Utah National Parks Part II

Capitol Reef to Bryce

After narrowly missing getting a campsite in Moab, we opted to take the short way to Capitol Reef. We felt fairly confident that heading to possibly the least visited Utah park on the Thursday afternoon would get us one of the first come first serve campsites in the park. Little did we know that we were traveling on a Thursday that most school districts in the state had off for a four day weekend.

As we approached the park you could see what a geologic wonder it is. Capitol Reef is based around the Waterpocket Fold, a 100 mile long monocline, largest in the US. What looks like a mountain range coming from the east is really the Fold. Contrary to what we experienced in the Moab area, as we drove west on highway 24 was more lush terrain. This is because the highway actually follows the Fremont River into the fold/park. There were green cottonwoods all around and a very different feel than the other parks we had already visited. When we got to the western end of the park, we saw the dreaded "campground full" sign at the visitor's center. I had to press on, in case it was wrong. We talked a bit to one of the campground hosts who informed us of the Utah holiday. She also told us there would be about 11 spots opening the following morning and I could come back at 7:30am to try and get one. And possibly the most important thing she told us was where to find camping as she knew the commercial campgrounds in town were full.

So we made a brief stop in the visitor's center and then headed out to dispersed camping on national forest land just west of the park. This was very primitive camping with no toilets or running water. It was also free, so that was nice. The ground was rough and we had to be careful driving in our sedan. We finally located a patch where we were willing to throw down our tent. But because there was no water, I had to leave Jennifer and Mirabelle at camp while I drove back into the park to secure water for our night's dinner. I came back to discover Mirabelle playing with a large group of kids that were camping nearby. We let her play until dinner and then she sat at their campfire until well after her bed time. The goal was that I would wake up early (which I had been doing) and head into the park to wait for a camp site.

The next morning I woke up and headed right into the park, arriving at the campground just before 7am. I was fourth in line. Around 7:30 the ranger pulled up and the three vehicles ahead of me dispersed. I was now talking to the camp host and he was asking if I wanted sun or shade. I thought beggars couldn't be choosers? So I opted for shade and paid for two nights of camping. I then headed to the Gifford House to wait for cinnamon rolls to bring back for breakfast. I watched turkeys and deer waiting for it to open at eight. Then I rolled in and had to wait fifteen minutes for the baked goods to arrive before I could buy a few cinnamon rolls and a pie and go pick up my family.

After picking up Jennifer and Mirabelle we went back and claimed our campsite and set up our tent. Then we walked over to the Ripple Rock Nature Center for the Snakes Alive show. Mirabelle was pretty excited about it and pushed her way up front. She even got to hold a rosy boa! After the show, we went back to camp and drove out to our hike of the Grand Wash. This was a hike we needed to do this day as flash flood warnings were in effect for the following two days. It can be done as a 2.5 mile point to point, or a 5 mile round trip. The hike started off good, but grew increasing long. Mirabelle usually looses steam in the afternoon and at some point after the narrows, we stopped for lunch. It was looking toward the end we wouldn't even make the other trailhead and Jennifer and I discussed how we would accomplish this hike. That is when the reality of the math struck us. If I hiked back to the car, they would still wait an hour in the parking lot for me. So we figured we would see if someone would shuttle one of us back to the car. When we finished the hike we found a local family who was willing to transport all three of us back in their vehicle and they even had a car seat! This act of kindness really made the hike possible for us. After dinner we stayed up for the evening ranger program at the amphitheater before retiring for the night.

The next day we hiked to Hickman Natural Bridge. This was a fairly short hike that rose out of the parking area and eventually through the wash to the bridge. It was gray and misty, so we weren't too concerned about the short section of wash, but we were prepared to move if it seemed like the rain would pick up. The bridge was fun as you got to walk under it and hike a short loop before returning to the main trail and back to the car.

We then drove to the short hike to view petroglyphs. There were some nice examples, although we could not get as close to them as the one we views back in Moab. It was starting to rain a little harder at this point, so we took the park's scenic drive. This was a good thing to do in the wet, and to give Mirabelle some sitting time after two hikes. However, the road crossed several washes and even was a wash for a short distance before the pavement ends. I was a little spooked by this, so we didn't get out at any of the viewpoints or stay too long on the road. We had reservations at a restaurant in town, so we just headed that way, stopping at a few view points in the park on the way out. One of which was the Goosenecks Overlook which overlooks Sulphur Creek winding through a canyon. It was quite unexpected as some of these deep canyons are not noticeable until you are standing on the rim.

