Exhausted

This was a pretty tough weekend. Our friend, Lindsey, decided that she wanted to hike Mt. St. Helens, you know... the Volcano, for her birthday. She laid out the plans, and such, and the first weekend we were all available to do so was this past weekend.


So, I have to say, this has been a very dry September. And, of course, the DAY we hike up the volcano we get more rain than we've had all month.


Friday evening we got everything packed up, soaked a bit in the hot tub, and went to bed early. We made it over to Josh and Lindsey's place at 9:30 am on Saturday morning, and drove to the gorge... specifically, Hood River, OR. Molly and I are members of a wine club called Phelp's Creek which makes some very good, and affordable, Pinot Noirs. Well, it just so happens that on Saturday they were having an "open house" which means that wine club members are invited up to their home/vinyard were we get to talk with the grower and his family and discuss (and drink) their wine, sample next year's wines and eat tasty cheeses and sausage, etc. It was an incredibly fun experience.


Afterward we found some lunch, and headed up to Cougar, WA, which is a small community that has been built up around the hiking tourism for Mt. St. Helens. There is only 1 hotel... called the Lone Fir Resort. I don't know if I would ever describe something like this a resort. More like a set of dingy looking cabins, a restaurant, gift shop and the climber's registry. Molly and I purchased the "cabin" for Lindsey's birthday. It was cosy, and all-in-all, pretty nice, considering the exterior. There was one bedroom with a queen which Lindsey and Josh took, and the hallway had a set of bunk beds in it, which Molly and I took. We ate dinner at the little restaurant, and played some board games and drank a bottle of wine, ate "s'more brownies" and were in bed at about 9pm. Nobody slept that great. The beds were kind of crappy... but we needed to get an early start because, as a group, we are not the fastest hikers.



We got up at 5:30am. I made eggs and sausage in the little kitchen and we had a nice and filling breakfast. We spent the next hour or so getting ready, and we're finally in the car at around 6:45 AM. The trail head for the hike is about 15 miles from the cabin. When we arrived it was cold, wet and overcast. There was a slight drizzle which felt pretty ominous.

The Mt. St. Helens' summit trail is 9 miles round trip, starts at just under 4000 ft elevation and gains 4500 ft elevation in 4.5 miles, to a total elevation of 8365 ft. The first two miles of the trail gains less than 1000 ft elevation, which means that in the last 2.5 miles you gain 3500 ft (over half a mile up, basically). This is a serious hike. Parts of the hike you cross over boulder fields where you have to scramble to get up some of the large rocks. Other parts of the hike involve a very fine scree, which is basically volcanic dust which is not unlike climbing a giant sand dune.

So, at 7:25AM on Sunday morning, we start the hike. We are well prepared, with lots of food, water (over 3 liters per person) and many layers of clothes. Not 5 minutes into the hike we have to stop to strip off some layers of clothes. Then 3 minutes later, we do it again... this continues for the first 2 miles of the trip, until we're practically down to our last layers of clothes.

Once we get to the timberline which is at 4800 ft elevation, we start climbing our first ridge, which is basically a large boulder field. Halfway up, we have to put clothes back on, because it starts misting and the wind is really blowing now that we're out of the cover of the trees. At the top of this ridge it is downright COLD.... and the fog begins to roll in, which makes it extremely difficult to see the large wooden markers that are erected in the bolder field to mark the general direction of the trail. The trail itself is really non-existent, because there is nothing but boulders to climb on... you just have to follow the 15 ft markers on the horizon. The fog is so thick that you can barely see one marker through it. Even at this early stage we decided that if the fog ever got so bad that we couldn't see the next marker, that we would turn back.

