Making our way East

July 21, 2012: we've been cruising along through Kansas and now Missouri. We've kept the days short to around 4 hours or so for the kids with a few stops to entertain them and us. We've been staying in motels because it is so hot, the days have been over 100 degrees and it's in the 90's even at 9 pm. We stayed in Hays, Kansas We went and checked out an angus cattle ranch and learned that Hays used to be a dangerous wild west town where many people died with their boots on. We stopped in Topeka at Gage Park, which is amazing. The kids rose the antique carousel and then we spent a few hours at a great pool with all sorts of fountains and slides. We drove thru Kansas City into Kearney, Mo for the night. Kearney was the home of outlaw Jesse James and where he is buried. We did quick visits of these sites. On the way out of town we stopped briefly in Liberty, Mo to see the site of The first ever daylight bank robbery by Jesse James. Now we are on the way to St. Louis.

Barfing in Boulder

July 19, 2012: we had a brief but nice stay with my old teammate from college Ali Kuusisto. Kuus and her family were getting ready to go on vacation back east and were nice enough to host us despite that. Our kids hit it off great and were running around naked like a wild pack. It was really hot so we all went to the pool. The kids loved the water slides and playing together. They had the healthiest dinner of their lives, as did James and I, and then off to bed. When we woke up Julia had a stomach bug which threw a wrench into our plans to explore Boulder and Denver. Instead James stayed home with molly and i took Casey, Molly, and Orijah into boulder for a little visit. We just went to the pedestrian mall on Pearl street and the kids played in fountains, on rocks, statues, and we took a little train ride. Afterwards Casey and Orijah went to the pool again with James while the others napped. Later we all packed up and headed out. It was relaxing to have a slower day but a bummer that julia is puking. We're now headed towards St. Louis to meet LaLa on Saturday. Kansas here we come. It's the end of altitude and the start of major heat.

On The Road Again

July 18, 2012: We left Seattle Sunday and have been heading East (ish) since. The first day we drove to Spokane, WA and took a very long break. They have a fantastic riverfront park that was built for the worlds fair. The kids played on a giant radio flyer wagon turned into a slide, they rode the carousel, played in fountains, and we took a gondola ride out over a waterfall. Afterwards we took them to Franks Diner to eat in an old railcar from the 1920s. It was beautiful inside, so neat, and we all had delicious breakfast for dinner. We put the kids into pjs after and drove a few more hours to Missoula, MT. We thought of camping but it is still bear country and I've had enough of that. We found a great, and cheap, motel and crashed for the night. Monday we went to an awesome playground and another carousel in Missoula before we drove to Billings to stay with Pat and Charlie again. We had another wonderful stay with them and were able to swap stories about our travels as they just returned home from Germany. Tuesday morning we drove south. We spent a few hours at the Little Bighorn battlefield, also known as custer's last Stand. It was beautiful there and interesting to us to learn about the battle and envision it taking place on that spot. After we continued south into Wyoming. We got to Kaycee Wyoming and set out on one of our favorite adventures of the trip. We wanted to explore the hideouts of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid and the Hole in The Wall Gang. There was very little information and even less signage to get where we wanted to go. We got some information and set out on the back roads. The road quickly turned to a dirt road and the scenery was amazing. There were gorgeous red cliffs rising up like in the grand canyon. At one point there was a sign saying not to go further without 4wd but we tried it out and we're happy we did. The road was really rocky and uneven and we had to take it very slowly. At the end we came to a campground called Outlaw Cave Campground. It was on the plateau of an amazing gorge. We parked the car and hiked down the path to find their hideout cave. The kids did an awesome job hiking. We were scared of rattlesnakes some took it very slowly. We never actually found their cave but went down to the river and played around. James went exploring to try and find it and found some other caves and even saw an owl in one. We missed a turn off half way down the gorge that led way over to the real cave. It was getting too late to get to it when we hiked back up. It was fun and cool to be exploring all around where they did. We set up camp, there was only one other group there and it has to be the most beautiful campsite around. We took the kids walking around in the dark which they loved. The sky was filled with stars and we all lay together looking up through the tent. It all started out great until it got windy. Then James and I got no sleep. The wind was so strong I was certain the tent was going to blow down. The kids slept through it all of course. James and I were up early and we hit the road just before 7. We saw tons of wildlife; deer, pronghorns, vultures, turkeys, rabbits. It was another hairy drive back down that road but we made it unscathed. Now we're heading south to boulder.

