Rafting with the ghosts. . .

Several months ago, a couple of my former team members in Taiwan let me know that they would be in town. Two years ago, when these two (Cedric and Sam) were in town for an extended stay, I took them up South Sister - a 10,000 ft (~3000meters) peak in Oregon (a REAL mountain with glaciers!), and into the Gorge, and to the coast. So, they wanted to do something different with the 1 day that they had available for touring this time. We decided on whitewater rafting down the Deschutes River.

It turned out that 5 members of the team would be here - 3 members (Sam, Cedric, and York) who had been on the team when I was there, and 2 new members (Shuwen and Jack). With me, we made the perfect number to fill my friend, Bob's, paddle raft, with him as the captain. He's rafted this particular river at least 50 times, so he has some clue about it and the rapids on it, and has done it in all sorts of conditions. We were lucky - we had hot weather (felt like in the 90's on the Fahrenheit scale - mid 30s on the Centigrade scale), so that getting wet in the 65F/18C water was a blessing and enjoyable, rather than an annoyance or uncomfortable. Everyone was excited to have this new experience.

As we traveled to the river, I was informed that it is Ghost month. Ooops. During Ghost month, when the ghosts are let out of Hell and roam the earth, one shouldn't go camping or go near the water. Was the team ok to do so, anyway? Yes. Shuwen mentioned that as long as she didn't tell her mother, she thought she'd be fine. . . The team was more interested in rafting than worrying about the ghosts.

So rafting we went! Bob gave the safety and "how to paddle" talk at the beginning. Safety: If you get thrown out of the boat, keep feet in front of you, hold on to your paddle, and hold on to your life-jacket; and how to pull someone into the raft should they get thrown out of the boat for some reason. How to paddle: together - both sides watch each other and paddle all at the same time. We didn't expect any problems, but just in case, we give this talk at the beginning of any rafting trip. And then, we were off! Right away, we had a nice rapid, where the boat went down into a swell and the waves came splashing over! It felt great, and was fun. Bob told us that "the black hole" is next - this is one where it looks as though it's no big deal - and then, when you're there, the boat drops down about 3 or 4 feet into a "hole" - it's like one of those carnival rides! Sure enough, it looked like it was no big deal. Everyone began to doubt Bob's warning, until we saw the boat in front of us disappear! By then, it was too late, we were headed for the hole (as planned), and came down just next to, and maybe a tad on top of the boat that seemed to be stuck there in that hole. The force of our boat pushed him out, and we, too, came out. One doesn't like to come down on top of other people's boats, normally - sort of considered rude, but fortunately, it turned out ok. The other boat was an oar raft, and he was trying to prevent his oars from popping out, and so sort of got stuck in the hole, since he wasn't able to push the paddles to get the boat out. Our little nudge moved him, and he was fine with it, thankfully!

Bob provided us with a couple of super-duper water guns. These are tubes (I think that they used to have other parts, but the working mechanism is just a tube), where you can put the end in the water, and pull on an inner tube, filling the outer tube with water. When we got hot, we'd shoot water at each other. It passed the time, playfully, in the time between the rapids. We noticed that some of the quietest, most gentle people could turn into amazing "fighting machines" when this tube was placed in their possession! Jack, who hardly ever said a word, shot water at his team-mates almost with a growl!!!! We all laughed at his brief change in character.

It's hard to get pictures of the rafting, because, well, we're in the water, and water isn't very compatible with our electronic cameras. Enterprising photographers are quite aware of this, and therefore set up some shade for themselves and sit at each of the big rapids to take pictures of everyone that goes by. At the end of the day, we were able to go to a store, find our pictures, and get a CD of all of the pictures for a fee. We did this. I found the next sequence fascinating, and thought that I should share it. When we were in the boat and it was folding up, none of us were particularly aware of it - just the experience that we were having at the time - not understanding what was happening to everyone else.

This rapid, we hit absolutely perfectly - look at the sequence:

(I asked Shuwen, later, if she were aware of my hair in her face - nope!)
Bob told everyone to hang on - so everyone leans toward the center of the boat and grabs one of the red straps that Bob put in the boat:

Look at how much the raft is folded up!

And how high the front of the boat is out of the water!

And here, I had no clue that Bob was getting drenched in the back - Cedric and I had been out of the water for what seemed like eons at this point:

Here, we made it out of the rapid, but not quite - the water coming from the side managed to push us into a nearby eddy (a current of water that takes us upstream, in a little circular pool), and this picture was taken just as we were going into the eddy. We wound up going round and round a couple of times, before we all were able to paddle together and strong enough to get us back into the rapid and downstream. Note the smiles on everyone's faces - this was FUN!!!!


We splashed through the rest of the rapids without incident, and just had a great time. We got to the end, and Bob suggested that we do the last third, again, since that has a lot of fun rapids, and is only 3 miles down the road. We were all in favor. All 7 of us piled into my Saturn station wagon and with the raft strapped onto the roof, went the 3 miles up river to just before the rapid at which all of the photos, above, were taken. There were two sides to this rapid - a left and a right side. We'd gone in the right side. We discussed - should we do the right side (more exciting) or the left side (less exciting) this time? Shuwen figured that Cedric, who gravitates to exciting things, would surely want to do the right side, again. Cedric surprised us all by saying, "let's do the left side." Ok!

York and I spent some time dealing with the car shuttle (getting his car that was at the original put-in, driving both back to the take-out, leaving my car there, and driving his back to this new put-in), and finally we were ready. First thing was to get back into the boat. A couple of us got in, and then Shuwen tried to get in. Something happened, and she fell in between the bank and the boat. She was fine, just couldn't get into the boat, so we hauled her in using the technique that Bob had taught us at the beginning. We were off, again! We went splish, splashing through a tiny, tiny little rapid, and the next thing I knew, *I* was in the water. Someone hauled me into the boat before Bob even knew that I'd ever left it!

Next, was the left side of the Oak Springs Rapid. Everyone was prepared - after all, we'd done this rapid, only on the right side, and this one was going to be just a piece of cake. The camera suggests what happened next:

