The Wonderland Trip - Days 1 and 2 (More to come)

My wife, Danielle, and I recently flew out to Washington state for an epic backpacking trip. We were going to hike the Wonderland Trail, and 93 mile loop hike, encircling the base of Mt Rainier, Washington's highest mountain. We found the trail in a random book we picked up at Borders, entitled 25 best long-distance trails in America. We chose this out of the 25, as we are hoping to climb Rainier someday, possibly next year, and thought this would be a great intro to the mountain and its surrounding area. We flew into Seattle on a sunday, staying at a hotel there that night. Monday morning we went for a long walk around Seattle taking in the city before driving out to Rainier national park. We arrived and checked into the Ranger station in Longmire, the main entrance to the park. Since our backcountry permit didn't start until Tues, we decided to stay at the lovely National Park Inn, right in Longmire. We had lunch, dinner and tues' breakfast there, feasting on excellent homestyle cooked meals, (the best was the massive huckleberry cobbler for dessert Mon nite), knowing that soon we'd be eating nothing but freeze-dried meals and lots of energy bars and trail mix. While eating my massive huckleberry dessert Mon night, we struck up a conversation with a wonderfully talkative couple from Tennessee who we swapped hiking stories with until the restaurant staff dimmed the lights, politely telling us to leave. Tuesday we were out of bed early enjoyed a large filling breakfast and headed out to the trail, hoping to arrive back in Longmire in ten days, still in one piece!

Our first day, we only had 5.8 miles to travel to Devil's Dream campsite, yet it came with a significant climb from Longmire up to Ramparts Ridge. Along the way we came across our first creek crossing where we got our first view of the mountain.

We got into camp by 12 noon, and were able to select the best site out of seven. Because we were into camp so early, we ended up having dinner around five and by 7:30 there was nothing left to do but go to sleep, as we had already gotten deep into our books. The next morning we rose by 5 due to going to bed so early, and this sort of set the tone for the trip. This worked out to our advantage, as all the wildlife sightings we had were first thing in the morning, between six and seven, as we were the first hikers on the trail. Plus we almost always were the first hikers into camp, which enabled us to select the best of the available sites.

On our second day, we had just over ten miles to cover, and a decent amount of elevation change to overcome. The first highlight of the day was climbing from camp to a place called Indian Henry's, a beautiful subalpine meadow filled with wildflowers and dramatic views of Rainier. Here we found these gorgeous views:

1st: Mirror Lake, can you guess where it got it's name

2nd: Talk about prime real estate! the ranger cabin at Indian Henry's, sure would tough to have to "work" here.

From here, we continued on to Emerald Ridge, where we enjoyed a "delicious" trail lunch while taking in this view:

In the company of this guy, a marmot that kept popping his head up above the flowers, checking to see if we were dropping any crumbs.

From Emerald Ridge, we descended down to another creek crossing, where we came upon the Devil's Pipe organ, a section of rock that due to the effects of the glaciers looked an extremely twisted pipe organ:

Immediately after the organ, we crossed the South Puyallup river, where I reached out and snapped this great shot of the two of us with the river cutting down the mountainside in the background, on the first try!

That night, we stayed at Klapatche Park, a great site next to small lake in an open meadow.

Update

Well, I have been severely remiss about keeping up with my postings, by only a whole month!! Here's somewhat of an update:

Raced the Scantic River Mar 29 with my brother, Dave. We felt good throughout the race, unfortunately we went in the first set of rapids in the exact same spot as last year. The second set, we stayed afloat, but took on to much water, so we had to stop and dump it. Then we skillfully manuevered our way through the last set, in front of the cheering cr0wd. We ended up missing out on first place by 12 seconds in our class of about 14 boats total. But hey second place still got us a wooden canoe trophy!!!!