Seattle

July 15, 2012: we just spent two days in Seattle. James and I have never been there so we were excited to see a new city. We arrived mid afternoon on Friday and checked in to the Marriott on the waterfront with Donna and Lou and Melissa and Jon. After checking in we set out with the kids to explore. They love the word "explore" and all that it implies. We always try and build excitement with them by saying we are going to explore or going on an adventure. We walked along the waterfront for awhile then headed up into Pike Place Market. It was filled with all sorts of vendors, especially beautiful flowers, fruit, and seafood. We got some huge peaches and nectarines as a snack. We saw the seafood place where they throw fish too. After that we had to walk to pick up our car from getting the oil changed and we discovered a delicious donut shop called Top Pot Doughnuts. It turns out it is a well known place in Seattle. The doughnuts were enormous and we all enjoyed them. After that we took the kids home and put them to bed. James went out to sushi with his family and I stayed on the balcony to babysit the kids. Saturday we woke up to Seattle fog. We had a little bit of a lazy morning in the hotel and then headed out. We walked on the waterfront and checked out different piers and the cruise ship scene. We walked into Olympic Sculpture Park and then up towards the space needle. Each girl had their own map and had fun trying to learn to navigate. Casey led us around a bit and had fun trying to read street signs and find things on the map. It was too foggy to go up the space needle so we took the kids on a ride on the monorail. We sat right in front next to the driver and she let Julia say "all aboard" on the microphone. Afterwards we hit up Top pot for some more doughnuts and then went into a glass blowing studio. You can watch them blowing glass. When we were there it was only students doing it but it was still interesting for the kids to see. We took them home for naps and then in the afternoon we met up with everyone and took a ferry out to Alki, which is a peninsula across the sound. It had turned into a beautiful day and we just wandered around along the water. The girls hoola hooped with a hippie lady, saw seals swimming, swing on Jon & Melissa's arms and just played around. We took the boat back and sat by the water to give the girls fish and chips for dinner while we enjoyed a beer. After bedtime James and I hung out on our balcony trying to plan our trip home. Sunday morning we packed up and said goodbye to everyone and now we are heading East.