Yup, this was just before the raft flipped completely over. Cedric and I were pretty entwined, so I spent part of the time under water trying to separate from him, and then I felt myself being pulled down - not the way I wanted to go! I wondered about this, and realized that for some reason, the paddle that I was clinging to (never let go of your paddle!), was actually dragging me down. I decided that I preferred going up more than I preferred to hold on to the paddle, so I let go of the paddle, and immediately began shooting up. I thought that I was about to break out to the air, and was thinking great - I need to breathe, but it turned out that I wasn't there, yet. I wondered if I could hold my breath any longer - yes! I could, and finally I popped out! Yippee! I saw Bob's water bottle, a paddle, and one of the water guns in front of me as I continued to travel through the rapids. I struggled to get them and keep my feet in front of me, since there were rocks in these rapids. I managed to get all three things in my possession, and started to worry that I wouldn't be able to get out of the current, so I switched everything to my left arm and hand, and started swimming as well as I could with my right arm to the left bank. I finally hit shallow water running over rocks and just stayed put. This was the first time that I was able to look around to see how everyone else had faired. I saw Cedric with a couple of paddles sitting in the middle of the river with current on both sides of him. He seemed fine. I yelled to ask if he knew that everyone else was ok, but couldn't hear the response (and, it turns out, he couldn't hear the question). I saw Bob's boat a little further downstream, and over on the right bank, out of the current. I started to wonder how I was going to get to the boat when another raft made it through the rapid, and decided to rescue me. They pulled over a little downstream, and I got up and got into their boat, and then we all paddled as hard as we could to get to the other side of the river as close as possible to Bob's boat. We were fairly far downstream, so after thanking that raft team profusely for the rescue, I had to climb up the bank to the road, and go down the road a bit to where the others all were. Fortunately, everyone was there, including Cedric, with their own story to tell. Sam and Jack had each lost a shoe - one lost the right one and the other the left, so when we were all done, Jack got both of their shoes to make one pair, and I happened to have another pair in the car that Sam was able to wear. Jack, the only one who hadn't strapped his glasses to his head, had lost them, and he was pretty much blind without. Sam gave him an extra pair of glasses so that Jack would be able to have SOME vision. . . York told me that when he popped up, he saw a shoe and a paddle, and grabbed the paddle, but couldn't get the shoe. Shuwen popped up next to Sam, and grabbed his life jacket, and he, in turn grabbed the boat. Cedric popped up under the boat, found a little place to take a breath, and then went back under in order to get out from underneath the boat. He was sorry that he'd been told to keep ahold of his paddle, since it made it more difficult for him to get to a safe place. However, after getting to that safe place, he judged that he could make it to the bank of the river after studying his position for a while. The team had to help flip the raft back so that it was right side up, and had already done so by the time I got there. We stood there a while, letting the adrenaline rush pass by, and finally got in the boat. We went through several fairly benign rapids when Cedric gave me a look that said "what is happening?" and he fell out of the boat! After hauling him back in, we ran the rest of the river without incident.

We went to visit a nearby waterfall, where the Native Americans are allowed to fish with nets (they aren't fishing at this time, since the fish aren't running in big enough numbers), and took our rafting team shot with the falls raging behind us:


In the back, left to right: Bob, York, Cedric, Sam, and in the front, left to right: Jack, Leora, Shuwen.
(You can't see Jack's mismatched shoe!)

So, my conclusion after all of this? Never underestimate the ghosts! I'll never forget the confused look on Cedric's face just before falling into the water when just he fell in - he was wondering what he did wrong - but it didn't appear that he did anything wrong - just plucked into the water. . .

I'll go climb a mountain, instead. . . (oooo, but we'll be camping - shouldn't be doing that, either - I'll have to be extra careful!)

leora

Adams Glacier, Mt. Adams, August 9th, 2008

All photos should be clickable to get the high-quality version of the photo.

(This was written for our Ice Climbing class - this was the easiest place for me to put up pictures and commentary that they would have access to. Sorry that it's not readily consumable by all. . .)



This is Adams glacier taken from Divide Camp trail (we didn’t go to the actual “Divide Camp” camping ground, by the way – we, instead, camped near Adams River). On the glacier, there is plenty of water streaming, so no need to bring a lot of water. . .


This next picture is taken from our camping place, just at sunrise, looking at Adams Glacier:





This next picture shows the base of the glacier in the distance, as we were approaching. Note that it’s very broad, and the snow ramp up into the glacier comes from the far left, so, of course, we went up the middle of the right hand side – easy ice walking.



This next one I took because there was an optical illusion, when I was approaching the stream from the bottom, it looked as though it were flowing uphill, because it appeared that I were walking downhill. This picture is taken from the uphill side, looking downhill, and it had the same optical illusion from this direction, where it appeared as though the water should be running toward me, rather than away from me, but it was, in fact, running away from me, since that, in reality, was downhill. . . (doesn't it look as though the top of the picture is uphill?)

The clouds were finally lifting. After the initial easy glacier walk, we moved to the snow ramp that is just right of dead center of the photo:

The glacier really started to look spectacular at this point, so even though we were in the middle of a bunch of boulders, which would suggest that they might come tumbling down from above, I stopped to take some pictures – this one looking up as much as possible to the snow ramp we were about to ascend:
and this one looking northward:

Ok, at this point, we rejected the snow ramp to the north east, and headed up and to the right, thinking that there was also a snow ramp, there, too. After crossing a crevasse and moving to the right, we saw ice to the right (you’ll see it, better, in the next picture), and the rest of this beautiful stuff (sorry about the sunshine in the lens):

Here’s the ice wall that we climbed, thinking that on top would be a snow ramp, but instead, were greeted by ice, but at a much, much tamer angle:

Yeah, I know that this picture is crappy, but it gives some perspective – we were at the top of the ice ramp – just another hundred crevasses left to cross (ok, ok, it wasn’t a hundred, but it was QUITE a few after I thought that we were “almost there!”). You can see the start of the glacier (from a climbing perspective) in this photo:

And for this one I swung the camera more north-northeast – on the far, far right of the photo, I think that you can maybe make out the north cleaver, beyond the red ridge that is close to us:

And, I continued to swing the camera to the east – should be almost due east – looking up –that bump above the yellow – I think that that was the top of this ridge. Backtracking, and looking at the map, I’m thinking that I took this picture from 10200ft, and that the top of the ridge was at 11800ft, so a lot more crevasses and ice climbing left to go:

This is pretty much the same picture, but with the perspective of the rock cliff that we were at, just before climbing the rest. . . we followed the edge of the shade up:

I took no more pictures on the way up - just tried to get my butt up there. . .

Third time's a charm

Every weekend after the 4th of July (US Independence Day) for the last 3 years, I've joined my friend Jae and 4 or 5 others to climb the Kautz Glacier route on Mt. Rainier. The first two years, something happened to thwart our being totally successful (although both times, we were able to say that we'd done the crux of the climb!). This year, we were finally successful mounting this 14,410ft giant via this route depicted here:
Green is the route, and pink are the camp sites.

We started up slow and easy - crossing the lower Nisqually Glacier the first day, and camping at something like 9600ft. I made some comment to Jae that we were lucky - no wind. He said something to indicate that by saying this, I was inviting the wind. I agreed, out loud, and thought "silly Jae" to myself. . . Here is the team at our first camp:

(Left to right: Tom, David, Dan, Jae, Steve)

The second day we broke camp, planning to ascend a mere 2000ft, but didn't even do that! We found a nice campsite just about 1200ft up, water was abundant, and those who were carrying the heavier packs voted to ditch all of the heavy gear, here, and do the rest of the climbing on the summit day, with our lighter summit packs (because we would leave all non-essentials at the camp).

