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.