Mt. Rainier

July 12, 2012: today we made it to the summit of Mt Rainier! Yesterday we began hiking around 9:30am. The first day you gain about 4700 feet of elevation. The Paradise parking lot is at 5400 feet and you hike about 4.5 miles to Camp Muir at 10,188 feet. We left wearing shorts and t shirts with hats, sunglasses, boots, gaiters and our packs. On the first day our packs weighed around 40 pounds as they are filled with sleeping bags, all our warm clothes and food and water. We hiked with trekking poles in each hand. It was a gorgeous day. You have to be so careful to continually apply sunscreen as the constant glare from the snow is very powerful. We walked in a straight line following Melissa one after another. We would hike for an hour then stop for a break for 15 minutes. You sit on your pack and quickly drink and eat and rest then we're off again. The first hour and a half was a combination of snow and then some rocks that had become exposed as snow starts to melt down low. We crossed streams and saw waterfalls. You can't really look around too much while hiking because you are looking down at the trail and concentrating on your footing and breathing. It's not that there is anything too hairy or dangerous the first day but you are trying to maintain a very precise rhythm and do your rest stepping which increases your efficiency. It's harder then it sounds and for me, if I started to look up and around I would walk off the narrow trail and lose my rhythm. After about an hour and a half we got onto the Muir Snowfield. This is just an enormous snow covered slope up to the glacier and Camp Muir. A word that seemed to be used repeatedly about this section was "slog". It really was a matter of continuing to put one foot in front of the other for an hour, resting and doing it again until we got there. Finally, at our fourth break, we could see Camp Muir just ahead. At this break Melissa left us and hiked ahead much faster to set up our tents and get things ready for us. There was nothing difficult to do but follow the path and continue the slog for another 30 minutes or so. We arrived at Camp Muir around 2pm after 4 and a half hours of hiking. I felt good the whole time although I was very happy to take my pack off for good and sit for more than 15 minutes. The views were amazing you can see Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, and Mt. St. Helens rising up out of the land it was really gorgeous. Camp Muir itself is a rocky ridge that has the snow field on one side and a glacier on the other. There are two very small huts located on the rocky ridge where the rangers and guides sleep. There are also two of the nastiest toilets I've ever been in up there. You are not allowed to pee on the snow around camp Muir and must use the toilets. They stink! On the glacier, right next to the ridge, there were about 25 tents set up. Ours were the highest up, cut into the slope. We unpacked our stuff, got dry socks on, and sat down on a sleeping pad that we put on a little shelf James shoveled into the snow like a couch. Melissa melted snow to make us water and we just sat and hydrated and ate. She then told us our plans for that night and what to wear and what to put in our packs. Around 6:30 pm we got into our tents and lay down to try and sleep. It was very difficult for me to sleep despite how tired I was. It was light, noisy, early, and I could not shut my brain down thinking about what lay ahead. Finally around 10 or 10:30 I fell asleep. Melissa woke us up at 12:20am. From that point we had an hour to get ready before we began the climb. The hour passed very quickly with eating breakfast, getting dressed, packed, using the bathroom and getting all set to climb. I wore thicker socks, boots, gaiters and crampons on my feet. Long underwear and climbing pants on my legs with my harness on top of that. I wore a wool long underwear top with my avalanche receiver over that and a fairly light jacket over it. It was not too cold at all at that time surprisingly. I wore light gloves, my winter hat with helmet over it with my headlamp on. We carried our ice axes this time and in our packs we just had more layers and food and water. Our packs were so wonderfully light when we put them on compared to the day before. The moon was an orange crescent laying low near the mountains and the stars were abundant as we set off around 1:20 am. When you looked out at the route ahead of you you can see lines of climbers ahead of you discernible only by the little glowing circles of their headlamps. It looked so cool but it was also crazy to think we would be as high and as far away as they were in a short time. For the climb, which is the section from Camp Muir to the summit and back, we are all roped together. Melissa is in front and I was behind her then James then Jon. We are each separated by around 20-25 feet of rope. Again you cannot look around at all because there is so much to do. You need to stay in the very narrow path, your ice axe is always carried in your hand that is up the mountain, you need to maintain a very strict amount of slack between you and the person in front of you, you are trying not to catch your crampons on anything and trip, and you are trying to do your rest-stepping and pressure breathing techniques so as to be as efficient as possible and all this by only the light from your headlamp. It is all very new and exciting. Now that we are on the glacier safety is the utmost importance. There are crevasses that are ever changing and possibilities for rock or ice falls and you have to be on high alert at all times. There are three real breaks before you get to the summit. The first called the flats, the second is the disappointment cleaver, the third is high break and then you push to the summit. The first section we walked up and across the glacier then onto a very rocky section and around onto another glacier. At these breaks the first thing you do is put on a heavy parka and try to eat and drinks little. It is hard to take that warm parka off and put it in your pack after break but your body quickly warms up again as you start climbing. The second section is the longest. You go up and around a big crevasse, then you hustle through the icefall and rockfall area, then you get onto a steep rocky section called the cleaver and then onto the steep snowy section which is known as the spine of the cleaver. The break up here was freezing. It was now around 4am and the wind was blowing pretty hard. We were now at about 12,000 feet. When we began to climb again there were a few very slow teams right in front of us. For awhile there was no safe place to pass so we just had to endure the slow pace, which was not bad except that we were freezing. Eventually Melissa took us off the path and in a place where it was steep switchbacks we would go right up the middle to cut a corner and get in front of someone. This was the physically most demanding part as we quickened our pace to overcome these slower teams and it was on very steep terrain. We watched the sun rise from high break at 13,500 feet. It was chilly and windy here too but the best sunrise I have ever seen. From high break it seemed a short haul to the summit. I began to feel the effects of the altitude here as I felt a little light headed for the last 15 minutes or so. We reached the summit at 5:50am. It was a great pace as it took us just 4 and a half hours to summit. According to Melissa we had ideal snow and weather conditions and a very quick route. The route can be different all the time and this day it was very direct and made for a great summit climb for us. When we reached the summit you are at the crater of the volcano. We walked down into the crater and dropped our packs and had a break to eat and drink a little. We then walked to the far side of the crater without packs to take pictures on the highest point, at 14,411 feet. I began to get very emotional as we walked up to the high point. It has been a long time since I have set a difficult goal for myself, worked so hard at it, and finally accomplished it. All those mornings struggling out of bed at 5 am to hit the treadmill for sprints and pyramids and wearing the pack with weight in it paid off. I was crying a few times as we were way up there. We took a bunch of pictures and signed our names in the log book that they keep on top. This was a first time for James and I, it was Jon's second summit and Melissa's 92 summit! After that we walked back down into the crater, collected our stuff and headed down. You move much more quickly descending but you have to be just as attentive to safety and procedure. We descended to Camp Muir in about two hours or so. It kills your quads and knees to descend but it was still great. It was interesting to see parts of the climb that we had done in the dark. We got to camp Muir and rested then we packed up and headed down the snow field to the car. It took us two hours to descend to the car and it felt very long as we were just exhausted. Our feet hurt and we couldn't wait to get our boots off. When we got back to the cabin we ate potato chips and sat in the hot tub. We had to battle to stay awake but we tried to play with the kids since Donna had had them alone for three days. It was a long afternoon and my sleep that night was long and deep! All told it was a fantastic adventure and we were thrilled to make it to the top. We are incredibly grateful to Melissa for making it all possible and for guiding us through every single step. Pictures to come soon once I get them from Melissa. This is the only one I have from when we got back down to the car.

