down the Disappointment Cleaver was not really any easier than the trip up. It was actually kind of nice that Billy was marking a different route, because it meant we had to pause several times, long enough to catch my breath. Traversing the Ingraham Glacier again was not physically particularly difficult, it was just, as mentioned, really being able to see the man-eating hazards, plus seeing and hearing rock falls. Fortunately I'm not particularly afraid of heights, so it was actually really cool to look down into the crevasses. They really are quite beautiful. I certainly didn't dawdle while crossing them, however. Even the narrow crevasses with a good snow bridge can be dangerous, so I hurried across all of them. Our final stop before returning to Muir was the same as our first on the way out of Muir. I downed the last of my water and a little of Gabriel's. When we got back to the Gap, we had the luxury of taking off our crampons for the rest of the way. When we got back into camp around noon, it was quite a relief. But it wasn't long before the reality that we still had to hike down to Paradise set in. I rested a bit and drank lots of water before packing everything up, somewhat haphazardly. Trying to dress lightly, and really regretting not bringing shorts, I wore just my long johns for the rest of the way down, thinking it would be cooler than the fleece pants. And who cares what the tourists think. The Snowfield was really soft and loose in the afternoon sun, and we pretty much boot skied our way down. It was hardly effortless, but it was a lot easier than going up. Stef was lagging pretty far behind, even with help from Gabriel and Elias, so it offered several opportunities for me to catch my breath and take a little drink of water. We took a break at Pebble Creek and changed into everyday footwear. I barely managed to shove all my gear into my bag for the rest of the way down to the bus. Near Paradise we encountered one of the worst surfaces: asphalt. My knees weren't hurting at all until we got to the asphalt. Fortunately, that meant we were really close to the bus at that point. I drank about a liter of water between the time we got to the bus and got back to base camp. Most of us gathered for pizza, beer, and wine at the snack shop as something of a celebration. After some much-needed showers we were all asleep by 10.

Thursday morning we got up and started packing up to leave. I ate my leftover cheese and salami for breakfast. I would have drank the beers I had left in the fridge, but they had frozen. Somehow Sean managed to pack the car a bit more compactly, and although I still couldn't see Stef, at least neither of us had anything in our laps. Sean and Marisa dropped us off at the Greyhound station in Yakima and started their long drive back to Austin. We killed the time until our bus having lunch and drinking beer.