Life is rough when your lil'waldo....

Many of you know, I love Mt. Rainier... It borders on a slight obsession. Ok. I'll admit it I am addicted to that mountain. So, this past Saturday, after working an 8 hour day at the climbing gym (screaming 7 year olds and all) I loaded up into the golf and headed down to Rainier. My friends Bill and Tim were already down there (and nicely had a campfire and beer waiting for me on my arrival...) Bills "two match" fire (that really should be a one match) was just what I needed to decompress after a rather insane week - and to get ready for the next days activities...

At this point an "attempt" was made at no-bake cheesecake - which really just turned into vanilla pudding pie. The challenge has been thrown down and now Bill is in charge of fires and I am in charge of desserts... Anyways.

An early start, was not had on Sunday morning. We had been a little optimistic, however sleeping in took over. Ok, so to many of you 845 is not really sleeping in, but considering I was up at 4am last weekend when I was camping, this was quite nice. At about 1030 we got up to paradise, got the skis ready and we were off, like a bat out of hell. Ok, so maybe we weren't moving *that fast* but we were cruising along. There were quite a few others on the trail and the sun was shinning so in my opinion it was a great way to get the day started. The three of us stuck together pretty much all the way up to Pebble creek. (Which is still pretty much snowed in except for one spot - what a difference from this time last year!)

If any of you have been on the hike to Muir, there is one thing you know to be true. It is a very long slog. Now, I'm not really sure how to best phrase the rest of the this. Truth be told, lilwaldo was at a pace, which, according to Tim was 2x faster than Tim's pace. (And according to Bill I am in 25% better shape). In my mind, this is an exageration. These two kicked some serious ass as they had never done anything like this before. However, I did end up at camp muir a little bit ahead of them. I think it is due to the fact that when I'm on Rainier, I just get into the zone - with an eclectic mix on the mp3 players (that yes, does range from David Gray to Kanye to even a little Britney) it just pushes me up the mountain. of them and since the weather turned quite rapidly after I got there. So, I decided the best thing to do, would be to ski down to the two and see what their thoughts were. Worst case scenario, I would hang out while they continued on up. The group consensus was that we should all turn around and head back down. And we did.

and some nice june turns on mt. rainier were had by all

There were a couple short stints where skis had to be carried over rocks. However, all in all, The 45 min ski down was certainly worth the 3.5 hours up. There were a few moments when we weren't 100% sure of the best way down, and potentially almost skiied into rocks. But that's the point of having one person "scout it out" right... So that only one pair of skis get ripped up, not all.... :-) I will note, next time, I'm going to due a better job of mentally noting which ways are potentially the best to be skiied down.

Anyways, now I know you all (Mom and Dad in particular) think this is just plain ridiculous. Me carrying my skis all the way up just for 45 min of turns. Well, maybe it is. But I think it was worth every moment. Our journey is not what but who we are. And this is a perfect example of that. I would take the hike up any day. NOt only is it putting me in killer shape, but the rewards are incredible. Plus, sitting around in the parking lot, drinking a beer and shooting the shit with my friends afterwards truly is priceless (not to get all mastercard on you).

yes. my outfit is ridiculous. im ok with it.

On a side note, the home made bread, pie, and beef stew is still top shelf at the copper creek inn. Once again, I recommend it to anyone who may just happen to be passing through Ashland this summer.

-lilwaldo













the happy crew - bill/tim/lilwaldo