We continued into Torrey to the Cafe Diablo. We probably didn't need reservations for the 5:30pm time we had made, but when we were leaving they had to open the outdoor seating to accommodate people who were arriving without reservations. It was nice to eat inside on the first rainy evening of our trip. While the empanadas appetizer was great, and I enjoyed the pomegranate chipotle ribs, Jennifer wasn't bowled over with her pecan chicken and we felt the restaurant was maybe a bit overhyped. The great thing is that instead of the typical placemat and crayons that restaurants give kids, they let Mirabelle borrow an Etch-a-Sketch. Which made us vow to purchase one for the longer road trip segments as soon as we got back to civilization.

Because of our early meal time we were once again able to attend the Ranger talk at the Amphitheater before turning in for the night.

I awoke early in the damp morning and was planning our travel day in the car when I decided I had enough time for a bit of a hike. So I grabbed the camera and headed up the Cohab Canyon trail which leaves across the street from the campground. The hike up was short and steep and in no time I was at the head of the canyon. I hiked in a bit poking around, but wanted to get back for when Jennifer and Mirabelle woke up so I wouldn't delay our travel day. When I got back to the mouth of the canyon, the sun was shining a bit, and there was a rainbow beyond the campground. After snapping some pics I headed down and we once again had pie at the Gifford House for breakfast. We packed up the tent, and then Mirabelle played with some other kids for an hour or so before we finally got on our way.

We got underway and headed out to Scenic Highway 12. Our goal was somewhere in the Grand Staircase Escalante area but it would be determined by weather. It was raining lightly for the most part and when we climbed through Dixie National Forest, it was really foggy and going was a bit slow. We stopped for lunch at Hell's Backbone Grill, easily the best food we had on the trip. Jennifer had some pumpkin pinon enchiladas and I had posole. The meal was so good we fantasized about returning this way on the way home to eat there again. Then we continued on to the monument.

There was some wild terrain, and some creative highway engineering that went into the scenic highway. At one point the road occupies the top of a ridgecrest called the Hogsback. We drove through the monument before actually reaching the town of Escalante, where we stopped in the monument visitor's center. After talking with the ranger, it was determined that we couldn't do anything in the monument because of the rain. All roads in the monument are unpaved and become streams or sandpits. So we hung out at the visitor's center and checked out the displays which included a dinosaur skull and microscopes for looking at cryptobiotic soil crusts. We decided to continue on to Bryce, which had a similar weather forecast. But being farther west, we hoped it would get out of the rain sooner.

When we arrived at Bryce we checked on the camping situation. There were sites available. I guess not a whole lot of people like to camp when it is raining and in the forties. We contemplated getting a hotel room and drove into town to check prices at Ruby's. (We checked for a room, a cabin and a tee pee.) Then we decided all of that was too much to spend and we should set up the tent. We drove back into the park during a break in the rain and hoped to get our wet tent set up before it started raining again. But by the time we picked out a site it was raining. We made the decision there it was time to get a room, dry off our tent and get some showers. We drove back to the hotel in sheets of rain, streams running down the street and lightning lighting up the sky. We picked the right time to have our hotel night after a run of twelve nights camping.

We immediately took the tent out to dry and then made a choice for food. We opted not to go to the restaurant located inside Ruby's and head down the road a short distance to Cowboy Ranch House. It wasn't worth the trip out in the rain, but it wasn't horrible. Then we went back to the hotel and Jennifer and Mirabelle went swimming in the pool before bed. In the morning it was still raining and we got some laundry done while we ate breakfast at the Cowboy's Buffet and Steak Room located within the hotel. I had a surprisingly delicious breakfast burrito, and I would say the food was a touch better than down the street. After the laundry was done we checked out and headed into the park.

Reminder: Pics are here. 

Utah National Parks 10.06-27.15 Part I

Seattle to Moab

We took some time off to visit the Utah National Parks; Arches, Bryce, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Zion. We had rough plans to spend a certain amount of time in each park with select itineraries for each. The plan was to head from north to south and return from the southern end of the state.