The next saturday, Apr 5, I raced the Tolland Spirit of Spring Road Race, with Danielle and my uncle Eric. It was a 5.1 mile course with a good amount of hills, even one mile or so was a dirt road through state forest. It was a rainy morning, so only about 40 runners showed up, but by the start, the sun came out and it turned beautiful. My goal was finish under 45 minutes, a sub-nine minute mile. I ended up finishing in 44:19, accomplishing my goal. I was psyched!!! The next day, the organizer of the race knocked on my door, handing me a first place trophy for the male age-group 20-29, how cool!!!. Of course, with the limited turnout of runners, I only had one competitor, but hey first place is first place, and Danielle was upset because she beat me by almost three minutes and I got the trophy.

The next day, Apr 6, Dave and I got in the canoe again, and raced the Hock! We were slightly jacked up for this, as my Uncle Eric and cousin Nate were racing in our class, and they started right behind us. So right from the start we were paddling like mad, yet somehow they caught by the time we hit Economy rapids. On our practice run the week before, we had paddled right through the extreme right side, but there was only a small chute and if we missed it we would run aground, and have to jump out. Of course we missed the chute to the left, and had to walk the canoe through. As we were doing this, Eric and Nate were all the way to the left, and Eric had jumped out and ran their canoe right through.

Gotta go, finish hopefully sometime soon

Spinning!

Had a great spin class this morning, as I definitely feel my ability to stay on pace with the class is progressing. Today, I was able to fully complete a couple of standing songs, pushing myself to not back down. I still was unable to the fast up out of the saddle and back down sets. But it felt good to do sustained amount of out of saddle spinning, at one point doing to full song intervals in a row! Hopefully I can continue this progress on Monday, and slowly build my core strength to the point where I can spring out of the saddle easily and fully complete sets of up-downs, maybe after a couple weeks.

River Races

Didn't quite finish that last post.

Then, the Hock river race is two weeks from sunday. This one has only one set of decent rapids, very close to the beginning. Unfortunately the water level was slightly low, so most of the boats as we approached seemed to grinding to halt on the rocks, and then having the current push them sideways until the rolled over the drop and tipped over. So as soon as we started to hit bottom, Dave jumped out of the back of the boat, lifted the rear, and ran us through the whole set of rapids. It actually worked, and we passed a half dozen boats that were struggling not to flip over. From there the river opens up to Union Pond, which you can easily burnout your arms trying to race across, arms you are definitely going to need later. At the end of the pond is a portage around the dam. Not quite as adrenaline pumping as the Scantic portage, it is just a long concrete stairway, dropping a total of about fifty feet. Then back on the river where for the middle third of the race it winds pretty tightly through forest, without rapids, but spots where it splits around tiny islands and you have to try to figure out the faster side, as sometimes one side is very shallow and beaches your boat, while the other side has most of the current. Then the last third it basically meanders very slowly and wide through a marshy swamp. Here is were you really need arm strength and endurance, as you basically don't move unless you paddle, and you are closing on the finish line, hoping to stay ahead of or pass other boaters in your class.

So, needless to say, I have been amped up for the past couple of weeks for these races to happen, and now they are only a week away. So hopefully Dave and I can get out Saturday and shake off a year's worth of rust, so maybe we won't tip at all in the race. Although that was part of the fun I guess, in a screwed up sort of way.

Running!!!!!

Well, it didn't work to go out for a run Wed am because it was pouring rain. So, in the evening after dinner and running a couple of errands, I brought my gym clothes with and stopped at Court House. I was shooting for a thirty-five minute run with five-minute cooldown, hoping to add five minutes to my time on Sunday. But unfortunately by minute twenty I really had to go to the bathroom, so I ended up doing a two-minute cooldown after minute thirty. But at least I was able to sustain a thirty minute run on the treadmill again. This time I did 3.1 miles in thirty, as after a five-minute warmup at about 5.5 mph, I tried to keep my speed above 6.0, varying it between 6.0 and a max of 6.6 throughout the random course setting, which had me running inclines up to 4.3. So I feel good that I have two 3 mile runs in, halfway through this week. I plan on spinning class again tomorrow, possibly a bike ride or run outside Sat, and then more weights and a treadmill run Sun.

