Day 68 (July 13, 2010)– Work

Nothing new to report other than work. Though, the resident Paradise foxes now have names: Choclate Cake, Red Velvet Cake, and Vanilla Cake. One of the cooks was hungry for cake and the foxes wondered by. So she named them after cake.

Day 67 (July 12, 2010)– Ross’s Last Day

Today is a very sad day, it is Ross’s last day on the mountain. He is heading home to get the surgery on his ankle. He seems to have accepted the fact that he is leaving, but it is still a hard pill to swallow for most of us that one accident can ruin the entire rest of our summer.

Day 64 (July 9, 2010)– Hospital Visit and Serving

Once at the hospital, Ross is immediately admitted with top priority, and we get the full story about what happened. Ross was about 50 feet from the top of the ridge that we were supposed to be hiking to when he slipped and slid about 18 feet down and over a couple of small rock ledges. He then spent like 2 hours sitting then before starting to hike back. He hike back over 4 miles The ranger that found him, had gotten about 15 mins. from the trailhead when he meet Ross limping his way back.


At the hospital, we got to see the full extent of his injuries. He was bandaged up fairly bad. At that point, we left to get some sleep. After about 5 hours at the hospital, Ross is ready to go and we start back towards Mount Rainier. Ross has a broken ankle that needs surgery, 3 stitches in his elbow, and 3 stitches in his leg.

After we left the hospital, we drove back to the mountain. It sucked because most people asked us how are trip went and it was like “do I really have to tell everyone about what happened.”

At work, I got some good news, due to some scheduling changes they need me to serve dinner so I got to server rather than bus and make some real money.

Day 63 (July 8, 2010)– Tragedy in North Cascades

After making a quick stop in town, we headed up to our trailhead and started our hike. The hike was suppose to be a 4.5 mile hike with 3,200 feet of elevation gain. After about a 1.5 miles, Ross decided that Nadine and I’s pace was too slow so he went ahead and we would meet him at the ridge overlooking Hidden Lake. As we hike up, we crossed over several small creeks (remember this it is important later). After a couple of hour of hike, Nadine and I reached the point where the trail turned from trail to snow. After attempting to follow the snow path, we realized we had lost the trail and Ross’s foot prints.

Since we couldn’t go anywhere and the view was spectacular from where we were, we spent the next two hours sitting and enjoying the view waiting for Ross to realize that we were not going to meet him at the top and to hike back down.

Mount Baker

After two hours we started to get hungry so we headed down and figured Ross would catch us on the way down. As we hiked down those small creeks were now raging creek and some were difficult to cross. But alas he hadn’t by the time we got to the trailhead. I hadn’t been concerned when we started down, but once we reached the trailhead, I was getting a little more concerned about Ross, but it was possible he had lost track of time and had gotten distracted. I figured he would be down in the next hour. Another hour plus passed and still no Ross at this point the sun is going down and I am in full panic mode. Nadine and I head back up the trail and still can’t see him at this point we have about an hour and a half of daylight left so we go for help.

Since we didn’t have a cell phone, we used the local gas stations phone to call 911 and report him missing. The 911 operator does asks the usual question and tell us to wait at the gas station we are at to meet with the Sheriff’s deputy when he arrives. As we are waiting the lady at the gas station suggest going over to the Ranger Command Center and seeing if that will help. So I go to the Command Center and Nadine stays at the gas station.

At the Command Center, I go over the same info with the Ranger and Controller there. The Ranger wants to go out to the trailhead and hike up and see if he can find Ross, but the problem is that the trail starts outside the National Park so he had to get PERMISSION to go search for Ross. At that moment, I really wanted to tell them, I didn’t care about jurisdiction, I just wanted Ross found. Finally, the Ranger got permission to head up to the trailhead and they sent me back to the gas station to meet up with Nadine. We spent another hour waiting on the deputy to show up. Once he did he gave us the talk about how Ross wouldn’t freeze to death tonight and that most of the missing person either walk out by themselves or are found stuck in a dry creek bed in the morning by search and rescue. He told us that search and rescue would start looking at 4:00 am.

The deputy sent us back to our camp site “to get a good night’s sleep.” Like that was going to really happen. We decide to swing by the trailhead and check one last time and then go to our campsite. As we were heading up to the trailhead we meet the ranger coming down. Thankfully he had found Ross. Nadine hops out of my car and goes to open the Ranger door to give Ross a hug. At that point, I am torn between giving Ross an hug or hitting him. I opt for the hug when Nadine gets the door open and I see his arm has been bandaged up.