As road trips with a preschooler go, we left late on the sixth. Our intended destination was somewhere in Idaho, hopefully as far as Boise. During longer summer days, and pre-kid we could have easily made Salt Lake by the end of the day. The drive out was uneventful and we even got to stop at a taco truck we had wanted to try in Yakima. We were benighted before Idaho but pressed on to Martin Landing a nice (and free) campground at the confluence of the Boise and Snake rivers. We slept and headed out the next morning hoping to make it to Moab. Along the way we stopped at the Buffalo Cafe in Twin Falls for lunch (of breakfast items.) We continued on and stopped for dinner at the Red Rock Brew Pub in Downtown Salt Lake City. After our nice al fresco dining experience, we were benighted again on our way to a camp site at Lake Utah State Park. The $30 a night camping was the highest we paid the whole trip, and was as least offset by the previous night's free camping. On the way out of town, we stopped for kolaches at Hruska's in Provo. Although we had to make an extra stop for coffee as they don't serve coffee until the first snow.

We took a nice scenic ride down to Moab and were poised to arrive in the mid afternoon. We opted to skip some hikes we planned earlier in the day to make sure we could secure a campsite. This proved fruitful as when we entered the visitor's center in Moab, we were told there was little camping left but we found a great site on BLM land up Sand Flats Road, just walking distance from the Slickrock trail head. We set up camp for what would be the next seven days. Since we had a free but short afternoon, we went into town so I could secure a rental bike at Poison Spider. Lucky to be an XL frame size, I was able to get a Kona Process 134 for my next days adventure. We went back to camp and had dinner and explored the slickrock around our camp before retiring for the evening.

The next morning was a little lazy and we got down to the bike shop before 10am to pick up my ride. I had to wait a bit before I could catch a lift to the trail head and start my ride. The woman who drove the shuttle said her favorite trail was porcupine and I considered telling her to drive me there, but I stuck with the original plan. The funny thing about the slickrock trail. The practice loop is not easier than the full loop, only less committing. I knew that, but really struggled with the practice loop. Mostly on the climbs. Part of this was the saddle on the bike being set too low. Another part of it was I had a difficult time gauging the steepness of the climbs and usually found myself in too low of a gear. The riding was fun, and I stopped at a canyon overlook before finishing the practice loop. I raised the saddle at the end of the practice (but still not enough) and wondered if it was a good idea to continue on.

With the saddle raised a bit the climbing was a little easier but I still wasn't finding my groove. Many climbs had awkward starts (from sand pits) or even more awkward 90° turns at the start. And I was still finding myself in too low a gear. Then around three miles in I adjusted the saddle upward again. Around this same time I finally attempted to use the larger front chain ring and climbing got easier. The benefit of "discovering" the outer chain ring was now I descending faster as well. I was really enjoying myself, and spent little time walking the bike except for a few sand pits. Later in the ride, I was getting tired as I did not pack enough food and it was getting hotter. The climbing got difficult again, and some climbs I didn't even bother trying as I knew I would expend 10 times the energy of walking the bike and not really go faster. Of course, my descent speeds increased and at the final descent before reconnecting with the practice loop I was able to hold off a couple of motor bikes. Me on a dual suspension bike is point and hold on. Lots of fun.

The slickrock was like nothing I had ridden before. Other than the occasional sand pits all the riding was on rock, and usually smooth. There was little shade, but I did stop to rest a few times under junipers or behind rock outcrops. It was also fun to watch the rock crawlers do their thing on the Hell's Revenge trail as well as a few guys on trials motos doing what ever they could. The uphills were technical in the sense you needed some skills with body position to get up them, but overall the riding is not very technical. I had a some fun riding down the road back into town to meet Jennifer and Mirabelle at the bike shop.

We ate at Milts for lunch (perfect way to end the slickrock.) Then we headed to the civic center to swim in the pool for an hour before buying some groceries and heading back to camp.

The next day we headed to Arches. The road makes quite the entrance into the park. We went on a short ranger led hike and saw Balanced Rock before having a picnic lunch. Then we went over to Park Ave for an "art crawl" at Mirabelle's insistence. This involved hanging out with a Moab artist who gave us colored pencils and paper to draw what we saw. We sat in the shade for an hour or so drawing before we finally started our hike down Park Ave. This was a nice hike through a wash, but late in the day Mirabelle could not make the return trip. I had to hike back and do the car shuttle by picking them up at the courthouse towers parking lot.  That concluded our first day at the park.