On our summit day, which was just later in this same day, from our high camp at 10,800ft, to make absolutely certain that we made it, we started up early - a little before 9pm, expecting to lose hours getting everyone up the crux of the climb (an ice climb) and then allowing plenty of time to negotiate the crevasses on the way to the summit, expecting to arrive around 10am the following day (beat that by about 3 hours). Coming down would take fewer hours, and we hoped to be back at camp at least by 2pm, avoiding the snow getting too soft underneath us, so that it would be less likely that we'd fall into a crevasse, or that the Kautz Glacier would calve off, burying us in avalanche debris. (The previous weekend, a fellow had to be rescued off of this route because he fell into a crevasse, injurying himself, and a couple days after we went through, a piece of the glacier did calve off, and sent tons of ice and snow careening over some of our route.)

The climb was pretty much 5 phases:

1. walk up a couple of hundred of feet to a rappel station; (at most 1/2 hour)
2. rappell 20 feet or so; ( a couple of minutes for each person )
3. traverse to the base of the ice climb; ( at most 1/2 hour)
4. climb the ice; ( a couple of hours to get everyone up )
5. cross the glacier to the summit. (hours)

We tried to make all of the technical parts as efficient as possible. I headed up and set up the rappel station. Jae and Dan rapped down, first, so that they could set up for the ice climb as soon as they got to the base of the ice climb. Unfortunately, not thinking ahead, I did a standard two rope rappel - where the middle of the rope is at the anchor. However, the rap was just about 20 ft, so when I was done, and had to pull the rope, I had to pull 30 meters (roughly 90 feet) of rope through the device holding the rope at the anchor. Given that my upper body strength is not the best, and we cleverly strengthened the rappel by having the rope go through two biners, not just one, it took me ages to get the rope pulled through. The guys called to me just as I'd finished dumping the rope into my pack, wondering where in the heck I was. . . Jae and Dan moved on to the base of the ice, David and Steve waited for Tom and me to catch up, since there was a little bit of crevasse negotiating that had to be done, where they were waiting, and so they wanted to make sure that we managed it without incident. Then we all high-tailed it to the base of the ice, by which time, Jae and Dan were already set with belay anchor in place. This is the wait and freeze part of the climb, while the lead goes up and puts in protection, mostly to protect himself, until he gets to a "belay station" when he puts in an anchor. Here we are, enjoying this part of the climb:

Jae's at the anchor belaying Dan, above (and out of sight of this picture). Steve (in blue) and David (in orange) are getting everything ready for the next part. Everyone has their parkas on because it is so cold, and we're pretty much just standing around. As soon as they started up to climb, they dumped the parkas into their packs.

After getting through this part, we started the long slog across the top to the crater rim. There were seracs and crevasses, and we were moving in the dark. For some reason, Jae didn't want to lose any of us, so he was constantly making sure that the snow under our feet was solid. We didn't have previous tracks to follow - tends to make the climbs a LOT faster if you can blindly follow someone else's tracks - but what's the fun in THAT? After an hour or so, the wind picked up, and we all donned our parkas, again. I had to stop our rope team, once, to pee. This is the one time, while climbing, that I envy the guys. My harness has a little thing that allows me to stay in the harness, and just make it so that I can drop my pants, but I had some 4 layers of pants on - shorts, tights, long underwear, and windpants. That's a lot of clothing to strip down, do my thing, and then get pulled up, and, oh, yeah, it's cold and the wind is blowing. . . I think that my ropemates (Dan and David) asked me if I were ready twice before I was. . . After all, it doesn't take THEM that long. . .

At sunrise, we walked next to a beautiful serac, across a narrow bridge between a couple of crevasses, with a sort of bowl on one side. I didn't think that the picture would come out, given the light, and we were trying to press to get to the summit, so I didn't stop to take a picture, unfortunately.

Finally, at around 6:45 am, we were at the summit! The wind was unbelievable. The rope between us didn't lie on the ground - it was picked up by the wind and floated in the air.My camera decided to stop working (too cold, I'm sure), so the only picture is from Dan's camera. It's hard to tell that the wind is blowing as hard as I know that it was:

This one has (left to right) Tom, Steve, Jae, me, and David. We joke about all summit pictures looking the same - Is that REALLY David? He is completely covered from head to toe - it could be ANYONE. . .

We stayed just under the summit (out of the wind) for a little over one hour, getting a little bit of needed rest before heading down, and then were back at our camp around 2 or 2:30 in the afternoon. The wind had been just as intense down there - my tent had moved over a couple of inches, and everything inside was all jumbled about. We were told that the nice skiers that we'd seen, earlier, had retied down David's tent, or else he might have lost it, completely. I'd left my stove out, and while it and the pot were still there, the aluminum wind screen that had been around it was gone. We settled down for the night with calmer winds. The calmer winds didn't last very long, however. I went around and re-secured the tent, putting in heavier rocks, and went inside to try to sleep. The flapping of the tent was incessant. Jae can sleep with ear plugs, and so slept through it all. He slept all the way up until the wind picked up the tent, AND me, and threw me into him. That woke him up. After one more bodyslam into Jae, I braved the wind, determined to fix the tent. One of the tiedowns was severed, and the other two were very loose, the rocks not being a match for the wind. I took some of the rope that we use for creating anchors (cordelette), and tied the tent down with that. THAT worked. No more body slams after that. Still lots of tent flapping, but the tent stayed put. The wind, obviously, was someone's revenge for my thinking "silly Jae," earlier. . .

In the morning I went out to see if I could spot my stove windscreen, get water, and go for a pee, wanting to get out of sight of everyone, for a change. . . I was wandering around on some snow and rocks when my foot slipped, and I fell, crashing my lower back onto a rock. I rolled up into a little ball while the pain washed over me, and then spent some time evaluating - one scraped hand (of no consequence), one very sore back. Ooo - this could make things unpleasant. Everything seemed to function, though, so I was sure that I could get down just fine. Walking back to camp made me wonder, slightly, as lifting my legs turned out to be not so easy. Moving downward and walking on flat ground seemed to be ok, so again, I was pretty sure I'd be ok. I told Jae of my plight and he made the normal "so we don't have to call in a helicopter" joke. Eegads - being injured is bad enough - to have to be rescued - that would be incredibly embarrassing!

We'd planned on heading down around 10am in the morning, but Jae noticed that a lenticular cloud:

that was around the summit was widening its reach, and Jae didn't want to be in it. He wanted me to break down camp, quickly, which isn't my strong suit. . . Getting everything to fit in the backpack takes time, and it's nice if one can spread out all of the gear, and place it into the pack in exactly the right order. Then, it all fits. But with the wind, this type of packing wasn't possible. I had to make it fit, even though everything would be in the wrong order. I wore my harness so that I wouldn't have to pack it.

We headed down, and I found that pretty much every step hurt, but quite bearable. At one point, we had to jump from a rock over a mote to the snow. Jae, in a supreme moment of compassion, waited for me to help me over. He and David each took one of my hands (as if helping a lady out of a car) and I braced for the pain that would accompany my landing on the snow. I was ecstatic to experience no pain at all. I remembered that moment every time I crossed a crevasse with no help and the pain would cause me to utter "ouch". I was glad that everyone was far away so that they wouldn't hear that constant utterance.

We all made it down just fine, but, annoyingly, the back injury has already kept me off 2 planned climbs. I find that I can run and walk, but straightening up after bending down is, well, a pain in the back. . .