We head back to the campsite where the rangers give Ross a once over while Nadine and I pack up the tents so we can head to the hospital. The closest good hospital is over two hours away so we head there.

Day 62 (July 7, 2010)– North Cascades National Park

The plan had been to leave around 8:15 this morning but the trail lunches were not ready on time so we left a little later than planned. Around 11:30 we found a sports bar to watch the soccer game at until the waitress ID us and realized 2 of the 3 of us were under 21. So we got direction to a Mexican Restaurant and ate and watched the game there. I was rooting for Germany, but they played like crap and deserved to lose to Spain. From the restaurant we drove the rest of the way to North Cascades and Ross Lake. Once in the Recreation Area, we stopped at the visitor center and got trail conditions and then drove though the park along the river to Diablo and Ross Lake. At Ross Lake, we hiked down to the dam.

The dam was cool, but we couldn’t go swimming like Ross wanted too. After that we drove to our camp site which was about an hour away from the lake, but close to our trailhead. The camp site we picked was close to the river and toilet but the campground didn’t have running water which meant we would need go into town and get some water before our hike tomorrow.

We bought some fire wood and made a fire and had dinner and roasted marshmallows, and then went to bed. Though we brought two two-person tents, however Ross decided to sleep outside while Nadine and I were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes so we slept in one of the tents.

Day 56 and 57 (July 1 and 2, 2010)– Work and Cold Weather

Coming back from Olympic to Mount Rainier was a big shock. The temperature had dropped about 20 degree and whiteouts were occurring again. In case you can’t figure out what a whiteout is it is when a fog bank rolls in and you are luck If you can see 5 feet in front of you. So basically the only thing to do was work and hang out in the lodge.

A Rant on Twilight

I know this is a blog about my summer adventure, but really feel the need to go on a slight rant about the obsession people have with these books. For those of you who don’t pay attention to book’s setting you might have missed that Twilight is set in the area around Olympic National Park. This means that my trip to Olympic also included a visit to many of the places found in Twilight. My first encounter with the Twilight obsessed was driving to Mora. I was driving along towards Mora, which happens to be near La Push. As I was turning towards Mora, there was a sign one of the stores labeling the Cullen treaty line. My first thought was really people. I wondered if people did stop and take a picture. As I was checking my map to see which road I turned on to, a tour bus pulled up and a large group of people got out and started taking pictures with the sign. I am no kidding about any of this. The next disturbing thing was that the tour bus was a specific Twilight tour bus.


My next issue with Twilight was the town of Forks. My real question for the people of Forks is did they have an industry outside of Twilight. I made one stop in the town for gas, and as I was driving though it seemed like every store window had Twilight something in it. It was really sad.

Sorry for the rant, but I felt that it was necessary to share how obsessed some people are.

Day 54 (June 29, 2010)– Olympic National Park – Hurricane Ridge, Crescent Lake, Sol Duc

Olympic National Park is amazing. I have a book on the National Parks of the United States, and it outlines ways to visit the park if you only have a few days. Today I was driving the Hurricane Ridge, Lake Crescent and Sol Duc path. I woke up this morning and I had picked a pretty cool place to sleep. From the campground, I drove up to Hurricane Ridge in hope in seeing Mount Olympic.

But alas, the mountain was clouded over. From Hurricane I drove toward Sol Duc. On the way I stopped Crescent Lake. Crescent Lake has a cool Indian story attached to it. The legend states the Mount Storm King, angered at the fighting between the Quileute and Clallam Indians, threw a boulder, killing the combatants and splitting the lake in two.

At Crecent Lake, I hiked to Marymere Falls.

After that hike, I drove up to Sol Duc and hiked a 6 mile loop called Lover’s Lane. This loop is named Lover’s Lane because if you are there at the right time you can see salmon mating. I was visiting at the wrong time. This trail also passes Sol Duc Falls.

 

My original park plan had me camping in the Hoh Rain Forest and then going to the beach in the afternoon. But low tide was in the morning, so I camped at Mora Campground, and ate dinner by the beach and watched the sunset. It was suppose to be a clear day, and I was hoping to see the green flash but no, and the I was hoping for a nice sunset but alas I go neither.