The following day we headed up the road to check out dinosaur prints. This involved a longish drive up the highway to a dirt road leading to a small parking area. There happened to be a stage mountain bike race going on, so the small parking area was a bit more full as there was a water station set up there. We took the 500 foot hike to see some cool tracks left in a river bed millions of years ago. We left that location (Copper Ridge) and headed to another location Mill Canyon where the tracks were only recently unearthed or discovered. There was a boardwalk and at least a half dozen different dinosaur tracks including some crocodile tracks as well. A short and quite sandy drive further up the road revealed fossilized dinosaur bones in the rock near a wash. It also happened to be a great place to view pack rat middens. after carefully driving out of the sand we headed back to camp. After that we managed a hike to double arch in Arches. Although perhaps a little ambitious for late day with a preschooler.

The day after that we spent making the long (for a preschooler) hike to Delicate Arch. While it is a fun hike, it is not so much when you are in a conga line with all the other tourists. The trail starts at an old homestead and crosses a stream (with frogs!) before going up slickrock slabs for a quarter mile then winding around a while until taking a blasted into the cliff route to the arch. Mirabelle was perhaps feeling tired on this hike and we were doing it close to midday so it was real slow going on the way up. She was pretty chipper on the way down. This arch is the one on the Utah license plates. It is nice, and you can walk under it. But there was so many people there all I wanted to do was turn back to the car. After the hike we drove Potash Road to look at petroglyphs.

We decided to change things up a bit and head to Canyonlands. Partially to start Mirabelle on her second Junior Ranger badge of the trip, but also to avoid crowds at Arches. (Entry times into Arches for us were about 30 minutes. We were never more than the third car at Canyonlands.) Our first stop was Mesa Arch and the short hike to it. This was a fun arch you could get up close to and looking through it gave you a good view of the canyon as well. Interesting thing about this hike is that it is a loop, but when we were there over 90% of the tourists took the same (southern) trail back instead of the northern leg. We had it all to ourselves on our hike back.

We then headed out to do a hike at Whale Rock. Before we did, we had a picnic lunch at the Upheaval Dome picnic area. Then drove to and started out on our hike up Whale Rock. This was a fun hike with scrambling involved that kept Mirabelle engaged. The views from up top were nice, and it was also not a very populated trail. After finishing that hike we did a little poking around at the Shafer Canyon overlook before returning to camp.

We were back in Arches the following day and did a morning hike on the windows loop. While the main trail in was mobbed, the return "primitive" trail was more quiet and much fewer people which made it a nicer hike. We had a picnic lunch at the shady Devils Garden picnic area, and then proceeded to hike to Landscape Arch. Landscape Arch is possibly the longest known natural arch in the world. But what makes it dramatic is the how thin it is for the length of span. Much more deserving of the name "delicate." On the way in we saw a few other arches and then made our hike out. Right near the start of the trail is a sand slope that Mirabelle and other kids played on before we returned to the car and went back to camp.

The following day it was time to say goodbye to Moab. We had planned to do one hike in Canyonlands before leaving for Capitol Reef because entry into Canyonlands was quicker in previous days. So we packed up camp and headed for Canyonlands and our last hike in the Moab area. For the hike we opted for the Grand View Trail which is at the southern end of the mesa that makes up the Island in the Sky District. We started with a ranger talk and then headed out on the trail. This trail runs along the cliffs for most of its duration. At some point you can see the Green River, but the Colorado remains elusive. The views are expansive and really made me want to explore the other districts in the park as well as the White Rim Trail. In a funny sort of thing, when we got to the southern tip of the mesa and had snacks, I heard a woman calling "Gilbert." I asked if that was in fact what she was calling and she said yes. But not only was her husband named Gilbert, so was another guy that was on the trail. After some joking around, we headed back to the car and the drive to Captiol Reef.

Photos can be seen here. 

