Always Onward Adventures

Mt Rainier - Round 3

In 2015, I made my fifth climb on Mt Rainier but my first time going up the Emmons-Winthrop route - which is one the opposite side of the mountain from the more popular disappointment cleaver route. There were 6 of us in total on the climb, two groups of three. This was the 3rd trip I had taken with a few of them, but this was the first time climbing with the rest of them.

national park

Mt Olympus

Back in 2015, I had the opportunity to go on an amazing trip with some friends to climb Mt Olympus. The core crew was team tiny tent - the 5 of us who climbed Mt Baker together a few years prior. This was an epic trip, just under 50 miles of hiking - starting at the ocean and ending at the top of My Olympus - the most remote peak in Washington state.

backpacking

Eagle Lake - Tom & Oakley

Back in 2015, with Oakley being only a few months old, I craved some adventure. For some reason Angela wasn’t able to come, so Oakley and I headed out to the Okanagan to a place called Eagle lake. This place really was the middle of nowhere - as I discovered painfully… 2015-03-18 We had a very long drive to get out to Eagle lake - almost 5 hours. I left on Friday morning and we didn’t end up getting to the trailhead until afternoon. The final stretch of road up to the trailhead was covered in snow - which did not bode well for our hike - but we went ahead anyway.

climbing

Mt Baker

Back in 2014, my friend Pam who I met doing crossfit during my Amazon internship expressed an interest in doing some big moutain climbs. She, along with two of her friends (who I had not yet met), and I decided that Mt Baker would be a good first trip. This would be the first time up Mt Baker for me, but I had heard it was a much more managable mountain compared to the other PNW volcanoes.

kayaking

San Juans Kayaking

Way back in 2014, we went on an overnight kayaking trip with Derek and Diane to the San Juan islands. This was right after we all completed a sea kayaking class - so this was a graduation trip of sorts. 2014-08-23 We departed on a Saturday (which just happened to be the same day that Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie got married) and started on our three day trip - leaving from Jackson beach just south of Friday Harbor. The group we rented the kayaks from provided us with an itinerary for where to go on the trip - making use of two campsites on the Cascadia Marine trail, where campsite reservations are not required for human powered watercraft - which was great on the first night but not as awesome on the second.

backpacking

Backpacking from Hoh to Sol Duc

This one is taking us way back. In Aug 2014, Angela and I had only been dating for ~9 months and this was the second backpacking trip we had been on together. The plan was kinda simple - park at the drop Sol Duc hotsprings, pay a van to take us to the Hoh Rainforest trailhead, and then hike from Hoh to Sol Duc over the next 3 days. Our van driver mentioned something about why are you doing it this way, most people do it the other way - not sure what he meant.

climbing

Liberty Ridge

In early 2014, I took off with my brother and one of his friends to attempt to climb the infamous liberty Ridge route on Mt Rainier. This is a very different route from many routes on Mt Rainier in that it involves some fairly technical ice climbing - using dual ice axes and pick like crampons to climb up a 60+ deg ice slope. I even had to get some new gear for this trip.

backpacking

Backpacking to the Norwegian Memorial

Back in 2014, Angela and I went on our first backpacking trip together. I had thought this would be a perfect one - flat trail along the coast from Ozette to Norwegian memorial. I had done this trip back in 2012 right before I started at Amazon - extending all the way from Ozette to Oil city over 5 days - and this trip was to be a quick out and back, 2 day trip. I guess I had forgotten how rocky the beach was in this area…

climbing

Mt Hood

Way, way back in 2013, I took another trip with Brian and Golden climbing crew (but without my cousin this time) up Mt Hood. We did a one day trip - which is pretty reasonable for this mountain. I met up with them in Seattle and we drove down to Oregon and camped out at the foot of the mountain - taking off early the following morning for the summit.

climbing

Climbing Denali

This is my second trip down memory lane, and this one goes way back. In the summer of 2012, my brother and I attemped to climb Denali (formerly Mt Mckinnley) in Alaska. While we ultimately didn’t make it, it was an epic trip that changed the way I thought about the world. To be dwarfed by a mountain that big is truely awe inspiring. We started our trip in Talkeetna - a fun little mountain town where most of the climbing/hiking expeditions that go into Denali NP start from. We spent most of our time at the Alaska Mountaineering School (AMS) HQ (the mountain guide group we used for the trip) - but our climbing hotel/hostel was also worth note. It’s called the “House of Seven Trees Hostel” and it was run by this lady who lives on the premises. She had bunk room for probably 24 people - with a combination of bunks in a separate building out back and rooms in the building proper. There were communial breakfasts most mornings (cooked by whichever climber got up first) and lots of stories flying around about climbing challenges by this group or that. A few seemed like they were almost permenant residents - using it as their base for adventure for the summer. We met one guy who founded a “low pressure tent” that artificiality simulated high altitude while you slept. Kinda a weird guy and I don’t know how much of his story was true…