Ok - now for some mountain humor. We use something called a "blue bag" to carry out our excrement (the stuff doesn't disappear in the alpine environment, so for years, now, bagging it up and carrying it out has been standard procedure). The bag looks like this (unfilled):

When I pulled the following out of my backpack, Jae thought that he was looking at the biggest filled blue bag he'd ever seen, and was especially surprised because this was the first day of the trip:

But no - it was just my nice blue parka that I'd elected to shove into a plastic bag, since I didn't have enough stuff sacks!

Here's hoping that you're healthy, warm, and UNINJURED. . .

leora

Inside a lenticular cloud

Usually, I've seen lenticular clouds from the ground, looking up at the mountains, and they look like caps, sort of like this classic photo of a lenticular cloud over Mt. Fuji (No, I did NOT take this photo - it was taken from http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=6528#read_c, where the viewer is invited to copy the image):
On June 5, when Tom and David and I decided on a mid-week climb of Hood, everything was great. We worried about conditions for a west-side route up Hood, and settled on just doing the south side - maybe going up a more technical route than the standard to make it more interesting. The weather was great all the way up. I took this shot of David, the dawn sky, and Mt. Hood's shadow as we were ascending: [ you can click on any of these, below, to get the original size picture ]
Just as I got into the gully at the top of the Hogsback (our technical route), the wind started howling, and the snow was blowing, and I was having a hard time seeing. I finally noticed that my glasses had frosted up, so I wiped them with my gloves to get rid of the frost, and then could see the route for 10 minutes or so before they'd frost up, again, and I'd have to repeat the process. I really wanted to get up this gully, but I ran into a wall of ice, and since I didn't have two ice tools, AND the ice was bad, AND I'd just been reprimanded for the Devil's Kitchen Headwall climb by one of my mountain rescue buddies, I decided that turning around was the right option. Getting that message down to David at the other end of the rope proved difficult. I yelled my "retreat" message to Tom, who only got it after a break in the wind. He turned around and yelled it down to David. We were only about 60 ft away from each other, so I was about 120 ft away from David. I told them that we should just head over to the parallel gully and summit via that gully, which we knew was a walk-up (well, if you don't mind high-angle snow, it's a walkup, and we don't mind high-angle snow). We all agreed that we'd do that, but by the time I got back down to David and Tom to start over, David had decided that descending was what he wanted to do. Given the visibility:

(can you see Tom, about 100ft away, if that, in the upper right of this photo?), we all decided to just turn around and go down. We were here at the saddle of the Hogsback to pick up the gear we'd left there before heading up towards the summit, when David snapped this photo of me covered in rime ice:

That white blobby thing on the right side of my face is some wisps of my hair that got coated, and that thing around my neck is usually black, as are my pants - but in this and the previous picture they sort of look greyish.

We expected whiteout conditions all the way down, but were surprised after descending a mere 600ft or so to break completely out of the cloud. But, there was something funny about the sky:

In the center of the photo is Illumination Rock, a nice Rock feature on Hood. We expected to see the rest of the green valley below it, but could only see a band of it - the rest was blotted out by that band of white. The bottom of it was so perfectly smooth. We finally realized that it was the bottom of a lenticular cloud, and we were in it, and were experiencing the winds/weather that everyone always tells us lie beneath those clouds and why most climbers shy away from peaks with lenticular clouds over them, fearing bad weather. We were well prepared for the weather, so didn't mind at all, and, in fact, after seeing this cloud, and features like this little wispy thing:

that sort of looks like a jellyfish coming out of the sky, we were absolutely delighted to have been up in the cloud and coming down out of it. David had a smile on his face the whole way down!

It was also interesting that David was all hoarse with a cold when we arrived at his place and carpooled over to Mt. Hood, but on the way back, he was all well - cold all gone. I usually run to get rid of an oncoming cold. Now, it seems, I could also go for a climb. . .

Devils Kitchen Headwall "ice" climb

Several have requested pictures. My camera broke, and I haven't gotten around to finding out why it won't turn on, nor to buying a new one (anyone have an old one they want to sell me?), so I only have pictures if someone else on the climb takes them. Fortunately, for this climb on day 3 of my leave of absence, a climb up a different route on Mt. Hood, that I'd been attempting and failing for various reasons, one of my partners brought, and actually used, his camera, and then gave me the pictures!

We started out as a foursome, Tom, Wim, Joe, and I, in the wee hours - I think that it was about 1am - on previous climbs, I'd been taking a fairly long time to get to the base of the headwall, and we wanted to be sure that we were there by first light, so that we'd be up the headwall and back down before ice started to fall with all of that solar energy beaming down. As it turned out, we got up fairly quickly, and possibly due to that speed, Joe wound up getting a touch of altitude sickness and had to go back down (yes, it can and does happen on Mt. Hood, even though we weren't yet at 10,000ft (3048meters)). I thought that I'd been keeping him in range, but when Wim, Tom, and I briefly rested at the base of Crater Rock, from where we would diverge from the main trail up the south side of Hood, there was no Joe appearing. There were a string of people making their way up, so I told Wim and Tom to head on up, while I waited, thinking that Joe was one of the string. Since it was still dark, we still had some time. In the string of people, Joe still was not appearing. I finally started calling his name, and to my surprise, someone answered. Not Joe, but someone calling out that he'd gotten sick and turned around to head down. So much for me keeping him in range. . . When climbing with someone, one is actually supposed to climb WITH the person. . . Somehow, I'd confused someone else's headlamp with Joe's and so thought that he was still with us. The second surprise was when the guy who responded turned out to be someone I knew and was asking for Wim. He and his climbing partner, it turns out, had ALSO decided to do this very same route. Wim had forwared a write-up I'd done on my previous attempt at this route on to these folks, and they, too, thought it sounded like fun so decided to do it. Ok, so I was annoyed at this. Routes like this tend to take a REALLY long time if you have a bunch of people gumming up the works. 2 or 3 people can usually race (well, not race, but at least go fairly quickly) up a technical route, but the moment you get more, or a couple of groups of different speeds and abilities, it just takes FOREVER. . . And forever it did take, but it was actually quite fine.

By the time I'd gotten myself all situated so that I could catch up to Wim and Tom - everyone was already underneath the headwall, and actually heading to a route further east. Sometimes voices don't carry very well, especially when one has a balaclava over one's mouth, which I did. I was still only about 1/2 the way across the "Devils Kitchen bowl" to them, when I stopped to yell at them. It came out as gobblydigook, so I had to rearrange all of my head gear before they could understand that they'd overshot and needed to go back a bit. So, with that, and Wim falling into a rock moat that took him some time to get out of, I finally caught up to everyone at the base of the headwall. The snow was very deep, and in this section where the moat was, there was a nice crusty layer, with nothing beneath it, as all of the snow had been melted by the rocks beneath it, warmed, I believe, by the heat coming out of the mountain, vented at various places, including the spot called the Devils Kitchen. Had I been with them, I would have taken them around that area, as I'd already had the pleasure of falling in in a prior week.