At this point we were about an 1 hour, 30 minutes into the hike. The fog was just light enough that we could always just make out the next marker. At this point we started catching up to people that had started before us, and people that had started after us were starting to catch up and pass. Another 30 minutes or so up the ridge and we started meeting people coming back down. They indicated that they HAD NOT summitted, because the fog was too thick and there was 50-60 mph winds up ahead. Some people had mentioned that there was a weather station up near the top of that first ridge, which we were about halfway up at that point. We decided that we should try to make it up to that point, and see how it looked. If nothing else, we would have gone about halfway up the mountain, in terms of distance (not elevation).

There were a few brave souls heading on up, but many were turning back. Ahead of us we could see 2-3 groups climbing up more large boulder fields, and below on the ridge we could see a few more heading our direction, and many heading back. Fifteen minutes later, the fog began to clear up some, and we could see 2 markers or further ahead of us. Not long after that the clouds began clear up, and the sun actually peeked out of the clouds for awhile.... then it got a little warm. So we had to strip off again.

During all of this we would stop regularly to eat power bars and drink water. It was kind of treacherous, because the rocks were wet and the wind was very strong, but I never felt unsafe.

Eventually we made it to the weather station, which consists of an radio transmitter and a solar panel. I assume there were weather instruments somewhere, but I never saw them. There wasn't even a building or anything. We stopped here, in the sun, and tried to shelter ourselves a bit from the wind, which was sporadic, but when it did gust it was very cold. Ahead we could see the beginning of the scree field, but the top of the mountain was still obscured by clouds, so even then, we couldn't get a good idea of what lay ahead. After a short break at the station, we got our hiking poles out and began the tough part of the trek.

This last part of the hike was tough. Lindsey and Josh had to get ahead of us, because Molly has shorter legs and can't keep up in the straight part of the hikes like this. We basically had to take baby steps up, and used the poles to help pull ourselves up this very, very steep part. The further we got the colder it got and the windier it got. There were definitely some scary gusts of wind, but we weren't ever on an "edge" of a mountain to where we had to worry about being blown down something steep. We could still barely make people out ahead of us forging on into the clouds. We had to take a few breaks, and at one point we had to stop to allow Molly to bandage up a blister that she accumulated on her ankle. After that we took one final break for about 3 minutes and started up our final ascent. We couldn't see Josh and Lindsey anymore... or really anybody head of us as the weather started getting worse. We were determined at this point to summit. Occasionally on this snail pace up we would see people coming back down indicating that they HAD summitted and that it wasn't terribly further. The last few hundred feet were treacherous... just like very fine sand. Every step up came back down about half the distance. On some of the rocks we saw very fine ice.

At 4 hours, 35 minutes into our hike, we summitted. At the top, the view was amazing. OK, not really. We were in the middle of a very cold and windy little cloud, and we literally couldn't see a thing except maybe 30 ft in any direction. Lindsey and Josh started down before we made it to the top. They had beat us by about 10 minutes. They had taken maybe 15 steps down from the top when they spotted us almost to the top, so they came back up with us for a minute, then started back down because it was very cold. Molly and I sat down and had somebody take our picture, and we ate a sandwich... then headed down.

Coming down was infinitely easier, of course, but much harder on the muscles and joints. Back down at the weather station we opened a bottle of champagne that Lindsey had brought to drink at the summit (but it was too cold, of course).

We did the entire hike in under 8 hours. Only 25 or so people summitted that day, and we were four of them. We were some of the last to summit, too. On the way down we met very few people who were headed up. The weather cleared up a bit, but not too much.

I had a heart rate monitor on the entire hike to get an idea of how many calories that one could burn doing this type of activity: 5200 calories. My average heart rate was 127 bpm and the maximum was 161 (probably during that last 200 ft up). So, really, not as much cardio as I would have expected, but that could be a testament to all of the exercise that we've been doing.

We didn't take very many pictures, because there wasn't much to see!

From Mt. St. Helens Summit

Here is a link to Josh and Lindsey's pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/yoder1976/SaintHelens#

My Birthday

I want to thank everyone who sent a message, or email to me for my birthday! So, thanks!

This weekend was a pretty fun one. For starters, I didn't work more than two hours all weekend! Yeah!