First Mother, Fay, Pleasant and Hessong - 09.24.15

4000' of elevation gain
~8 miles RT
Left Car: 8:15am
Returned: 4:45pm
8.5 hours car to car

I had two days available and was thinking big. I had settled on a plan to attempt two mountains on the Bulger list. But then when the time came, the weather wasn't going to cooperate for two days of scrambling. Closer to the date, it was looking like rain might even come to the North Cascades Thursday afternoon. So I thought of something different that would be adventurous and could be completed in a day. However, with no partner, the Tatoosh Traverse would be a very tall order. I scaled back and came up with scrambling peaks in the Mowich Lake area northwest of Mount Rainier. This plan afforded me the ability to wake up a bit later, and didn't involve a bicycle.

There were a few people camping at the Mowich Lake sites when I left the car and headed toward Knapsack Pass. As soon as I passed the ranger cabin, I regretted not bringing a bear bell. Alone in the morning on a trail through blueberries was just the place to run into a bear. And I wasn't really up for whistling or singing to myself, but did my best anyway. As I made quick work of the trail up to the pass there was only one delicious blueberry left that I could find, but the bushes were on fire with shades of red.

I paused at the pass to view Mount Rainier before heading on to First Mother, a somewhat impressive looking rock form sticking up from the ridge. I donned my helmet and scrambled up the first rock outcropping after some confusion of Peggy Goldman's description. But I soon realized I was too low and headed further toward First Mother still believing it was something different. (It looked steep and third class from where I was.) I eventually read another part of the route description and realized that the tower was First Mother. Once below it, it was not steep and was a simple walk up loose rock to the summit. I paused on top to view the route to The Castle, which looked sort of mundane. Then I looked toward Fay, my next objective. I descended back to the pass and then a few switchbacks below to gain the ridge leading toward Fay. This was fairly easy and I was moving well enjoying some cool rock formations near Knapsack Pass.

I kept going on the ridge until I ran into a cliff off one of the higher bumps on the ridge. So I turned back and found a bypass on the south side of the ridge. It started as a bit of a climber's path, but turned into goat trails pretty quickly and I wandered in the direction of Fay. At some point it was looking a bit more difficult and I turned back to gain the ridge once again. Then it was a quick trip up to the summit where I sat and ate around noon. Two smaller hawks flew by me and one larger raptor that I could not recognize also flew above. I sat and watched (and photographed) the clouds pushing over the summit of Mount Rainier mesmerized. I then started the trek over to Mount Pleasant.

I dropped down off the ridge again and must have missed the location where I originally left the ridge and was now wandering goat trails in the meadows. After traversing under a rock outcropping I decided I should head up to the ridge again. I couldn't attain the ridge. Or perhaps found it too difficult, or too much of a bushwhack, so I traversed at my new higher elevation. It looked like I could descend by following goat trails, so I had to back track and drop low where I eventually crossed under a cliff band and continued to wander the meadows on a goat trail that perhaps humans have also used. I kept looking for a logical place to regain the ridge, but I was not finding one that made sense (was simple and easy.) So I finally made a decision to traverse the basin and ascend to the saddle between Pleasant and Hessong. This proved simple and easy and in no time I stashed my poles and hiked to the top of Pleasant. The view was nice, I ate a chocolate bar and then headed toward Hessong.

After I returned to the saddle I headed up Hessong. Some more confusion with the map from Peggy Goldman had me ascending the ridge ascending from the saddle between Hessong and Pleasant. This quickly got too difficult and I retreated back a bit to read the description which stated to ascend the Northwest Ridge. I started out to get there, but realized there may be a descent off the ridge and I wouldn't need to return the way I came. I then back tracked to my poles at the saddle before finding a climber's path across the talus to the ridge. Again, I covered this terrain/distance much quicker than it had looked from farther away and I was soon standing on the summit and trying to find the "south facing 2nd class gully" to descend. I couldn't find it, so I descended the ridge I so quickly came up. Back at the saddle I quickly found the trail that heads to the Wonderland trail and in no time I was in the meadows of Spray Park. I turned onto the Wonderland and headed toward Mowich Lake.

I made a few quick side trips to Spray Falls and Eagle Cliff before finally arriving back at the car.

When Mirabelle was a bit younger one of the things I missed about the outdoors was night hiking. Whether it be heading up the Palmer Snowfield under a full moon, or hiking Tiger Mountain with some friends.  It was just not possible with a toddler. But after climbing Mount Thomson earlier this year, I realized what I miss even more is off trail travel. The adventure that comes with picking your way through a talus field or the mystery of leaving the maintained trail to seek out the path before you. From the time I left Mowich Lake to the time I got back into the woods on the Wonderland Trail, I did not see another person. While the paths I were on gave me some direction, I did have to make route finding decisions and choose what worked best for me in the conditions I had. This is something I have missed since Mirabelle was born. Hopefully I will get to do more of it in the coming year.

