trip

Mount Saint Helens (east side)

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

With the girls getting their hands and feet scrubbed (read: manicures and pedicures), and just hanging out in general all day together, Roger and I were on our own so we struck out for one of the biggest attractions we could think of, Mount Saint Helens.

Mount Saint HelensRather than drive up to the main observatory, which would take a bit longer, we opted for the shorter less traveled east side route which takes you past some beautiful lakes and reservoirs and on up to the Climbers Bivouac.  The road was treacherous and the views rewarding. However; since we got so close to the mountain, rather than viewing from afar, our view of Mount Saint Helens was obstructed by pine trees with only one real good spot for viewing the mountain itself.  We had absolutely fantastic views of the mountains, valleys and lakes to the east and south though.

It was so impressive that I’ll be bringing Rachel back to explore the west side at some point during our adventure.

Rehearsal and Dinner at Portland City Grill

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The rehearsal went off without a hitch at the beautiful Aerie at Eagle Landing.  Because Smitty wasn’t flying in until Saturday morning, I acted as a stand-in groomsmen, which was a first but fun.

Sunset over PortlandAfter the rehearsal always comes the good part… the dinner.  For this particular event we ate at the Portland City Grill on the 30th floor of the US Bancorp building.  The view was incredible, and we were blessed with a gorgeous sunset way up over the west hills.  Pictures can’t do it justice, and since I only brought my 50mm portrait lens (without a polarized filter through glass at night) my pictures of the city and the skyline were all but useless.  Since it was also Michael’s birthday George and Stacie had a cake for him which was absolutely delicious!

You’ll just have to trust me, the view from the Portland City Grill is well worth the cost of a meal, it truly is spectacular.

Mt Hood and Columbia River Gorge

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Mt HoodOne of the things on the must-see list in the Portland area is the Columbia River Gorge. A large group decided at dinner last night to meet up and head out for that at about 10am. Because we’re relatively early risers we thought we’d get a head start, do the Mt Hood loop and meet them out. It’s a good thing we did!

Multnomah FallsIf you get a chance to take the Mt Hood Scenic byway DO IT! That being said, we did. We saw the Oregon trail at laurel hill, the Salmon River, the White River and some fantastic views of Mt Hood. We also got some sweet cherries for a cool $1.50/lb at a local fruit stand. They cost more than $4/lb at home!

From there we met the group at Multnomah Falls along the Historic Columbia River Highway where a few of us hiked to the top. Getting to the top is quite a workout, 15 switchbacks and a mile later. The group headed back from there but since we hadn’t gotten a chance to see the Vista House, we stopped there for a vista and what a one it was.
vista house view
The whole loop : Highly suggested.

An awesome first day.

The Ride In

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IMG_4488 On our way to Portland we flew through Newark (New Jersey) and for once we didn’t miss our flights because of it… Of course, once we got on the plane to Portland we did sit on the runway for an hour …sigh…

Ahh well, once we were finally in the air Rachel and I watched Kingdom of Heaven on my iPhone and we were then graced with some magnificent views of the Mountainous west coast.

After being in Portland for all of 30 minutes we had a few observations:

  • It’s very green.  There’s huge Ponderosa Pine Trees absolutely everywhere and they’re gorgeous.
  • It’s very green-conscious.  We probably saw 147 bikes between the airport and our Hotel.  There are bike lanes on literally every street, and bike paths next to every highway.  There are “Please Conserve Water” signs everywhere.
  • The flowers are amazing and they’re everywhere
  • It’s Claim Jumpers not Clam Jumpers
  • Shopping is great here.  Lots of outlet stores and no sales tax!  This doesn’t mean we’ll be doing any this trip, but it certainly is a good place to go if you’d like to.  The pearl district seems to be where all the higher class shops are.
  • Unemployment is bad here, we saw beggars on pretty much every major intersection between the airport and the hotel.

We had a great trip in and a nice relaxing first day.

Algonquin and Wright Peak

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algonquin-summit

We’re on a roll.  With the long weekend last week we headed up to camp and hit another of the 46 High Peaks.  This time around our goal was Algonquin Peak, but like many of the High Peaks, hiking Algonquin gets you close to several others.  We made our attempt at those as well.

Starting out up Algonquin we were once again in the rain, but we knew it was going to break before noon and that we’d have great weather at the summit(s) and after.  Sure enough about halfway up the weather turned and we got our first glimpse of blue sky.  Unfortunately this was just before we made it into the clouds.  That’s right, we were above the cloud cover.  Although the hike was exhilarating and we experienced some fine views on the way up, we ate lunch at the top in the clouds and without a view.

wright-summit

After a short stay on the top we started our descent so we could begin our climb up Wright Peak.  About halfway down to the Y in the trail the cloud coverage broke and the sky opened up.  It was beautiful.  One of the best views from any mountain we’ve climbed.  Since we didn’t know how long the view would last, we just sat and enjoyed it for a while.  Then as it seemed like it would last we continued the hike.

After summiting Wright Peak, the view and the weather only got better.  We had 360 degree beautiful clear sky the rest of the day.  Wright peak is a hard rock summit with views in all directions.  You can see many of the other 46 from the top and we were able to pick out our next goal, Mount Colden.

We did miss Iriquois Peak, a 3rd peak just a short hike (through a valley) past Algonquin, but we were already tired and concerned we might not be able to complete Wright so we left it off this time around.

The hike down was equally pleasant.  What an amazing day/hike!


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2 of 46ers – Cascade and Porter

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Cascade Mountain SummitThere’s 2 more people on the Trek to becoming 46ers.  We’ve only just begun but we’re in it for the long haul.

