Day 72 (July 17, 2010)– Three-quarters of the way to Camp Muir

Since I had today off as well, I know it seems like I never work but I actually do on occasion. I usually work my hiking in around work schedule. Basically if I have free time, I am probably hiking.

So the goal for today was to hike to Camp Muir. Camp Muir is named after the naturalist John Muir. John Muir founded the Sierra Club and was a conservation supporter. John Muir visited Mount Rainer and my favorite story about him comes from this visit. His plan had been to just hike up a part way up the mountain, but in a letter to his wife he tells his wife pushing upwards and the next thing he know he is standing on the summit.

Camp Muir is a camp where climbers typically spend the night at before summiting the mountain. Camp Muir is about a 4.1 mile hike from Paradise. 4.1 miles seems like an easy enough hike, but it’s not. It is a grueling 4.1 mile hike with about 4,900 feet of elevation gain. Plus add in the sun beating up and down on you. Up on you, what am I talking about? SNOW! On the mountain you risk sunburn not just from the sun but its reflection off the snow so it is easy to burn your chin, underside of your arms, inside your shorts.

I knew from the beginning that this was going to be a grueling hike, but my hiking partner didn’t quite understand all this. It took us longer than I expected to make it to Panoramic Point, which is only 1.7 miles from the trailhead. The view was fantastic. It was a clear day so we could see(from right to left) Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Adams. Mt. Hood is in the  middle-left and is very hard to see in the picture but it is there.

From Panoramic, we continued up the mountain. After about another hour of climbing we made Pebble Creek with is about half way there. We took a short break and then started working our way up the Muir Snowfield.

About half way up the snow field my hiking partner sits down and state “I refuse to go any further.” Needless to say I was disappointed but not surprised. She wasn’t in shape for climbing to Muir and was getting pretty sun burnt. So we turned around and headed back to Paradise.

As we were heading down, I decided that despite wearing shorts, I wanted to glissade down part of the snowfield. For those who don’t know glissading is a fancy name for sliding down on your but.

Day 34 (June 9, 2010)– Mount Saint Helen’s Trip

Earlier in this blog, I mentioned that it was the 30th anniversary of the Mount Saint Helen’s eruption. Well today, I went to visit Mount Saint Helen’s. I went with 3 of my friends: John, Libby and Nadine. We had to take this long out of the way route due to the short route was closed. So we drove up to the Johnson Observatory.

We timed out trip just perfectly. We got to one of the overlooks just in time for the mountain to come out from the fog bank.

The area around the Johnson Observatory and the overlook was very interesting; despite being 30 years later much of the land around the mountain is still dead. All that remains of the lush forest that once lived there are the tree stumps from where the trees were ripped off during the eruption.

We had planned on going hiking but the wind was blowing like 10 miles per hour, it was raining, and it was like 40 degrees out and we were wimps. So we spent a couple of hour exploring the Observatory
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Day 13 - 30th Anniversary of Mount Saint Helen’s Eruption

     May 18, 1980 Mount Saint Helen’s erupted. It has been 30 years to the day. It was slightly weird to learn this. It reminded me that I am living on the side of a dormant but still possibly active volcano and surrounded by several more.


     I did not however get to go visit Mount Saint Helen’s today. I had the corporate training to attend. It was the usually company stuff: company background, harassment information, and diversity training.

     I have gotten to know much of the dinning staff. At this point, I know almost everyone’s name. The staff is really cool and a great group of people. I am looking forward to working with them.

     On another not, I want to section hike Wonderland Trail and have found a couple of people willing to hike different sections with me.