Also, I hope to get out sat with my brother Dave, to canoe on the Hockanum River, as I got two river races coming up the next two weekends. The Scantic Spring Splash is a week from saturday and a lot of fun. It's approximately five miles long, with a portage around a dam halfway through. There are three sets of rapids that you have to cross. Last year we tipped over in both the first two sets. The frigid water (about 34 degrees F), just about took my breath away. Then the portage got me warmed back up, as you pull your canoe to the side and have to climb up about a 100 feet of elevation hill to a level spot and then drop back down that 100 feet plus another 50 or so of the height of the dam, on path in the woods. It was crazy, as there were several teams of canoes doing it at the same time, and both the uphill and downhill were muddy, no traction, especially with wet water shoes. I remember my uncle telling me that him and my cousin, in their single kayaks, carried their boats together, my uncle holding the front of both boats and Nate holding the rears. When the got to the downhill he was running and couldn't stop, so Nate let go, and Eric just slid out of control down the hill and plowed into another guy and his boat!!
Anyway it was definitely an adrenaline rush to say the least and got us warmed back up for the last set of rapids, the hardest yet, with successive series of drops from about 3 to 6 feet high. Thankfully my brother and I had started to get the hang of the boat, after our first two wet experiences and were able to keep ourselves straight over the drops and keep our weight back enough to not take on water. We scooted right through in front of crowd of a couple hundred spectators, as this set was right at the finish of the race.

Monday AM Spinning and PM Volleyball League

Well, it seems that spinning class is going to work out regularly for me, which is a good thing, as my running continues to be sporadic. This monday, Danielle got to come with and she actually enjoyed Deb's demanding class, as she is in good enough shape to keep up. I keep telling myself that if I keep going and working on improving each class, I eventually will be able to fully keep up w/ Deb.
Also, I've been playing in Court House's competitive volleyball league on Monday nights, for a few months now. We are about halfway through a twelve week season and my team though we started out slow, are really starting to gel. Last night we played really well as a team, win the first two games with a close margin and then really put it to them in the last match, going three and 0 for the evening which brought us to five hundred and a tie for third place. The top four teams make playoffs, so we are hoping to stay hot and possibly make some noise down the stretch. Although next week we play my brother's powerhouse team which is loaded with just the right amount of hitters and setters, with very few weaknesses. They've only lost one match and have a very comfortable lead over my cousin's second place team.

Sunday AM workout

Well, my training may be more sporadic than I had hoped, but this morning I got in a great workout, and I am hoping to keep it going. Started out with a one-mile run to get warmed up, then went through my entire strength training workout, both lowers and uppers mixed together, with a focus on tri muscles and movements. Then Danielle, upon my request, drilled me through some core workouts, starting with planks and side planks, then single leg raises from a plank position, then raising and lower core from plank position. Then she had me do some abdominal workouts. By the time it was over, I felt sufficiently worked out to the core. Then we went back over to the treadmills for a 3 mile run to finish out. I have in the past always hated running on the treadmill as the constant pace seems unnatural to me. But today, I made a point to periodically change the speed as the random setting sent me up and down hills, kind like I would adjust my pace on the road. Also what really helped was to put all my focus on a rhythmic breathing pattern, inhaling through my nose through four steps, and exhaling through my mouth through four steps. This helped to keep my mind of my legs, and run through some of the pain that usually slows me down.

Mountain biking

Oh and I forgot I have kept up with at least one bike ride a week, as both of the past weeks since my plan began, I have gone out Sunday am for a two hour ride at Soapstone, with my brother and cousins. On these rides, I try to both keep my intensity up as much as possible, while still enjoying riding out in the woods. This last Sunday, we saw a deer and what seemed to be a fisher cat, which initially my cousins dogs started to chase, but thankfully thought better and returned.
Also, I finally purchased my own mountain bike, returning my brother's to him. I found a 2002 Giant Rincon in perfect condition on craigslist, seemed to get a great deal on it, as others I found were in fair condition for more money. So now I have front shocks at least, (the bike I was riding was a rigid fork) something wrists and arms are happy about. I was able to ride it last Sunday, but it was tough to get a feel for it, as the trails were so sticky with mud that it felt like we riding with a brakes partially clamped down on the wheels. So, I am itching for more this weekend, hopefully the weather doesn't mess up my plans.