We were spending the weekend in Lake Placid due to a great deal on the High Peaks Resort.  We booked the trip a few weeks ago and while the weather was great Friday and Sunday, rain was expected for Saturday afternoon.  Despite that we decided to hike up some of the 46 High Peaks anyway.  After all, we were staying at the High Peaks resort.

To start our journey on the 46er goal we climbed two peaks.  We’ve climbed mountains before, Hunter mountain was the highest so far with an elevation of 4,040ft and that was last summer.  We’ve now successfully summited 2 of the Adirondack High Peaks, increasing our highest mountain’s elevation to 4,098ft.

We took the Cascade/Porter mountain trail up from route 73 just east of the mt van hoevenburg recreation area and just west of the Cascade lakes (in case you’re trying to find it).

Porter Mountain Summit

The trail goes steadily up for about 1.8miles where it Y’s.  From there it’s .3 miles to the summit of Cascade with an ascent of a 292ft and .7 miles to the summit of Porter with an ascent of 270ft.  While the rest of the Cascade trail was relatively easy, only a few hundred feet to summit Porter is a bit missleading.  First you descend several hundred feet through what can only be considered a mud slide, then you cross a valley and travel back up the hundreds of feet you descended plus the original 270ft.

The top of Cascade Mountain felt more like the top of Mount Washingtain than the top of one of the smaller Adirondack High Peaks.  Winds were constant at easily over 60mph with gusts probably topping 80mph. The wind caused the slight rain coming down to feel like your skin was getting sand blasted.  Porter Mountain wasn’t quite as bad since it wasn’t as open, but the wind was still incredibly strong.

This isn’t the first mountain we’ve climbed and it won’t be the last, but it is the first one we’ve hiked up and down in the rain.  Having the right gear is vital for hiking and we made use of some new equipment, our new Eddie Bauer RipPac jackets, for the first time this trip and it made our experience enjoyable despite the bad weather.  They will certainly remain a staple in our hiking packs.


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The High Peaks Resort

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I’ve been meaning to climb some of the Adirondack High Peaks for a few years.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any grand illusions of becoming a 46er (Although, as a side note, that would be awesome).  I simply enjoy climbing the occasional mountain.  Climbing some of the highest peaks in New York State seems like a good goal.

highpeakshotelroomWith my parents recent purchase of a camp in South Colton, NY I figured I’d use that as a base camp.  I still probably will, although in a few weeks I’ll get to use the High Peaks Resort.  A short time ago they started running the Elevate Your Rate promotion which is basically a deal for 75% (+) off.  They’re featuring one of the High Peaks for 46 minutes for 46 days.  During that time the promotional rate will be the same as the elevation of that featured peak.  For example, our peak was Mount Emmons which has an elevation of  4,020′ which turned out to be a daily price of $40.20 which is pretty darn good.

My experience thus far has been via Twitter and I’m thoroughly Impressed.  There has been a great amount of communication from them and I’ve felt they’re really going the extra mile.  We didn’t get the dates we really wanted (due to availability) and I let them know.  They promptly look into it and got back to me within an hour with an explanation why those dates were blocked out.  They tried to see if there was any room available but unfortunately there was not.  That’s OK, the dates we got work fine anyway, and now we get to go with my friend Anthony and his wife Meg!  I really didn’t expect that kind of service at $40.20/night, and that’s just through twitter.  I’m excited to see what kind of service they offer in person.

We’re definitely looking forward to the trip.

Planning our 3 week Hiatus

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Rachel’s Brother George lives in Portland Oregon and he’s getting married in July (the 11th to be exact).  Since we’ll be trekking all the way across the country for the big event we’re planning on making a vacation of it.  We’ll be staying in the Pacific Northwest for 3 weeks.  The rough itinerary is Portland for about a week, Glacier National Park for about a week, Seattle for a few days and then back to Portland to fly home. Beyond that we have no idea.

We’re trying to plan as little as possible and just wing it but we’ve put together a tentative map of the route we might take and the places we want to see.

2009-trip-planView Larger Map

We don’t want to plan our trip but we do want ideas.  We’ve never been to the west coast or the pacific northwest and we need to know the cool stuff to do or see.  If you have been to this part of the country, please let us know what places you enjoyed (and those you didn’t) so we can add it to our list!

Mountains Snow and Four strokes

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When we got to camp last night conditions were better than we could have hoped. Easily two feet of snow on the level and trails freshly groomed. Unfortunately it was midnight and -10 outside so we promptly hit the hay to prepare for the ride ahead.

This morning one of the other diamond sportsman club members (Chuck Ferrel) stopped by on their way to the Backwoods Inn (previously known as Hams).  After some chat about where they were headed we decided to join them.

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We were going right by Little Blue Mountain so we went on up the trail. I say this every time but it was the clearest I’ve ever seen it on top. Usually, if it’s clear, White Face Mountain is just visible through some haze. Today, there was no haze and White Face looked clear as could be.

There wasn’t as many people there as usual but on the way down we met a guy who was having problems getting his sled started. It was an Arctic Cat T660 four stroke with a dead battery and no pull start. No pull start!? Yep, seems since it’s a four stroke there’s too much compression to pull it over so they don’t even bother including one. I’m pretty sure there won’t be any of these sorts of sleds in my future. I wouldn’t want to be stuck out in the woods with a dead battery or a blown starter like that guy.  To make it worse he wasn’t even smart enough to bring jumper cables!

NOTE: this post is pre-dated, as it was written but not posted in the mountains since there is no data connection.

Hunter Mountain Dancing

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Last week we took a vacation with my parents to the Catskills. When Rachel and I went to Lake George a few years ago we climbed Crane Mountain. We enjoyed it so much we figured we’d climb another one this trip. This time we climbed Hunter Mountain (4,050 ft) & celebrated at the top. It was probably the most strenuous hike I’ve ever done (2,250 ft in 2.2 miles).