Friday evening Molly and I ate some italian food and went and saw the new Cohan Brothers movie, "Burn After Reading" or something like that. It was very good. Dark... but funny, in the Cohan brothers sort of way. Afterward we got in the hot-tub and went to bed, a little early ;)

The next morning, I tried to sleep in, but couldn't. So I got up and worked, and let Molly sleep in... she earned it. When she did finally get up, we went to the Farmer's Market in Hillsboro to get some fruit. Afterward we ran some much-neglected errands (Home depot, the grocery store, etc.) We spent about an hour and a half getting new cell-phone numbers at AT&T wireless. I also got a new phone. If you want the new numbers, please email us, and I'll send them on. The AT&T wireless store that we went to was having a grand-opening sale... they had a wind tunnel which had "cellphone bucks" and you could go inside for 20 seconds to grab as many of these flying bucks as you could. They went toward the purchase of a new phone. Between Molly and I we grabbed $51, which is great. My phone would have been $169, but with the $100 rebate, and 51 bucks, it was 19. NICE.

I spent the next few hours constructing 2x4s around the bottom of my deck to keep the critters/varmints out: http://teamnorris.blogspot.com/2008/02/age-old-question-critter-or-varmint.html

That (of course) took 2 visits to the Home Depot, because I've never done a single project in one trip to the Depot. Once completed, we went and caught the Matinee of Wall-E which if you haven't seen it, go now... its fantastic.

We came home and ate some leftovers, and finished up a little bit of yard work, and went to bed VERY EARLY. ;) ;)

The next morning, Molly and I both slept in late. We got up and went to the Home Depot again, and went on a hunt for a bicycle for me (at the local goodwill stores). We couldn't find one, so we ended up buying one at Joe's (which is a sporting goods store). When we got home we drove the new bikes up to another Farmer's market to get some produce for dinner. Then did some more errands around the house (cleaning, etc). Later we rode our bikes again, this time to REI, which is a sporting goods store, to return some things that we had purchased online. When we got back home we just watched some TV, made dinner... got into the Hot-tub, and wen't to bed, once again, a little early...

Happy Birthday!

Ah, Prague

The weather is nice out, and I happened upon these two pictures... I'm a bit nostalgic, I suppose. But these were from early June, 1998, over 10 years ago.

From Ah, Prague

100th Blog Entry - Weekend on the Coast

Molly and I had a GREAT weekend! We went out to the coast, to try to enjoy the weather (possibly the last time this year...) We decided, at the last minute, to pack up the car and camp! Lindsey and Josh came over to the house friday night, got in the hot tub and stayed the night. The next morning (after another soak in the tub) we headed out to the coast, and got the LAST site and the camp ground.

We hiked up the Nakahenie trail (hill, mountain?) and got some great pictures of the coast from 1600 ft. It was an easy hike. You can compare the pictures from a hike we did the weekend before Memorial day: Previous hike!

Afterward we went wine, cheese and ice-cream tasting in Tilamook. The cheese was good, the wine was terrible and the ice cream was FANTASTIC!

We went back to the campground and setup the tent, etc and headed to the coast which was about 100 yards from our tent. We walked around, enjoying the nice weather, eventually finding a nice spot to watch the kite-boarders and drink a couple of bottles of wine and watched a beautiful sunset!

After the sunset we went back and ate brats and drank some wine, kicking off to bed at roughly 10pm.

The next morning walked around Haystack rock and ate some breakfast at the Pig and Pancake. Afterward we came back home, ran some errands and eventually we went wine tasting (of course) at Archery Summit, Dobbs, Argyle and Du Ponte.

We had a nice tuna steak dinner and headed out to watch, the one, the only:

Patton Oswald... who was suuuuuuppper funny. It was definately an Abdominal workout!

Well, needless to say we are exhausted from the weekend. Enjoy the pictures:

From 9-7-2008 Coast trip

No pain, no...?