Some pics here

Mount Thomson 07.30.15

Spoiler alert! Third time is a charm.

I worked it out with KJ that we would do this climb as a "warm up" to Torment Forbidden traverse. We had not yet done it, and we had not climbed an alpine ridge together. So it was sort of a shake down of us climbing together. Although it was a route I had been wanting to tackle since I had been unsuccessful attempting it twice.

We left Seattle on time and somewhat casually at 5am. I think we were shooting for a 12 hour car to car trip. But I was doing this off the couch, so who knew what would happen? We arrived at the trail head a little after 6am, and by the time we were hiking it was closer to 6:30am. I was feeling nervous about losing some time. After sampling some fine thimble berries down low, the miles melted away beneath us in the cool morning forest. We finally arrived at Bumblebee Pass at 9:30am. There we cached our water filter and one liter of water and then started the difficulties.

 In the grand scheme of the climb coming down from Bumblebee pass into the basin in not really difficult. But with the lack of rain this summer the soil was quite loose and sandy with loose rocks deposited in it. KJ was in trail runners and myself in approach shoes better suited for rock. It made for somewhat slow going. then we hiked the climbers trail through the basin where we cached a few items for our return trip that we would not need on the climb like trekking poles. There was some discussion of bringing only one pack for snacks/water, but we both opted to keep our packs on. (After all this is supposed to be a shake down for Torment Forbidden.) We then made our way to the talus field to get to the base of the climbing.

We were now in the sun heading up hot rocks to the base. This also felt incredibly slow, especially trying to avoid loose patches which makes a lot of rocks start sliding beneath your feet. We picked our way up and eventually gained the ridge where we had to scramble an exposed ledge on the north side to make it to the base of the climb. It was now 11am and we took a break and geared up.

We did not bring a route description or topo. I really didn't think it was needed with a five pitch route up a ridge. But perhaps it would have been speedier to have it. KJ took the first pitch, and then I led the next up steep terrain. Perhaps KJ stopped short of the top of the first pitch and I stopped short of the second. But it took us three pitches to make it to the third pitch slab. Which I cruised and brought KJ up and sent him on his way up the next pitch. We simul-climbed for a bit before I took the lead again to the summit with a bit of simul-climbing as well. Arriving at the summit around three hours after we left the base.

Unfortunately for us the summit was not a pleasant place to be. While I belayed KJ up the last bit, I was being bothered by swarming ants flying about me and landing on me. When he went to use the summit register, he too was being swarmed. So we didn't stay long and have a snack, and started the descent quickly. The descent was pretty straightforward. There was some easy scrambling that led to two rappels. Although they are fourth class down climbs, we rapped these as we had the rope out and our harnesses on, so it would be faster and safer to rap. There was a bit more hiking, and then some third class steps before we were once again on loose dirt paths heading down from the notch. This was probably the most unpleasant terrain of the day for me as a misstep would cause you to dirt ski, or worse fall. It was now close to the hottest time of the day and there was little shade. We hiked for a long time on this climber's trail before it gave way to talus again. The talus was actually a welcome relief, but not much faster going. Especially because if there was a faint trail in the talus, I couldn't manage to follow it.

We regrouped at our cache location, picked up our gear and proceeded onward toward Bumblebee Pass. By the time we reached the pass, it was about an hour and a half since we were on the summit, and even longer since we last had water. And even longer for me since I last had food. We shared the stashed liter of water (with NUUN) and headed back to the PCT. We could not wait to get to Ridge Lake to filter some water.

A few uphill minutes on the PCT and we were at the lake. I lagged behind KJ as I was bonking. It became more noticeable when I sat beside the lake with a light headache. I dipped my feet in and got the shivers. We pumped some water and I drank a liter or two. I wanted to jump in, but my body was having difficulty managing temperature, so I thought better of it. I finally got up after being beside the lake for a long time. I was a bit dizzy, and nauseous. I needed food. I tried to eat some bison jerky but it took forever to chew a bite. What I wanted was a fresh juicy Yakima peach, but I didn't have that. The best thing in either of our packs was a Clif beet, banana, and ginger squeeze. It turned out to be the perfect thing, liquid sugar. After a bunch of slurps, we were off again and I was only slowed by picking some really wonderful blueberries on the side of the trail. After we left the blueberries I caught KJ and was back on track.