We'd all waited until this point to put on our harnesses and crampons and switching to ice tools from our hiking poles. Since it was steep, we got to stamp out little platforms for ourselves and our packs. We decided to sort of climb as a 5-some - giving the other group our ice-screws, and having them go on ahead since they were two people, and therefore, presumably faster than the 3 of us would be. After we were actually *in* the route, a 6th guy, solo, came up behind us. We offered to let him run on by us, which he didn't do, so he wound up waiting an hour or two while we putzted and he practiced making v-threads, with lots of ice pouring down the gully anytime anyone up above did anything, until he finally decided to turn around and go up another route. What are the odds? I've *never*, *ever* seen anyone on this particular route. Even when someone says that they are going to do the Devils Kitchen Headwall, they mean a different gully. Heck, that's what we called a different route that we did several years ago. So today - 3 groups decide to do the exact same gully. Very unusual.

Here is what the start of the route looked like, on that day (you should be able to click on the picture for a bigger version):
There's a nice little ramp of ice that was more threatening the week before, but now was all filled in with snow just before it, so a piece of cake to walk up. The other team is standing at the next ice area, the first that needed protection.

I don't know if you can see all of the rime ice hanging down on the left side. It's stuff like this that makes us want to get up and out of the gully before the sun starts shining on it. As it was, we were in no danger - it was a nice 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10C for you non-US people) in the gully for most of our climb.

I put this next picture of Tara from the other team in for several reasons:
One - this is just before the final ice climb. Doesn't look like a big deal.
Two - there is another picture of it, with Tara halfway up that makes it look like a bigger deal.
Three - this is basically from where the next picture, pointing down at me was taken:
I was busy belaying Tom up. Wim had lots of time, so was busy taking pictures in all directions. So, below me, was Tom (can't see him), and way below is the "bowl" of Devils Kitchen. You might be able to just make out our footpath dead center of the picture.

This next one has Tara climbing the ice that was above her two pictures ago:
I think that I was in roughly the same place as she is (she's the one on top looking down) in this picture when, a little later, I fell. It happened so fast, I don't really remember it at all - I just remember hearing Wim howling, and then being concerned about him. It turns out that one of those sharp little pointy things on the bottom of the crampons that we wear beneath our boots, caught his leg, just above the knee, on my way past him. Fortunately, not only did his super-duper doubly protected pants not get cut open, but also, he wasn't damaged, permanently, at all (in the following days, not so much as a bruise appeared)! Tom and I did spend some time looking on the ground to see if blood was appearing, since even though the clothing wasn't cut, it still could have burst the skin underneath. However, no blood appeared, and Wim realized that nothing was desparately wrong at that point, and none of my bones seemed to be broken, so we resumed climbing. Well, I resumed for a little bit, and suddenly, wasn't feeling up to the challenge. I decided that someone else could lead, and asked Wim if he'd mind. I was wondering why I didn't feel like doing it - somehow forgetting that I had just taken a fall from there. . . Wim was definitely better - not only not falling, but also just climbing straight up it, and then went hunting around for a good place to belay me from up top. Since he knew he was going to be going out of earshot in search of a place to belay me, he told me that he'd pull the rope three times when he was ready for me to climb. I've never had the "pull on the rope" signal be successful, before, but I agreed to it. He went out of sight, and, in a little bit, I saw, miraculously, 3 pulls on the rope. I expressed my surprise to Tom that it had worked, and headed up. Later, I discovered that Wim had never gotten around to giving me a signal. I don't know if he was belaying me or not at that point, but there wasn't much slack in the rope, and I spent some time cleaning out all of the protection so that Tom could just climb when we got around to him, and I made it up with no particular problem that time (what a phsychological difference between leading and following!).

After we got out of that area, we had this to look at:
That's Wim in the orange jacket, and Tom ahead of him. At this point we'd gotten off the rope and were just heading up to the summit. I'd decided that maybe Wim would like to be in maybe ONE picture? After that, Wim, better at photography, took this one of me:
(Jae, if you look closely at the the big picture on the blog, you'll see your name on the ice tools - I'd loaned mine to Joe, so was still using yours.)

We had Tara take this summit shot of Wim, Tom, and me (left to right in the picture):

Most folks were taking the old chute down. I wanted to take the direct route down the Pearly Gates. I'm glad that we did, because Wim told me later that he noticed the footpath for the old chute was right on top of a cornice! They don't break off too often, but when they do, they usually are accompanied by news reports, like the one of the snowmobiler (without his snowmobile) who survived a cornice fall into the crater of Mt. St. Helens. I'd prefer not to be in such news reports.

Always attached to his camera, Wim took a final shot of me after having gone through the Pearly Gates, and about to head over to the Hogsback, where you can see 3 people clumped together:
You can also see a couple of dots coming up around Crater Rock (that's the big thing that the Hogsback leads into), and down on the left is what I call the bowl of Devils Kitchen. On the upper left of the picture is the Timberline ski area, with the "miracle mile" ski lift heading up the Palmer.

On the way down, Wim took this picture, and I dressed it up to show our routes. The red (rightmost line, for those who are colorblind!) is the one that we took up. The green (leftmost line) is the one that we took down, with a little circle partway down it signifying about where I was when Wim, above me, took that last shot of me. I've also labeled the Hogsback.

Makes you want to run up there and do it, yourself, doesn't it?

Statistics: Mt. Hood: 11,239ft (3246 meters). Tallest mountain in Oregon. This was my 13th successful summit of Hood, via any route, out of at least 21 starts. Mt. Hood is, I've heard, the second most climbed mountain in the world, after Mt. Fuji in Japan.

It's all about me and my athletic activities (or - why they didn't let me into jail)

As some of you are aware, one of my friends is in the "Federal Corrections Institute," also known as a federal prison, also know as jail, in Sheridan, Oregon. It's about a one and a half hour drive. I've been visiting him about once every 6 months or so for the last several years, and now that I'm full time in the US, I was trying to maybe to see him just a little more often than that (not during the summer, of course, as there was climbing to be done during visiting hours!), so I arranged to see him this Saturday. His wife, Lisa, and I would carpool from a place that is about 1/2 hour from my house.

I've been through the drill several times, so I know not to wear anything that is grey or green khaki or tan khaki in color. No shorts. No metal. No guns or explosives (I wonder why? They are sooooooo picky about some things). No cell phones, computers, electronic devices of any sort. No drugs, although if one has a prescription drug, that may be brought in - although it definitely has to be declared. No paper, pens, pencils. Basically, nothing except the visitor, the visitor's clothes, drivers license, and money. The money is for the food vending machines inside. One isn't allowed to bring in any food; but, a visit on the weekend might be from about 9am (by the time one actually gets in to visit the prisoner), and can go to as late as around 3pm, so there is some acknowledgement that food might be welcome. The vending machines sell highly nutritious things like candy and cookies and chips (ok, so I'm being facetious about the "highly nutrious" part). The last time, I had prepared a nice little ziplock bag, full of money, and managed to forget it. This time, I made sure to have that nice little ziplock bag, and shove my drivers license in there, since one can't get in without the license. I also looked at the potential apparel, and chose nice dark blue nylon pants, a blue polyester shirt, black fleece, and a blue sweater on top of that, paying attention to the colors so that I wouldn't be turned back. I tend to get cold in there, and so I also was choosing warm fabrics, almost as if I were going on a climb. . .