Training Update

Well, my plan hasn't quite worked. I have got back in the gym for strength training, twice a week. One thing on that though, I feel like I need to work on my core strength, a lot more to help me endure longer times on the bike.
The running has not happened, except for one attempt to run on the treadmill at the gym. For some reason, I just can't get into a natural rhythm of the treadmill, it just never feels right. Running at a constant speed just doesn't work for me. I must vary my pace more than most people. And my thought to run before work outside kind of got screwed up by daylight savings time, and it's an hour later til sunrise now. I guess I should strap on the headlamp and go anyway.
On the bright side, Danielle and I switched gyms, from Cardio Express to Court House Plus. It has considerably more equipment and various free classes and it is much cleaner. One of the reasons for switching was the Spinning classes they offer, which I attended two of this week. Monday morning was with the notoriously hard teacher. She pretty much rides her bike in the front of class, screaming at us to keep up the intensity, and increase resistance and spin faster and on and on for an hour. I definitely had trouble with standing for a while, my back starts to give out. This is why I am thinking I need to work on my core some more, to strengthen my abs and back so they can hold my weight while I pedal out of the saddle.

Training plan for march

Well so far for the off-season, none of my training regimens have stuck. But lets try again for March. I went over to the Belding property this afternoon and put on my cross-country skis for the first time in 3 or 4 years and did the three-mile loop. Unfortunately the snow from Friday had mostly melted and I skied an icy and sometimes bare path but still nice to get out on the skis again. Mainly I figured I could scope out the spot for morning training runs before work. It is only a five minute drive, and there are several options for loops of up to 3 miles, so it should work out nicely. I want to focus on running for the month, seeing as all I did in February was the Half-marathon, without any training runs. The plan is:

3 mile trail run, 2 mornings per week
strength training at the gym 2 evenings per week
one bike ride and one 4-6 mile run per weekend

I will make weekly reports, hopefully all complete!!!

Colchester Half Marathon

Well, I did it again. This was my second year running the colchester half-marathon. And once again it proved to be brutal on my legs. I would say I was in slightly better shape this time around, although I did't even come close to my goal of running a couple times a week leading up to it. But I figured after a solid year of triathlon training and racing, my base fitness must be better. Well it only turned out to be 2 minutes better. I finished in 2:13:25, a average of 10:12 per mile. Once again the last 2 mile hill proved to be a killer, as up to mile 11 I was on pace for under 10 min per mile, my realistic goal, with none of previous miles over 10:35, but mile 12, I miserable plodded along in 10:45, before falling apart and walking a good chunk of mile 13 making it a 12:30 mile and coming in over my 2 hrs, 10 min goal time.
The positive is that Daniell ran it with me and it was great to "share" this with her. On the way there, she kept saying how nice it would be to run a race together. The only problem was at the first hill at mile 2, she dropped me as I had to walk a little. Then for the next two miles I watched her about 250 feet in front of me until the first water station where she kept going, (she was wearing a camelbak) and I had to stop for hydration. After that I didn't see her again until the finish line where she was waiting for me for seven minutes. Turns out she had a nice relaxing run, socializing with a few other runners! I on the other hand couldn't have talked even if they were around me, as I was giving it all out effort to try to catch back up to her. The toughest part was mile around mile 10, where there is a mile and a half stretch on a dirt road through the forest, it was the loneliest fifteen minutes for me, as no one was near me and due to the weather, it was a pretty gloomy, depressing scene.
But hey, I still had a 'great' time, and I beat my time from last year, so it was definitely worth it. Now to try and get out and do some more run training now that my legs have had a week to recover.