The hike out seemed to take forever. We kept thinking we were reaching a part we remembered only to have to hike longer to reach that part. This was particularly true with the Commonwealth Basin trail turnoff. This marked the 2.4 miles to go point, but that still meant we were about an hour out. We reached the car around 8pm. We're calling it "less than 14 hours" but I actually forgot to bring a watch so we only checked time when KJ took out his phone.

Overall the climbing was fun if a bit chossy at times. There was no stellar crack pitch or anything like that, just typical Cascades alpine climbing. I was expecting it to be like a bigger version of The Tooth, and maybe it was, but it didn't feel like it. It seemed more adventurous and definitely steeper for the first few pitches. I think this route would get significantly more traffic if the approach wasn't eight miles in. I'm glad to finally achieve this climb and actually enjoy it. Not to mention getting out on a rare occasion.

Family Day at Paradise - 02.27.15

After taking some time off from work and only getting on snow two days I was desperate to get on snow.  (And one of those days was a pretty mediocre day of skate skiing at Cabin Creek.) So I planned a family back country ski adventure. The goal was to go to Paradise where there would actually be fresh snow and do a little skiing. Jennifer was a little reluctant at first due to the five hours of round trip driving for what we could only hope would be 2-3 hours of on snow activity. I hesitate to call it fun, because you never know how things will go with a soon to be four year old. But Jennifer was also excited about the prospect of having some winter, and trying out her new back country ski kit.

With Jennifer having come home after midnight the night before, and the typical prep work of leaving the house with a preschooler, we didn't get out of the house until 10am. Traffic was light once out of Seattle and we made good time to the park. The road was bare from Longmire to Paradise, but the NPS had left up the "chain up" sign. Fortunately as we were parked in the chain up area, a ranger came by and said we did not need chains, and we were on our way again. There was light snow falling on the way up to Paradise. But it was noticeable how little snow there was down low. (None at Longmire to speak of, and you could not ski to the bridge over the Nisqually.)

We got out of the car and geared up. We had Mirabelle's alpine ski setup and my goal was to be the human rope tow and tow her up the slope. Once we were geared up and got on the snow we found the failing in this plan. It was too difficult for Mirabelle to stay upright in the roughly five inches of fresh snow. After three attempts and three falls we switched to another method. Which was Mirabelle hiking up while Jennifer and I skinned. This of course was not sustainable for a long distance and we made it not too far from the parking lot before I sent Jennifer on ahead up a slope. While I looked after Mirabelle making snow angels and eating snow.

I had forgot to give Jennifer any instructions on transitioning and she spent a good portion of time trying to figure it out. She claims 45 minutes, but I think it was closer to 30. At some point I felt she wasn't going to come down without help and I asked Mirabelle if it was fine with her if I went and helped out her mama. So I raced up to help and found that Jennifer could not get into the bindings (Freerides) because there was too much snow jammed in them. I cleaned them out and she was able to lock the heels and head down the bunny slope to Mirabelle. I rushed on behind.

At that point Jennifer went for another lap while I hung out with Mirabelle. This lap went much better for her and she was back down in a reasonable time. I took another lap while Mirabelle grew impatient with the process of waiting for us. When I got back Jennifer wanted to go for another run. At this point it was close to 3:30 and the gate would close at 5pm, so I told her we should go. Mirabelle got her skis on and I held her hand to ski back to the parking lot. It went well enough as long as she kept her skis in the track Jennifer skied down. Mirabelle would come to a stop if she hit the fresh snow which was now heavier after the afternoon warm up hit it. Right before the parking lot I picked up too much speed and dragged Mirabelle down which was the end of skiing for the day. We packed up the car and headed out after that.

It was a learning experience for all of us. Jennifer realized why I enjoy skiing so much more than slowshoeing. She had a great time and wanted to stay longer, but the park's schedule as well as our child's was not going to allow it. Mirabelle once again enjoyed another day in the snow. But being close to four years old and attempting to ski heavy wet cascade fresh is not the easiest way to do things. Perhaps we'll be able to get her on some corn snow before summer?