Lisa and I met at the appointed spot, and I hauled my stuff into her car, including a treat of California clemintines for the kids and us. Upon arrival, I looked for my nice little ziplock bag, and it was nowhere to be seen. I didn't happen to have my passport, so the family went in without me, and I took off in Lisa's car to see if I've left it in my car. We'd arrived at 8:30am, and the next time anyone would be allowed in is at 10:30 - an hour to the car, and an hour back - (assuming my little bag is in my car), and I'd be back just in time for them to let me in, again. If the worst happens, I knew that I could also drive back to my house, in case the bag were still there, and still get back by 11:30, and have at least a 3 hour visit. Lisa told me that if for some reason, they don't let me in, to have them send a message to her in the visiting area, so that I don't wind up sitting out there. forever. I assure her that that is unlikely to happen, and besides, I have my laptop with me, so I'll be able to work. . . But surely, once I find my license, all will be well.

I took off in Lisa's car, and when I arrived at mine, I could see the little bag on the little arm rest between the 2 front seats. Happy, I grabbed it and got back in time to line up for the 10:30am entry. There's a place where one must stop and pick up a phone. It calls some security place, and an officer asks random questions like "have you been here, before?" It's so mechanical for the guards, that they say things very quickly, which is hard for me to hear what they are asking. This time they asked "are you aware of our contraband policy" to which I answered "yes", and then they asked the trick question "are you in compliance with our contraband policy." I was amused that the second question was asked. They must be used to literal interpretations. . . When I got to the lobby of the building, there were many people waiting. I went and fillled out the little form that wants my name and address. Lisa helpfully wrote down what her car, year, color, and model were, and her husband's prisoner number, so I used that, and paper-clipped my driver's license to the form. There's a little procedure where they call the number of the prisoner somewhere, and the visitor's name. That allows them to check on the visitor (one has to have filled out some security paperwork in order to be allowed to visit, ever), and to bring the prisoner from where-ever they are kept, into the vistors room.

While I was standing there, one of the guards yelled a name out the crowd of awaiting people, and asked "you have a perscription drug?" The woman discreetly came forward and said quietly, "yes". He asked, in a loud voice, "what is it?" She replied, again, in a quiet voice. He then repeated it, again in a loud voice. I felt so bad for her, and went over to her and said " so much for confidentiality." She said "yeah, they do what they do." When they are ready to take a bunch of people back to where we get to visit with the prisoners, we have to put our shoes, jacket, and money/key container (my little ziplock bag) into a machine just like the airport xray machines. We get to walk around and walk through a metal-detector, which must not beep, or we're not allowed in. Any belts, hairpins, jewelry, watches, money must be taken out and put on the desk. Women wearing underwire bras get the pleasure of dashing into the bathroom to take off the bra, or tear out the wires. Meanwhile, anything that goes through the x-ray machine is then meticulously examined, by hand, even if nothing suspicious shows on the monitor. I'd already walked through the metal detector, and signed the visitor's log when the guy going through my jacket found that I had gloves in my pockets. "I'm afraid that you can't take these in there" he told me, but he would let me run and put them into "my" car. Great. I went backwards through the metal detector to get my shoes (they usually pass them to us after examing them) and hurriedly put them and tied them up, grabbed Lisa's keys, and ran out to the car, threw them in,and ran back. I asked the officer if he wanted me to put my shoes through, again, and he said "hold on." Another officer came over and had me follow him to the table with the forms, and he showed and read to me a highlighted paragraph that mentioned that no "jogging" attire should be worn. He concluded, gesturing towards my pants, with "and clearly you are wearing jogging pants, so I can't let you in." I am? This was news to me. They were nylon, yes. They did have a little Nike brand indicator on them. I said, "you're kidding?!?" "No, Ma'am." This whole process had taken about 40 minutes, so after 3 and 1/2 hours of being in a car, and making it through the little metal detector, and waiting, waiting, waiting, they weren't going to let me in. I started thinking that maybe I could turn my jacket into pants. Might there be an extra pair in the car? No. Well, then, plan B. Have them notify Lisa. I said, "well, then, can you please notify his wife, Lisa, as we drove in, together?" "I can notify the visiting area desk," was his non-commital reply. Fine. I gathered the bag of money, my driver's license, and my jacket, and sat in the lobby, and then realized that that would be an utter waste of time, and went back to the car, got out my laptop, and my cell phone (all of that contraband equipment), and started making use of them.

If you guessed that they never notified Lisa, you would be correct. She, however, somehow saw the car (I never noticed that one could see some of the parking lot from the visiting room), and when people kept showing up and I never appeared, she got suspicious and went up to the guard in the visiting room, and asked about me. Oh! Yes, they had been notified, so sorry. . .

One is only allowed to leave the visiting area to go home at certain times, so she told him that she wanted to leave at the next available time. Later, we joked that they were worried that I was "the other woman" and that that was why they were afraid to say anything, as one time when I showed up, as planned, a couple hours after Lisa and the kids had been there, they called ahead, called Mike up to the desk, and whispered to him that there was "some other woman" who had arrived to visit him. He said "oh, yeah, Leora - we were expecting her" and went back to talk to Lisa. It was then that they realized that the guards thought that he had someone else on the side. It seems that it's not quite unusual for the prisoners to have a wife and a girlfriend at the same time. . .

For this trip, we tried to salvage the day for me by stopping and eating lunch at a restaurant. And when I arrived home, I changed into what *I* wear for running, and went for a run. . . While running, I was thinking about all of the things that I COULD have said to the guard like "Uh, I take it you don't run much?" or, "I suppose, that just like the pants you're wearing, one could consider these jogging pants" or "do you consider anything made of nylon jogging attire?" None of this would have helped, I'm sure, since it's all about control. This particular guard is not particularly well respected by anyone, including the other guards, I'm told. I'm sure that he had it in for me after he saw me commiserating with the poor woman whose drug he broadcast to all of the other visitors. And then I remembered back to the last time I'd visited Mike. Mike and Lisa and I were talking about when Mike would be getting out - a little over a year from that visit. I said "oh, shoot," and Lisa, who knows how I think, suggested that I was thinking about Mike helping out for next year's Hood to Coast running relay race. Yes, that was EXACTLY what I was thinking - the relay is in August, and he wouldn't be out until November (with luck). We laughed that she could read my mind so well, and then she said "yes, it's all about you and your athletic activities!" Ever since then, I keep hearing her say that as I arrange or try to arrange climbs, hikes, runs, and my newest pursuit, windsurfing. And, then, I realized, that even with this not being allowed to visit Mike, it was because the guy thought I had on "jogging pants." It's just as she said - it's all about me and my athletic activities!

