Monday, February 23, 2015

Spring fever

While the rest of the country is buried under snow and packed in icy air, the Pacific NW is blooming. The cherry and magnolia trees are budding, I've got 20+ daffodils cut and arranged inside my house, and I've now learned to identify the beauty that is the quince flower!

I've been doing some hiking with local friends, and I also want to try to find a club to go with - my friends' lives are much busier than mine, so I could go longer/do more but they're not up for it. In an ideal world I'd find some hiking buddies for long challenging Saturday hikes, and could do recovery hikes on Sunday. Even if I had a car I'd be reluctant to hike solo - not so much from concern for my personal safety, but I'd be worried about turning an ankle or something and needing help to get out of the woods. I'm sure I'll muddle through, and perhaps I'll even make some bonus hiking friends!
On top of all that, I started my garden. As usual I'll likely get tired of it and not give it the attention it merits.. but MAYBE this year is my year.
I'm definitely feeling the urge to do new things and get out and move around a lot. We'll see how I do if (when) the rain returns!

Thursday, February 5, 2015

scary exciting plan

A friend proposed that she try to get a number of us permits to hike to the top of Mount St. Helens sometime this year. I accepted, she got into the lottery (i.e. hit the site first thing when permits were available), and we're in! We're going to summit Mount St. Helens on Sunday August 2nd. EEk!

We've bitten off quite a challenge - it's 10.5 miles round trip, 4450 feet of elevation gain, and it's rated Very Difficult; gloves are recommended for climbing around all the boulders covered with ash! You have to carry your own water, and the training recommendation one friend found is that you plan to carry about 30 pounds (mostly water). Wow.

It will be interesting to see how this goes. Of the 8 permits we are using, one person has done this before and is very fit/experienced with training for tough events. Two of us did Cycle Oregon last year, so we have recent experience in setting a tough goal and hitting it. Two of us have done tough things in the distant past (marathon, Cycle Oregon), but have had a few years of not being so good about following through on challenging fitness plans. Three are wild cards that are probably pretty reliable.

I know that things happen and life throws changes at us, so who knows, maybe I'll be one of the people who bails on the event! Every single year since I moved here in the 90s I've wanted to have a year with lots of hiking, so this may be it! My lack of car will be a hindrance in that, however...