On to Washington and Mt Rainier

July 9, 2012: with a case of the Irish flu we packed up the car and left the wedding to drive out to Washington. We drove through beautiful gorges and stopped with the kids to swim in a river. The temps were as high as 107 degrees as we got out of the mountains in Western Idaho and into Oregon. We drove about halfway and stopped in a motel in Pendleton, OR for the night. The next morning we finished the drive to Ashford, WA which is the base town for climbing Mt. Rainier. The drive was spectacular. We saw all the vineyards and fruit orchards as well as beautiful rivers, gorges and mountains. Our first glimpse of Rainier made us very nervous as it rises above the landscape like nothing I've ever seen. James said, "that could be Everest for all I know". That's how huge it looked. We got to the cabin that Donna & Lou rented and settled in a bit before our orientation meeting with Melissa that afternoon. She covered what the plan was and what gear we needed. I got no sleep on Monday night due to being anxious about the climb. Tuesday morning James, Lou and I headed to RMI's base camp in town to pick out all of our rental gear. We felt like fish out of water with all the new equipment and gear but eventually got it all figured out. In those moments you feel totally unprepared to make decisions even on which socks to buy because you dont know anything. Tuesday was all about snow school. After we got our gear we headed into the National Park and up to the Paradise parking lot. We hiked for about 30 minutes to a spot where Melissa showed us all the techniques and safety procedures we need to know. We practiced different techniques to walk up hill, downhill, rest stepping, pressure breathing. We learned to use our ice axes to self arrest in case we or one of our team members falls. We also roped up to each other and practiced walking as a unit which is very important for the safety of the team. The amount of slack between you and a team member can mean the difference between being easy to save in case of a fall or not. All the while the mountain loomed but once we were up there and in our gear and doing the work my anxiety was gone. As I type this it is 5 am on wednesday and I can't sleep because we are about to leave to begin the true climb in a few hours. clearly I still have some butterflies but nothing like yesterday. We got home from snow school at 4pm and played with the kids. We took them back to
RMI's base camp in town for dinner and to pick up our meal plans for the climb. Afterwards we packed all of our gear and got ready. Melissa came over to help with packing and we all turned in early. I slept from about 10pm to 4:30 am. Now I am just hydrating and resting before we leave. The plan is to start climbing around 9:30 am. It should take about 5 hours to reach Camp Muir where we will sleep. Melissa will have tents all set up for us and we just need to eat, drink and rest as much as we can. We'll try to catch a few hours of rest. Then we wake around 11pm and start climbing in the dark. We will climb for 6 to 9 hours to the summit, snap a picture and head back to Camp Muir. We'll pack up and rest a bit then hike back to the car. James, Jon and I are on that schedule. Lou is going to spend an extra night at Muir and make his summit attempt the next night. Wish us luck!

Ketchum and The Wedding

July 9,2012: we spent two great weeks in Ketchum. The first week we lived with Jon & Melissa and the second week was in a condo when the entire Duval Family arrived for vacation together. We joined the YMCA where they have an incredible pool with a water slide, lazy river, and fountains. We did a lot of swimming with the kids as the weather was sunny and hot every day. We took them to the top of the ski mountain one day which was great. The kids loved riding on the gondola and chair lift. We ate at the restaurant up on the mountain for lunch. It had a very European feel as we sat on the balcony at a big picnic bench in the sunshine to eat. It was a great day. We did some running, hiking, biking, shooting and visited a few playgrounds. The kids got a full service tour of the fire department thanks to our friend Eric. We celebrated Molly's 2nd birthday with all of the cousins. The kids had a blast hanging out together and the grown ups even got to go out to eat alone a few nights. We had a really fun sushi dinner in one of those private rooms and a large group dinner where we had our first chance to meet Melissa's family. We drank a lot of beers just sitting around the pool or even in the town square while the kids ran around playing together in the fountains. One night in town they had a criterium where bike racers rode fast laps through a course right in the center of town. It was a really fun atmosphere with lots of people out to spectate, beer gardens and food stands set up everywhere. The culmination of all the fun in Ketchum was when we moved an hour north to Stanley, ID to the Idaho Rocky Mountain Ranch for the wedding. I have never seen such a beautiful location for a wedding. The sawtooth mountains are the backdrop and the ranch itself is simple but amazing. We had a two bedroom cabin that was gorgeous. They have a swimming pool that is entirely heated from the hot springs. The water comes in from the mountain at 107 degrees and runs in a pipe through the Salmon River to be cooled and spills into the pool at around 103. It was awesome and the kids loved dunking in the cold shower then into the pool. You can ride horses, bikes, paddle boats, fish. We had babysitters up there so we were able to enjoy the evening activities a bit more. Everything about the weekend was very special and centered around Melissa & Jon. It was a fantastic wedding.