Stay warm and healthy!

leora

The Fawn Video from July of 2006

First, you see the mom walking, and then, about 1/4 the way through this, you can see the fawn zip around the mom, and then she turns her head to look at something, but not the fawn. Then the fawn reappears and starts jumping up and down. This was happening in my backyard, and I was taking the picture from my bedroom door/window, so unfortunately, a bit of the wood got in the way. It was that zipping around of the fawn that caught my eye, and made me realize that they were out there. . . (it's 9 megabytes, so it takes a little while to download. . .)

Ice climbing

I took the local climbing club's ice climbing class last (in 2006) August and September where we practiced climbing ice in the crevasses of some glaciers on Mt. Hood, and then, in January of this year, went to Ouray, Colorado for a week of waterfall ice climbing for which I just received the pictures that were collected from various cameras.


One little aside picture from the class was this aureole around our shadows. We were on a ridge, with our shadows in the valley, and the sun, behind us. Now, I understand where all of those religious images come from! I have now seen this, twice, with the second time being when I was on Mt. Baker - also on a mountain ridge, early morning, sun beaming down into the mist-filled valley.

During our Ice-climbing week in Ouray, Colorado, we experienced mostly crisp, clear, sunny, but still COLD days - this is, after all, *ice* climbing. . . The ice of the waterfalls was really nice to climb. For one thing, most of the time, they weren't just straight up, ninety degree slopes, and had nice resting places, so that more than just the front points of my crampons could be in the ice. (Click on picture to get full sized version.)See? Not STRAIGHT up. . .

This climb started out ok:
But at the dry spot above where my head is now, it was a tad difficult. In this next one, you can also get just a glimpse of my belayer (person who is on the other end of the rope, taking it up as I climb), above me:

In the following picture, I was looking for a place to put my tool. This is called "dry tooling" and as I recall, now, it wasn't a particularly "comfortable" feeling. I felt a lot better putting the tools in ice, rather than in rock.

It was the pillar to the left of the dry spot that was the most difficult for me. And I complained that the picture taker (a luxury, really - after all, *I* hadn't brought a camera with me, and so I was lucky that anyone took pictures of me, at all!) didn't take a picture while I was climbing up the pillar, but he was too busy giving me advice that was failing me (put your left foot there - yeah - there - WHOOPS! (as the chunk of ice breaks and there is no foothold at all) - I guess that didn't work, huh?). I'll tell you, it didn't look as hard to me when the other guys were doing it! They made it look easy!

I think that that was one of the last climbs we did that day. With all of the snow just pummelling down, we decided to pack it up and go back to the hotel. Here are some of the folks that I climbed with that day as we're packing up all of the gear (L-R, Jae, Aaron, Me, Terry with arms outstretched). We'd already taken off our crampons, but still had our helmets (mine is bright orange, under my hat) and harnesses on:

This one seems to be of me being lowered down, after climbing, as my ice tools are not up and over my head (I'm the one on the left):

In my opinion, it all looks easier than it is, although I think that I found this (artifically created) waterfall ice climbing easier than ice climbing on the super compacted ice in the crevasses of the glaciers.

leora

Kayaking the Rogue River

This last weekend (plus several days) I spent going down the Rogue River, a beautiful river in the south east of Oregon. It is usually (at least it how I did it 3 times, previously) done in 3 days, either camping, or staying in river-side lodges during the night. This time, Mary, our organizer and permit obtainer, suggested that we put in on Thursday, and take out on Monday, giving us 3 full days on the river, and 4 nights for camping. Our team of 11 readily agreed.

After an early start (left our carpooler's house at 5:30am), we were on the river sometime in the afternoon.

The previous times I'd rafted this river, I did it in paddle rafts - rafts that had about 4 "paddlers" and one captain, who was responsible for steering the boat and telling the paddlers what to do to get into position for a rapid. This time, I took my inflatable kayak that could fit either one or two people. I'd rafted a much easier river in it both this and last year's Memorial Day weekends. I was looking forward to taking it through the rapids on this river, as it has many class II and III rapids, and at least one class IV rapid.

Quick education from the leaflet I got at the ranger's station - the ratings of interest to this story are:
Class I: Moving water with few obstructions (for beginners)
Class II: Small waves and turbulence (intermediate skills required)
Class III: Medium size waves, strong hydraulics (experience necessary)
Class IV: Large powerful waves, powerful turbulence and hydraulics (considerable skill needed)
The first day, Sara joined me in my kayak. I was in the back, and she, in the front. We always headed for the "white" in the rapids and enjoyed the waves spashing over us on the hot day. Then, we hit a class III rapid - I don't think that I fully realized it, and I definitely don't remember what, exactly, happened, but both of us were thrown out of the boat - and it felt as though I went down, down, down - I remember wondering when I'd be going back up, or IF I'd be going back up, again. . . I did pop up, and my boat was nearby, so I grabbed that, and looked around for Sara - we both assured each other that we were ok, and then I asked if she still had her paddle - she did. We tried to swim over to the side - to an eddy, where we could regroup and get back into the boat. Sara had breathed in some water, so she wasn't feeling so well. I was a bit shaken, but considered it an anomally - it was the first time I'd ever flipped. Sara decided that going in one of the rafts with oars (we had 4 of them) might be a better option for a while.

The next day started with another class III (the Fish Ladder, for you Roguers) to go down, but this was more of a class III because of the obstacles rather than big waves - I scouted it (i.e., went down and checked it out from the edge of the river to see what I needed to do) in the evening. In the morning, I shot down it, by myself - it was great! I then walked back up on the side of the river to help the rafts get down, and convinced another guy, Mike, to take a shot at it in the other kayak.

Later on, another party member, Eli, joined me in the kayak in the front. Again - I would head for the whitest of the white water. I enjoyed seeing the kayak fly into a "hole" and watch the wave practically engulf Eli on the way out of the hole. Eli suggested that we switch seats so that I would have the pleasure of getting soaked in one of those waves. We switched, but we just didn't seem to accomplish our goal even though our last rapid before camp was a class III (due to big waves and hydraulics). This camp was great, as it was at Horseshoe Bend, and, as such, we were able to fairly easily carry the kayak over land and go through the rapids, again. I made the most of this opportunity, getting a different person to go with me each time. When Mary went with me, we did a perfect run where I headed for a big boulder just under the water in order to go through the most intense part of the wave. We went flying over the boulder and crashing into the wave. Our buddies on shore enjoyed the show as much as we enjoyed going through it!

There were some teenagers staying at the same place that night, and we offered them an opportunity to go with me. One of them, Paul, took me up on it. We tried to repeat what I did with Mary, but missed the mark by a long shot, but still had a good run, went right by a rock with a Great Blue Heron (a big bird) sitting on it, but didn't go through the wildest part. Paul wanted to go, again, so we did. He was steering, and as we went down, we got turned around and started to go backwards through the most violent part of the rapids, and next thing we knew, we were tossed out of the kayak. I started to worry about him, since I felt responsible for him - he's just 13! Fortunately, he came up and shouted that he was fine. (This time, the Heron flew away when we went near it.) Both of us held onto our paddles and he or I had the boat and were able to bring it into shore. He told me that when he went under, that all of the (bad) stories his father ever told him about rafting went through his head. He told me that it gave a "new meaning to a class III rapid," since, before this, he'd just been through it on one of the big rafts with someone rowing it. Those rafts are still fun, but not quite as "immediate" nor as close to the water as one is when in a kayak.

