Day 77 and 28 (July 22 and 23, 2010)– Work

Nothing new going on just work and hopeing I get the days off I need next week to go backpacking.

Day 76 (July 21, 2010)– Comet Falls

I had the afternoon off today, so I decided to hike to Comet Falls. Comet Fall is suppose to be the best waterfall in the entire park. I went hiking with two of my friends, Kelly and Steven.

We drove down to Comet Falls trailhead and started up the trail. About 0.3 miles up the trail we cross over Christine Falls. Christine Falls is a little waterfall that can be seen from the road so lots of tourists stop there.

From there we headed uphill for 1.3 mile to the falls. The falls just appeared out of the woods, and were amazing.

From Comet, we hiked up closer to the base and then up to the top of the falls. Where we say two Mountain Goats on the next ridge.

Day 75 (July 20, 2010)– John’s Last Day on the Mountain

Today was John’s last day. It was sad to see him go, and was a fresh reminder that I would be leaving the mountain in a couple of week. It is hard to believe that the summer is almost over and I will be saying goodbye to many of my new friends.

Day 74 (July 19, 2010)– The Great Ovi Arrives

Basically since I have arrived, I have heard all about Ovi. Ovi is from Romania and has worked at Mount Rainier for 3 years (I think). I was working with him for about a two hours and I totally understand why everyone kept going on about him.

Day 73 (July 18, 2010)– John’s Last Day of Work

A couple a weeks ago, I did a post about hiking with one of the Singaporean’s Jonathan. Well today is his last day on the mountain. It is a sad day for me. He is my favorite dishwasher and always made going back into the kitchen interesting. But alas, John is going to take a quick tour of the U.S. and then head back to Singapore for school.

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 71 (July 16, 2010)– Dungeness Crab for Dinner

I had today off, so I went into Puyallup with a couple of my friends for the day. I couple of weeks ago, while at Pike’s Place, I decided that I wanted a Dungeness Crab.

I walk into the grocery store to pick up my crab and the women behind the counter weights the crab and tells me it is kind of expensive as I start an internal debate. She thinks my debate is over whether to get it. My response is “it’s not a debate over whether to get one; it’s whether to get TWO.” I decided that since I was on the west coast and seldom ever get the chance to have Dungeness crab that I would splurge on two. So I had a great feast instead of the EDR mystery meat.