ADK Trip was a blast!

ell its already been a week since I got back from the dacks, but I still can't forget it. Unfortunately, Danielle got the flu bug the week prior to the trip and had to bail. It was really weird backpacking without her, as I haven't hiked without her for a good ten years. But Mark, Barry and I still headed up Sat bright and early at 4:oo am. We had a filling breakfast at the Noon Mark Diner in Keene Valley, great blueberry pancakes worth the wait! The whole ride up I was starting to freakout about this being my first overnight camping experience in the wintertime. The car thermometer dipped down to -8 by the time we got there, and Barry was talking about the backcountry forecast he found that said it would be between -10 and -20. I was going to be using an extra sleeping bag Barry had, that was rated to only zero degrees. I was envisioning myself going to bed with every last ounce of clothing I had on me and still shivering the entire night. But we got on the trail by 9:30 and getting into my hiking rhythm, I was able to shut these negative thoughts out and enjoy the beautiful scenery of freshly fallen snow throughout the forest. We completed the 2.3 miles to Marcy Dam around 10:30 and found a site to setup camp, just east of the lake. We stomped around the site with our snowshoes until we had a level spot for our two tents. After setting up our tents and getting everything in order, we set our sights on Phelps mt. an short 4-mile round trip from our site. Danielle and I had just done Phelps this past November, so it was quite familar, yet completely different, as it was now covered in a few feet of snowpack. We made it to the top without much difficulty, there was only one sketchy spot with ice that we had to make a careful traverse across. The view from the summit was gorgeous, we had beautiful weather and I spent a good fifteen minutes on the summit, just taking it all in. The picture on the left below shows Tabletop in the foreground with Marcy behind on the right, and what I thought was Basin, but I am not sure. The other is obviously me, enjoying my second winter summit, with many more to come, we hope!!

After hiking back down to camp, we were still early for dinner time, so Mark

and Barry went looking for an accessible water source, and I took to digging out the floor of our tent vestibule, so that we could sit up better for cooking and eating. It was perfect duty to get me warmed up after standing around for a little bit after the hike.

Well, all my worrying in the car that morning was for naught. I got in to the bag at 8:00, with my thermal top and bottoms, fleece pants, down booties, a fleece shirt, and a fleece vest on. But, at dinner time, we had heated our nalgene bottles and thrown two in each sleeping bag. Everyone had told this was the trick to sleeping warm, but I never realized how effective it would be. They were in there for about an hour before I got in. I immediately was too hot and spent the first half hour stripping layers, and waiting for the chill to come. Finally after an hour, I was down to just my thermal top and bottoms and booties, and still nice and toasty. But by this time both Mark and Barry were rhythmically snoring. Once I fell asleep, I slept quite well until waking and realizing I had fallen asleep on one of my arms, which was now quite numb. Another period of sleep and I awoke to Mark stirring to get up to relieve himself. I fought the urge to do the same, thinking it had to close to morning, if I could just fall asleep, I could ride it out. Unfortunately, I realized I couldn't fight the urge any longer, just as Mark returned and attempted to get back into his warm bag. The two of us stirring around so much sent the frost built up on the inside of the tent flying, needless to say it was a rude awakening as I was just trying to hurriedly stumble out to take a pee. This was at 5:40 am. Not long after, we could hear Barry outside swearing as he tried to light his stove. Apparently, he awoke with the need to fully relieve himself, and froze his behind off in the pit privy. He was in a fabulous mood to say the least. In addition to this, we could hear winds whipping about above us, threatening us to dare get out and hike in them. With these events, we took it slow getting ready, and didn't head out of camp until about 9:30, with still a loose goal of hiking Marcy, but with the realization that we would probably half to settle for Tabletop which spurs off halfway up the Marcy trail, and is much more sheltered. After the Phelps trail spur exited, the trail steepened some and slowed us down. Sure enough, by the time we got to the junction with the Tabletop trail, it was quarter of twelve, and the winds were still just as ferocious sounding. Realizing we could probably do Marcy but it would be a tough battle, we only had three of us, me with little winter experience and to top it off Barry forgot his headlamp in the tent and it would definitely be an after-dark return, we decided to take the safe choice, Tabletop. It turned out to be a great decision, it was sheltered well enough for us to never be too exposed to have to worry about facemasks, etc. yet there were some open ledges with views of the Macintyres, Colden and where Marcy entered the clouds. The summit was an anticlimactic one, totally socked in by tree cover. But I continued down the other side about 200 yards and found another open ledge looking out to the Great Range.