Eli decided that he wanted another crack at the rapid, so he and I went for one last run. He was steering. We tried to redo the "Mary" run, but went too far to the left of the underwater boulder, causing us to hit a virtual wall of a wave at an angle. This sent me flying as the kayak flipped. On resurfacing, I saw the kayak, upside down in front of me and grabbed it, but was worried as I saw red underneath the kayak, which is grey and blue - I knew that it meant that Eli was underneath it and wondered what I should do about this, as the water was pushing me downriver - could I flip the boat? But what if he were just popping up, and I flipped it onto him? Fortunately, Eli resurfaced just a little later. After we both established that we were both ok, I asked the next question, "do you have your paddle?" This time, the answer was "no!" The current was taking him downriver, and I headed for the opposite side, for an eddy. People on shore were yelling at me that the paddle was coming down that side of the river. Someone threw a rope out to Eli so that he didn't have to work so hard to get out of the current - he'd lost his hat, glasses, and, I later learned, his shoes on that dunking.

I couldn't find the paddle. Don, the owner of the other kayak, came over to get me, and help me with the kayak, since I was pretty exhausted fighting the current, hanging onto the boat with one hand, and the paddle with the other. He also spent a lot of time looking for the paddle. No success. We started telling other rafters to look for it, and put it on the side of the river on the rocks if they saw it. I was imagining the trip, constantly searching the eddies for the paddle. I knew that it would be a downer for the trip. One of the guys offered to join me in the kayak the next day, and have me do all of the paddling. . . (yes, we had a lot of jokers on the trip. . .)

After dinner, I noticed that I could check out the worst part of the rapid from a high point on the side we were camped on. I was thankful that Eli didn't actually get hurt by the rocks, and wanted to see how it was that he'd actually avoided that. I saw the huge wall on the left that we nearly ran into, the big wave, and just a ton of rocks right in front of that. How in the heck did Eli NOT get hurt? And, then, I saw something else - a huge eddy behind the big wave. And in that eddy, something flashing. It looked straight, but it was too far away for me to see clearly, but I hoped against hope that it was my paddle. I went running over to the others to get binoculars, and ran back to take a look. YES!!!! It was my paddle!!!! Mary helped me paddle over to the other side, and she kept the kayak in place while I climbed the rocks up and down to get to the eddy and rescue my paddle. I recovered the paddle and Mary and I happily paddled back to camp. This recovery of the paddle really lightened things up, for me, at least.

The following day was a short day on the river, with nothing bigger than a class II. We reached camp early and decided to hike upriver to Zane Grey's cabin (the place where Mr. Grey wrote at least one of his books), and then did a (fast!) float back down to camp on the river in our life-jackets.

The next day was Sunday, and the day of the really enjoyable (from my past trip memories) Mule Creek Canyon followed by the class IV rapid at Blossom Bar. I was alone in the kayak this day, and really looking forward to the rapids in the canyon. Alas, I hit a rapid just before the entrance to the canyon incorrectly, and it flipped me over. I tried desperately to make it to an eddy in order to right the boat, and get back in, but it just wasn't possible - the current just sucked me into the rapids in the Canyon. If I didn't have a paddle in one hand, and the kayak in the other, I could have enjoyed the rapids, even while floating through them, but with those, it was just a constant chatter to myself not to get slammed against the rocks, and to try to take breaths between waves crashing over my head, and not drink too much water. . . One of our rafts, with Bob at the oars, and Sara as an extra, waited in an eddy for me. Sara threw a rope out to me, pulled me to the raft, and then grabbed my life jacket and hauled me into the raft as if I were a rag doll (which is what I felt like!). We decided to carry my kayak on the raft, determining to let it go downriver if needed, as the canyon was quite narrow, so it wasn't clear that the raft with the kayak on it's bow would actually fit, but it did, as we slid handily by the Coffee Pot (a sucking swirling rapid), after which I got back into my kayak to do the rest of the canyon, although there were no more rapids. Lunch was next, which gave a needed recovery period, since soon after was the class IV, and I didn't want to screw that one up!

We scouted the Blossom Bar rapid. I couldn't remember it at all - it'd been 7 years since the last time I'd gone through it. This time, it was crucial that I know exactly what to do. Some of the others did remember it, and what to do, and patiently explained it to me and the other kayaker, Mike. And then we were blessed by a 2 person kayak team, who didn't bother to scout, but just went on and did the rapid. They did exactly what we'd described to each other. Flawless execution. Mike and I started to breath easier, after seeing that, and as we weren't seeing the big standing waves that had certainly caused me problems in the past, and just make it more hairy. We let one of the rafts go first, and then I went down. It was nerve-racking, but I just kept repeating our plan in my head, and then did as we'd decided - go down the tongue, then paddle hard to the right, go down between the rocks, and you're home free - the rest is easy (so everyone said, and I dutifully believed). When I did the paddling hard to the right, I got a little worried that I would touch the close side of a rock, and get spun around, but I avoided that, and it all went according to plan, until, of course, I got to "the easy part" - but even that wasn't bad. I saw that I was headed to a rock, but it wasn't suuuuuch a big rock - I prepared to go flying over it, but as I went over, I got stuck on the top. Later, we laughed about it, as I must have spent at least 2, if not 5 minutes on top of that rock, trying to rock myself forward off of it while another group, with kayakers, was scouting the rapid at just that time - we were thinking that I gave them a good picture of what NOT to do. . . I finally did get off of my little throne, there, and went through the rest of the rapids without further incident.

We camped our last night at Brushy Bar. Just below it, were some rapids. They looked tame, with an easy walk back along the rocks to the side of the river. A couple of people suggested floating through them for fun. A bunch of folks wanted to do it, and then started to chicken out. When the last person started faltering, I said, sure - I'd do it. We floated down, and it was a blast - I mentioned that it wasn't a heck of a lot different from what I'd been doing all day long, except that this time, I didn't have to worry about paddles and my boat! I went down for another 3 runs, gathering more folks along the way. The next morning, I decided to make the kayak take the harder route through it, and wouldn't you know, it flipped me! I decided that I was either doing something wrong, or not doing something right. . .

It makes me want to go and do the river, again, right away, so that I can try out what I think that I've learned, and see if I can stay in the boat the whole way, and, especially, to enjoy the rapids from the boat, through the Mule Creek Canyon, but, alas, I will likely have to wait a year or more before getting that opportunity. . .

Besides the rapids, and the trees, and generally beautiful scenary, we also were treated to seeing a bear, some deer (one with her little, spotted fawn), great blue herons, osprey, a bald eagle, tons of turkey vultures, a bunch of turtles, and one otter or weasel. Definitely, a great, fun time.

Stay on top of the waves!