Day 53 (June 28, 2010)– Server Leaving and MAST Class

Ok, so this morning my plans were completely turned upside down. One of the servers quit this morning. This means that we no longer have to many bussers, so I don’t need to take the MAST class. I am not sure how one server quitting means we no longer have too many bussers, but apparently it does. My plan to go to Olympic hasn’t changed; I just no longer need to rush out after work and drive.

Well later in the day, Wes (my boss’s boss) wants to serve whenever possible so he told me to take the class. So my original plan was back on. I left work and drove to the class and made it with about 3 mins. to spare.

In the course of the 3 hour MAST class, I can summarize it in the following three points.

1. Do not serve visibly drunk people.
2. Check I.D.s (Do not serve minors)
3. People are not responsible for their actions while drinking.

After the class I drove to Olympic National Park, where I was planning on camping in the Heart O'the Hills.  But I got there are midnight so I just slept in my car.

Day 43 (June 18, 2010)– Very Early Morning

I am a very dedicated soccer fan. I got up at 4:00 a.m. in the morning to watch a soccer game. I know this is nuts, but it was Germany playing Serbia (which the reefing was awful). I mean come one 7 yellow cards the first half and two to Klosa so he gets thrown out. It was RIDUCULUS. After the 4:30 soccer game, I took a nap and then got up to watch the U.S. - Slovakia game.


That was a stressful game. The U.S. was down 2-0 at half time and slowly came back 2-2. But yet again bad reefing screwed the U.S. over, the U.S. put in a late goal that the ref called back for some unknown reason. He called in a U.S. foul or offside, but the footage show no U.S. player off side and at least 3 Slovakia fouls (and possibly a red card). One of the Slovakia players has there arms around Michal Bradley and is holding him back, personally I would have shown at least a yellow card for that, and maybe a red.

Other than that work was good, though my boss found it funny I was getting World Cup updates from the porter.

Day 42 (June 17, 2010)– Work, and simply work

So today was a really long day, I worked 12.5 hours. A normal day up here is between 3.5 and 9 unless it’s a Sunday then its 10. Why you might ask, one of my co-workers wanted to go to Seattle, so I picked up there shift. I liked working the extra hours.

Day 41 (June 16, 2010)– Snow in June and even more World Cup

Another day off with miserable weather, I think today was the most annoying morning I since I have been here. We got an inch of snow sometime during the night. This was really suspiring seeing as its JUNE. So I didn’t work until lunch so I got to watch the Spain vs. Switzerland game where Spain lost. Hopefully they will get eliminated in the group stages.

Seattle, Again, and Yes I am an Engineering Nerd

I decide that since today was miserable weather on the mountain, that I would go to Seattle and be a tourist for the day. So I left after the morning soccer games, I got in my car and the low tire pressure light was on again. (I don’t know if I mention that the low pressure light was on in Yellowstone but it was) I stopped at Ashford and filled the tire and was going to get it looked at later. It was a very uneventful three hour drive to Seattle, though I did make a pit stop to see the location of an engineering bridge disaster. I am sure most my engineering and science oriented friends can guess what bridge disaster I am referring to. Yep, it’s the Tacoma Narrows or “Galloping Gertie.” Here is the original footage of the bridge collapse.

I drove across the new bridge and then on to Seattle. Once in Seattle, I visited Pike’s Place Market and did some browsing/shopping. I spent most of the morning exploring the market and surround area.

From there, I tried to find a Honda dealership to get my tire looked at, but my GPS couldn’t get me to one that actually existed so I gave up. I was going to eat dinner on the Space Needle, but when most the menu is over $50.00, I decided not to. But I did go up the Space Needle.

From the Space Needle, I headed back to the mountain. Though driving up the mountain was an interesting experience due to the white out conditions and only being able to see a foot in front of my car.

Day 35 (June 10, 2010)– The Turks Arrive

     So today, the Turkish arrived. Basically they are a group of like 15 guys and 6 girls who are from Turkey. Two of them work in the dining room and a couple more have yet to arrive. There are five in the dining room. The three guys work on the floor, and two of the girls are hostess. For the most part, they all speak really good Enlgish. Sometimes their English is a little hard to understand, but we work though it.


The guys are named:

• Berkay - the Turkish Godfather, he has been working at Paradise Inn for 5 years and has recruited about half the Turks
• Metin - my new best friend, not sure how this came about but he calls me his best friend
• Arda – started as a dish washer but got promoted to busser and his English is the hardest to understand

    The girls are named Esme and Irma. Both are nice and Esme is teaching me Turkish along with Berkay, and Metin.

