Much to my relief, our third day of the climb dawns cloudier and cooler than yesterday. After my ordeal last night, I couldn’t be any more grateful. I wake up still feeling weak, and I’m wondering if I’ll even be able to make it to Camp Muir, let alone anywhere on the upper mountain. But…
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Before I get into mountaineer school today, I should probably tell you a bit more about this climb. The program Lori and I signed up for is the four day summit climb through Rainier Mountaineering Inc. RMI is the original guiding service on Mt Rainier, and they have an excellent reputation. There are two other…
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Before I get in to the details of my climb of Mt Rainier, I won’t keep you in suspense of how I did. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the summit. Words can’t even describe my disappointment at not succeeding a second time, however I did get to 12,300ft, the top of the Disappointment Cleaver…
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Holy smokes it’s time. We’ve reached the climax of our training. The crux of our hikes. The hardest one of them all. At least until we get to Rainier. Mailbox Peak is practically legend in these parts. Hikers mention it with awe and fear. People speak of it in hushed tones. Ok, maybe not that extreme. But…
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As I mentioned last week, I climbed Mt Rainier this past weekend. And I’ll have photos to share with you soon, but I have a two more training hikes to tell you about first. Our second to last hike is Granite Mountain. I did this hike for the first time I tried to climb Rainier…
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Last year during my training for Kilimanjaro, I climbed McClellan Butte a couple times. If you read that post, you’ll know I didn’t make it all the way to the top due to the heat and a rather bothersome pain in my hip. The time before that, the view was blocked at the top and…
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Those of you who know me, probably know I did a summit attempt of Mt Rainier back in 2009. For many reasons, including not knowing that I had (and still have) exercise induced asthma, I made it to 11,200 ft, the Ingraham Flats, before I had to turn around. I have since gone on to…
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After last weeks ridiculously hot hike, I’m so glad today is much cooler and cloudy. At 8.2 miles round trip and 3326ft of elevation gain, Dirty Harry’s Peak has similar stats as Mt Washington, but it’s a much rougher trail. Not many people know of this hike, so let’s keep it between us friends, shall…
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Not the Mt Washington in New Hampshire. This Mt Washington is about an hour east of Seattle and offers some of my favorite views from the summit. At 8.5 miles round trip and 3250ft of elevation gain, this is our hardest hike yet and definitely well into the difficult range. Plus, I’m carrying about 50lbs…
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A few weeks ago, my friends Adrienne, Suzie, Amy (who I climbed Kilimanjaro with last year) and I got together to celebrate Amy’s recent engagement. We had brunch at the always delicious Volterra in Ballard, followed by a walk through the Ballard Farmer’s Market. It’s a perfect morning without a cloud in the sky. People…
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In my last post, I told you about my first attempt at hiking Lake Serene. Now, this isn’t a super challenging hike, and the reasons we didn’t make it weren’t because we weren’t strong enough. On that first try, we were turned around by the snow. Not wanting either of us to slip and break…
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As many of you know, my friend Lori and I are currently training to climb Mt Rainier at the end of July. I workout 4 days during the week doing a mix of TRX, yoga, spin class and HIIT training. On the weekends, I try to get one good hike in, progressively getting more and more…
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