Hiking hiking hiking FOOD

So far I've been doing a lot of hiking this year - in preparation for doing South Sister (outside of Bend, Oregon) in August!

Avalanche lilies

Mount Saint Helens, Mount Rainier, ten million flowers

Mount Hood 

Mount Shasta

I also added yet another activity to my non-working hours: cookbook club! A friend organized this, and I'm so grateful she did as it's something I've wanted to do for a long time but didn't have the right people/energy to get it going. We pick a cookbook, everyone gets it from the library (or buys it I guess), we each pick recipes and tell each other what we'll bring, and then we have a potluck made up of dishes all from the same cookbook. OOOOOOH it is so good. 

Food from the Jerusalem cookbook by Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi

Food from Mallmann On Fire by Francis Mallmann

Running continues to be a major challenge - namely, finding shoes that don't make my legs ache - and I've tried yoga three times at a spot in my neighborhood. Today I get to take off since I hiked 10.5 miles yesterday; since I had an enormous dinner after the hike, I might walk a couple miles today just so I don't feel like a complete slug. We'll see how the weather is looking when I get off work! 

Mount Saint Helens - to the summit!

After seven months of training and over 100 miles on the trails, I was as ready as I was going to be for Mount Saint Helens. My friend Julie got ten permits (100 people per day get to go for the summit in the summer time) and there were six of us from Portland and four from Seattle.

Every hiking party has to sign in and out, so they know if they have to come looking for you.

I'd hiked with each person on Team Portland at least once, and it seemed like my pace was a good mesh with at least a couple other hikers. The other three were faster, but didn't seem to mind regrouping regularly, so we planned to just stick together for the most part.

View of Mount Adams

The MSH trail is an out and back, on a route called Monitor Ridge. It's under 5 miles one-way, and I knew that the trail was broken up like so:
 - 1/3 slight elevation climb along a forested trail
 - 1/3 "trail" in a boulder-strewn wall, with a ton of elevation gain
 - 1/3 trudge/scramble/two steps forward, one step back along an ashy slope.
The entire elevation gain is 4665 feet, with the peak at an elevation of 8280 feet. The vast majority of the climbing occurs in about 3 miles.

An idea of the terrain we had to climb - for hours.

The hike was super tough, both physically and psychologically. One person in our group has done the hike many times, but never in summer - only when there is lots of snow on the mountain. Then, he said, all the boulder field is covered by snow, so you just snowshoe on up! Of course, you also have to start a couple miles further away from the trailhead...

Fortunately I'd read a recommendation somewhere online to bring sturdy work gloves. I used my hands a LOT on the scramble up and down, and would have shredded my palms and fingers without my trusty leather gardening gloves.

View from lunch - we'd come a long way! 

We got lucky with the weather - it was warm but not hot, and we had cloud cover much of the time. We got one wind/rain squall, right after we cleared the boulder field on the way up, but it abated pretty quickly and I didn't even bring out my warm jacket, though I did put on a hat and long-sleeve layer for a while. We all had plenty of food and water - in all I drank nearly all the 5 liters of water I brought, but I didn't run out!

We still had a very long-looking way to go - that lighter brown is the rim, and there are people up there. 

It took us about 90 more minutes of uphill hiking to get there. 

I was most despairing when we stopped for lunch. We started hiking at 7am, and at 12:40 the top still looked impossibly far away. We (I, anyway!) had a tentative plan to turn around at 2pm - my logic was that we'd have been hiking 7 hours by then, and could spend nearly that long coming down, and I didn't want to get caught out in the dark if I could help it. Others on my group wanted to go for the summit no matter what, and I was nervous about the possible consequences.

It was a relief to get out of the boulder field, though the going was by no means easy!

At 2pm we weren't at the summit, and it still seemed a ways away, but at least we were out of the boulders and onto the steep rocky/ashy slope. We decided to go for it (summit fever is real!) and I made the summit at 2:10. Woooooo!

Dramatic summiting shot. 

One of my friends stopped about 20 minutes short of the summit, just feeling too maxed out. But she was close enough that she could hear our voices, and after some reflection and regrouping, she decided to go for it after all. Fortunately I spotted her attempt to join us, just before she was obscured by a rise in the ground. One of the fitter members of our group went down to confirm she was in fact making an attempt for the top, and kept her company on the way back up. I was grateful he was able to be so nice, because I did NOT want to cover any bonus ground myself!

Looking down into the crater. It was hard to get a decent shot!

We hung out at the rim for a while, taking pictures and enjoying the moment. Then, however, we had to face the fact that we were only halfway done with our hike! Going down was still super hard, and I was so so tired already... I didn't take a single picture of the descent!

Triumphant group shot (of most of us)

The last two miles of trail (the wooded, gradual grade) felt like they took forever...but I officially signed us off the trail at 7:21 - for a total of 12:21 hiking. What an accomplishment!!!! My body is still sore four days later, but I'm slowly getting back to normal.

This is how we all felt! 

I'm actually toying with doing South Sister next year... we'll see!

Mount Saint Helens - training hikes!

