Elbert

In attempt to give $100 a break from all the dogs I took the youngest two out to Leadville on Saturday.  Early Sunday we headed up Mt. Elbert.  14 straight months of a 14er, first 14er summit for Mookie and Millie.

The week:

run - 38 miles, 11 hours

ride - 55 miles, six hours

hike - 35 miles, 15.5 hours

rumdoodle

I've had the Pikes via Rumdoodle route on my to-do list for years now, and I finally took a crack at it on Monday.  Did not go well.  I was with Amber, and we went in from Elk Park, to Barr, to Bottomless Pit.  The Pit trail wasn't in great shape, and we ended up getting off route and scrambling around for a while.  We ended up having to bail as black clouds were looming.  But it was great to explore back there and I will be returning for another shot soon.  A good eight hours of running/hiking/scrambling for 18 miles.

In other news, Mookie passed NeoDog 2 with flying colors.  He is going to take some time off before beginning med school.

A lot of our friends are riding RAGBRAI this week, and as we are only friends with dog people we currently have five dogs roaming our house.  Here are three of them:

route

Love this pic that one of the park rangers posted on their outstanding Rainier blog.  You can see where we camped, then how we pretty much climbed straight up to the summit.

Pretty decent week on the workout front.  I finally participated in the local 719 Ride and got my ass kicked pretty good.  Ended up with four laps/56 miles on the Jones.  

Still sore the next day but managed to have a decent long run at the Barr Trail Mountain Race, finishing in 2:34.

For the week:

run - 45 miles, 8.5 hours

ride - 133 miles, 13 hours

hike - 22 miles, 8.5 hours

Kudos to Sharpie, Zagbag, Shad, and PG for their Hardrock finishes!

appetite for destruction

The drive back after Rainier was mostly a pub crawl as we slept in a lot of brewery parking lots.  $100 put up with a lot of crap from me while I was getting ready for the climb, so I was on dog duty whenever she wanted to ride or fish.  But that week was mostly a wash running and biking wise.

Started to get back at it this week.

Mon - eight mile run over in Red Rock Canyon.  Then the COVID loop on the bike over to Red Leg for their ninth anniversary.

Tues - run commute 42.  Four there, 3.5 back.

Wed - bike commute 43.  Ten there, four back.

Thurs - run commute 43.  Five there, four back.  CityRock 75 at lunch.

Fri - bike commute 44.  Straight there and back.

Sat - signed up for Doolie Day Out.  The new cadets have gone through two weeks of basic training, and on Monday they march out to Jacks Valley to pretend they joined the Army.  I was assigned a kid, but he tested positive for COVID Sat morning.  So I ended up taking two other kids who got stood up.  They chilled at the house for a while and then we took them to Front Range before dropping them back off.  We are in the process of adopting another cadet for the next four years, a gal on the track team from Austin.

Saturday night I went over to the Black Sheep to catch Appetite for Destruction, a Guns 'n Roses tribute band.  Good times!

For the week:

run - 40 miles, seven hours

ride - 67 miles, 6.5 hours

hike - 23.5 miles, nine hours

Rainier

What a trip!  Wasn't too excited about the chances of a summit as I got on the plane to Seattle.  A late winter had been dumping snow on the mountain and hardly anyone was able to get to the summit.  But summer arrived quickly, and the two days we spent slowly making our way up the lower parts of the mountain allowed the upper route to improve enough for a successful summit.  Ended up doing the Ingraham Direct route, as the Disappointment Cleaver route was a mess of snow and ice.  It was still cold and windy, but it could have been much worse.

Not a whole lot of pictures, it was cold enough that I didn't want to take off my gloves.  Here's what I got.

Finally getting above the clouds on the slog up to Camp Muir.  My pack was already approaching 60 pounds before I volunteered to carry the team rope.  Day one was a five mile hike that gained 5,000 feet:

Arriving at Camp Muir, right at 10,000 feet:

Morning coffee on day two.  That's Mt. Adams off in the distance:

From my tent at Muir you could see the next part of the route:

My tent is the blue one.  Had it to myself as my partner bailed at the last minute due to a positive COVID test:

Another Muir shot.  Adams to the left and Mt. St. Helens to the right:

Then it was up to Ingraham Flats for the next camp.  This was the view from my tent.  That's Little Tahoma peak:

On summit day we set off at 3AM.  Three person rope team, and no pics as I was busy doing other stuff and it was fucking cold and windy.  Rainier is a volcano, and you keep climbing until you get to the bowl.  Our route got us there, then it was an easy unroped walk across the bowl to the summit.  Here are some peeps crossing that bowl:

It was actually nice in the bowl as the wind was blocked.  The summit was awful though and I had trouble standing the wind was so strong.  Spent less than five minutes there.

Quick summit selfie.  I applied sunscreen every eight seconds and still got burnt.

From the summit it was back down to our camp at Ingraham Flats.  Left at 3AM, got back around noon.  Got up early the next morning for a cup of joe before heading all the way back down to the van:

Here's our camp at the Flats.  You can see a lot of our route to the summit here:

Katie met our group as we got back to the finish with a case of Rainier beer.

We then toured the Olympic peninsula before heading up to I-90 and coming back east through Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, Missoula, then down to Alpine, WY, and then home.  Lots of breweries.

rainier

Made it!  

Great climb, great roadtrip.  I'll post more once I catch up on sleep.