Certainly worth the hike!

We didn't stay long, as it was obvious the weather was slowly closing in on us. We got back down to camp at 2:00, and decided to pack up and head out, instead of staying overnight and probably packing wet tents and gear in the morning. We hit the trail by 3 and with a glance up to Marcy and the black clouds she was engulfed in, we realized our earlier decision was definitely a good one. We made it out to the car by 4, showered and drove home, stopping for dinner along the way.

On the ride home, I realized how weird it was that Danielle wasn't with me. I am so used to chatting the whole ride home with her about the parts of the hike that we each enjoyed most, and planning our next hike already. It was definitely an odd trip because of that, yet I still had a blast. To top it off I found the weather report for sunday morning at 6 am, it was -12, not bad for my first night in the winter woods.

More training woes, ramping up for Adk trip

Since I started the blog, I've been trying to get more of a training regimen going, as I have lacked a good routine since my preparations for the Nutmeg State Half-iron last September. Unfortunately, the only thing that has taken is my strength training workouts twice a week and swimming sessions with a Masters swim coach twice week, which end tomorrow and won't start up again until April. I plan to replace the swim morning sessions with a run concentration for the next 4-6 weeks, with the Colchester Half-marathon as motivation. Hopefully I can get out two mornings a week, one to do a long, endurance style workout, possibly doing a 8-9 mile route, and the other morning a shorter, fast tempo workout, probably around 5 miles. It would be great to add some mileage on the weekends, as a brick after a mountain bike perhaps. We'll see!!

In addition to training thoughts, I am preparing for a winter backpacking trip to the Adks. Danielle and I have never camped in the winter before, but we are going with Mark, a friend of ours that has experience and has tons of gear for us to borrow. Looks like we have to rent 0-degree sleeping bags from EMS, not quite ready to buy two winter bags at $400 or so a pop. Danielle needs winter pac boots or something to take care of her cold feet, and I am planning on using my new Asolo backpacking boots which I have been trying desperately to break in before the trip.
We have a pretty ambitious itinerary planned. Saturday the 16th we hope to be on trail by 8:30 in Heart Lake, climb Algonquin Peak, Boundary Peak, Iroquois Peak and then head down to Lake Colden to camp. Sunday we hope to hike up to Four Corners and then climb Mt. Skylight and back and then up Mt. Marcy and over to Grey Peak and then down to Feldspar brook for camp, hiking out to our cars on Monday.
I can't wait to go, been stoked about getting into winter camping for awhile.

Intro

Hello all,

This is the beginning of my foray into the blogging world. I will be posting about several hobbies of mine, basically as a journal for myself, and I am open to any feedback. First, I am an avid hiker, and hope to become more involved with alpine mountaineering. I have been reading various books about Everest, etc. and it has me dreaming! My wife and I are working on a goal of climbing all of the mountains above four thousand feet in the Northeast. This elevation is significant as it is typical treeline in this region. Now, for my first mountaineering goal, I am setting my sights on Mt. Rainer. We recently attended the Adirondack Mountain Club's Winter Mountaineering School and got a handle on the basics. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in winter hiking in the Northeast or as a starter to larger mountaineering goals like me. It was during this outing that I got the trail name "Captain Glissade", as my instructor began calling me after I laughingly glissaded most of the way down Giant Mt. We are planning another couple of trips for this winter, hopefully back to the Adirondacks and a trip to the Whites in NH.

Second, my brother recently introduced me to the world of triathlons and I have been completely hooked. Just like climbing mountains, meeting the challenges of training and completing tris is a painful, yet thrilling and rewarding adventure. Last year, I completed an Olympic distance race in June, and then a Half-Iron race in September. I plan to do probably two halfs this year and one or two Olympics. I also did a ten week sprint distance training series over the summer that is a lot of fun.