Earlier this year a friend came up with an audacious-feeling goal: summiting Mount Saint Helens on August 2nd. I guess it was a bucket list item for her, but it never was something I ever considered doing. However, I'm not one to back away from a challenge, and I do better with fitness activities if I'm terrified of some event I'm committed to doing, so I agreed to join!

Multnomah Falls - a classic for a reason

I'm so glad I had this event in front of me because it got me out on the trails way more than ever before. Ever since I moved to Oregon in 1996 I wanted to do more hiking (I told myself) but somehow I rarely did more than one or two hikes per year.

Springtime on Hamilton Mountain

This year I did a ton of hiking - at least 107 miles! I started in January hiking in Forest Park with friends, but then we started hitting the Gorge and got some real classics in:
Wahkeena Falls, Angel's Rest (twice), Cape Horn, Herman Creek Trailhead, Hamilton Mountain (twice), Dog Mountain, Herman Creek & Nick Eaton Trail, Multnomah Falls to Nesika Lodge, Forest Park (starting outside Linnton), Wahkeena to Multnomah Falls, Algonquin Park (in Canada), Mt. Defiance, and Eagle Creek.

Dog Mountain in wildflower season

My favorite was Dog Mountain - it's legendary for its beauty during wildflower season, and we went in May, on Mother's Day. I was stunned at the flowers - SO beautiful! I've been hearing about that hike since I moved here and I now know it's worth the effort.

Part of the trail on Mount Defiance

Mount Defiance is a legend amongst hikers - some joke that you summit Mount Hood to train for Defiance! It IS a beast - 12 miles round-trip, 4800 feet of climbing, relentlessly UP or DOWN, and the last couple of miles of trail were actually scary, they were so steep, slippery, and eroding. But, we persevered and felt like we were as ready as we were going to be to tackle Mount Saint Helens.

On the way down on Defiance. This part of the trail was super scary. 

Next post: Mount Saint Helens!!! (spoiler alert: we survived!)

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!

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...

Other than the house

I AM doing things that are not house-related. I'd like to see a handful of the Oscar movies, though I'm averaging less than one movie theater visit per week.

I've been on a couple of hikes in Forest Park with friends - only about 3 miles or so per loop, but we're bumping it to five miles this coming Saturday. We even went out two weeks ago when it was COLD here.

It was fun catching the trees in a shrouded-with-fog, sun-breaking-through moment.

I've also been on a few bike rides - 6 miles on New Year's Day and 10 miles each of the last two Sundays.

AND I've been eating out some. I should probably get a list going, or review the places as I go to them. The best one most recently was Oven and Shaker in the Pearl District, a few weeks ago with some friends. I felt SO out of it since I hadn't even heard of it, but my talented friend had done some work for them and so called in a favor to get us a seat on a Saturday night. There was a miscommunication that left us standing around a bit, but they made up for it by sending some nibbles to the table and covering our first (only) round of drinks. The appetizers we had were: fried mozzerella (yum), fried chickpeas, the salmon appetizer special (lox), and two of the fried rice balls - one with saffron, one with mushrooms. We also split two pizzas, one brussels sprouts and one with mushrooms. It was a lovely night out, though I might not seek it out again soon as it's a bit loud and it's normal to wait quite a while for a seat. Also, much of the seating is on stools which I don't really like. The food itself was delicious.

Weekend goodness

I'm sitting on my couch eating pistachios and mourning the lost hour - spring ahead is tomorrow! I've never learned how to remember the difference between daylight savings & standard time, or whatever it's called.

I went on a hike today up in wine country. I did the hike one other time, but this time my friends and I were in a super hurry and pushed to get to the peak and back down again in just over two hours (for maybe 4.5 miles round-trip).

It was a pretty day for it - and then we went wine tasting!  The rest of the weekend will be relaxing, I think, and I'll try to get more blog posts done for posting this week. If I'm ambitious, I will do something with Meyer lemons. Stay tuned!

A weekend hike

A friend and I went for a hike on Saturday in Mount Diablo State Park. At 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning, it was a breeze to get there. And what a day for the hike! We went almost ten miles under blue skies, on sun-dappled trails, and got to pick our way across a river that cut across the trail.. okay, 14 times. And, yeah, turns out I hadn't accurately called our turning point, so we had to retrace our steps back over the 14 river crossings. So we crossed the same river 28 times! Fortunately there were no blisters or other issues or it might've been a bit bleak.

I saw lots of flowers, including a type that was new to me:

Alas, the Secret Trail to Barbeque Terrace, while lovely, did not in fact lead to any sources of grilled meat. Fortunately, I was already going to a bbq later that afternoon!

Hiking the Mt Tam watershed

This weekend I did a 9.6-mile hike. Yes, longer than any walking I've done in quite a while, but it was on a lovely and gradually-graded fire road, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, Marin County.

We started at Alpine Dam, hiked down to Kent Lake, and then returned to dam-level.

I took tons of photos of flowers, and even of a banana slug, but the most interesting feature of this hike were the cement trestles, about which I can find no information online, clearly built to support a now-worn water pipe when the bend in the trail was too sharp for the pipes, and which now are covered in moss.