So many of you know that I've hired a personal trainer to help whip my butt into shape. Believe me, I need it... My beer drinking and german sausage-eating and computer-programming lifestyle was really catching up to me (and hugging me around my middle). So we started that in April of this last year.

That first training session we did a core routine, which was pretty abridged: Plank (make your body flat and straight like walking a plank, holding yourself up by elbows and toes) and some crunches. Second we did some squats, without weight. Third, we ran 2 minutes on a treadmill. With that little bit of excersize I felt dizzy and exhausted. (Yikes!)

Its the beginning of September now: I've been working out with the trainer twice a week, except when out of town. Now I can do plank for 90+ seconds, I can do crunches until the cows come home, while holding 15lb weight. I can run an 8 minute mile (my goal is still 7), then do 45 minutes of intervals afterward. I can do squats... well, tuesday I did about 50 of them while holding a 40lb dumbell in each hand. My peak on squats is 210 lbs that I did one time about a month ago. I really didn't feel up to doing that, but my trainer, Nick, thought it would be fun to see if I could do 200lb+, well I did.

The thing that really, really hit home, though was the idea that I couldn't ever bench 100lbs. Even in highschool when I was in great shape, I just never had enough upper body strength to do it, despite having very strong arms and shoulders. So I mentioned this to Nick (the trainer) and he looked at me like I was dumb. He's like, "Dude... 100 lb benchpress is easy. We'll do it on Thursday". I had forgotten all about it, but Molly remembered yesterday during our training session. So we grabbed a 55 lb bar, and put a couple of 25lb weights on it (105lbs). I got on the bench, prepared to fail, as I always have. I did 12, without many problems. Then he said, "grab a couple of 10 pound weights" so I did, thinking that I would do 125lbs next... nope, he also grabbed 20 lbs, and I next did 7 reps at 145lbs. Then we put another 10lbs on and I did 4. So, offically, I can bench-press 155lbs. Oh, btw, Molly bench-pressed too. Her max was 105lbs :) So, my goal is to benchpress my weight by december and to be able to run a 7 minute mile and do 2 8 minute miles in a row. Btw, my weight right now is 215 lbs. I'm hoping to be at 200-205 lbs by then so I don't have to bench quite so much.

When I started this, I should mention, that my goals had absolutely nothing to do with weight training. I just wanted to be able to hike up a mountain without dying and stopping every 10 minutes. Now, benchpressing 200 lbs, that seems like a cool goal too!

BEEF CAKE!

A very tough hike

I'm not sure if I have mentioned this in the past, but on Sept 20th, Molly, Josh Y, Linze and I are climbing Mt. St. Helens, in Washington (yes, it's that Mount St. Helens, that volcano that blew its top in the 80s). So, naturally, we've been preparing for it by doing all of these other hikes that I've mentioned since Feb of this year.

Mt. St. Helens is a 8-12 hour hike round trip. You start out early in the morning, and hopefully summit before the clouds roll in too heavily to see anything. Most of our hikes have been 4 hours or less... so we needed to see if there we had the endurance to do a really long one.

Enter Trapper's Creek (not far from Mt. St. Helens, actually). We have a specific hiking book that lists a bunch of hikes by difficulty. We've done 4 of 6 of the hardest rating, and Trapper's Creek was our 5th (next week is the 6th, but Molly's already done it... Cooper's Spur) Trapper's Creek is an 7 hour, 13 mile hike that gains (although slowly) about 3000 ft. elevation which is one of the highest hikes we've done.. and BY FAR the longest.

Once we summitted it started raining, but the entire hike is in old-growth forest. We started the hike at about 10:30 AM, summitted at about 4 PM (maybe, we didn't have a watch) and made it back to the car at just before 7pm. We recalcuated our distance, and it ended up being 14.2 miles.. over half a marathon.

I'm very sore today, and so is Molly.

Speaking of today... it is Molly's first day of school. I sent her flowers, so we'll see how that goes ;)

I'll post pictures of the hike soon.