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
.

Day 32 and 33 (June 6 and 7, 2010) – Work and Planning

     Today, I worked the Lunch and Dinner shift so I didn’t have time to do anything fun, but I did start planning my days off. The plan was to hike another section of Wonderland that was about 8 miles but half the section is under snow and the other half is flooded out so I am just going to wing it tomorrow.

Day 29 (June 3, 2010)– West Side Road Hiking and Tragedy on the Mountain

     Today I worked the Breakfast and Dinner shift which means I have a long break in the middle. The weather today was amazing perfectly clear from 6:00 a.m. to mid evening. I could see the mountain for the first time in like a week, so I had to go hiking. I decide that I was going to hike as far as I could up the West Side Road of the Park. You might as why I was hiking a section of roadway, well Mount Rainier has a problem of the glacier feed creeks flooding and ruining the roadway. Currently two of the parks roadways are closed due to flooding damage, West Side and Carbon River. Both of these closers create a problem for hiking the Wonderland Trail (but I will go into that at a later date). So the only way to get up the see the West Side Road is to hike up it. I had about 4 hours to hike and 45 minute drive each way. I wasn’t going to have time to hike the entire road (its 12 miles long but I could do part of it). I started up the road and the first thing I came to was the word “bear” and an arrow drawn on the trail so I had to spend a couple of minutes looking for the bear. No, I didn’t see it. I continued up the road and for the first quarter mile was wondering why the road was closed it looked pretty good to me but then again I grew up driving up and down a gravel driveway. After a quarter mile, I understood why the road was closed. The river had created a couple of gullies that most vehicles would not be able to cross though those with high ground clearance could make it.

      The next part of the trail was all up hill. About three quarters of the way to my goal, I realized that it was 2:00 p.m. and I had to be at work at 4:30 if I wanted time to eat before shift. So I turned around and headed back (I didn’t want to but I am here to work). I made it to work on time and with time it eat before shift, but just barely. On the hike, I had noticed a helicopter flying around the top of Mount Rainier. While I was eating I found out the cause of the helicopter, it was an avalanche on Ingram Glacier (I know my mother has posted that I was ok and not involved in the avalanche). The early counts had 11 groups on the mountain at the time of the avalanche. Later in the day, we found out that most the parties had made it down ok. Including one commercial group that turned back shortly before the avalanche. At night fall, the rumor had 6 buried and dug out, and 1 still missing.

Day 28 (June 2, 2010)– Puyallup Shopping Trip

For my second day off I decide to go to the nearest town with actual shopping. The towns around Mount Rainier are like very small (people from Lenoir City think half the size of Loudon without the fast food or tick tock). The closest town is called Puyallup. It is about the size of Lenoir City. I had a list of items I needed.

•  Granola Bars 
• New work shoes
• Insoles
• Large jar of Nutella (for Bree) 
• A day off the mountain

     So I picked up all my items at Wal-Mart (for the Florida folks, I really miss shopping at Publix) and for my day of the mountain I spent the day downloading stuff off the internet at a local café I found.

 

Day 27 (June 1, 2010)– Sliver Falls and Grove of the Patriarch

     After much debate with myself and a ranger’s recommendations, I decided to hike two trails, Silver Falls and Grove of the Patriarchs. They are connected by a 1 mile long trail so I was going to combine them into one hike, however on my way out to the trailhead I got a little distracted. I got about 2 minutes down the road from Paradise when I spotted a fox lying on top of an embankment by the road. I figured I would take a few minutes and take some pictures. I ended up spending an hour and a half watching this fox. Ok so most of you are saying it’s just a fox. You were right until I noticed something pocking its head out from a small crevice at the base of the embankment. This changed the course of my day.

     Yes, that is a kit (baby fox). This is the reason I got distracted. The kit kept sticking his head out of the hole like he was going to come out, so I decided to wait for him to come out. As I was being quite and waiting for him to come out, I was keeping an eye on the mom. Out of the cornor of my eye, I see mom get pounced by this black thing. It was a second kit. The first one still hadn’t come out of his hole, so I was watching the kit run around. Then all of a sudden a the second kit is tackled by a third. This sight kept getting better. As the second and third kits were playing, I noticed a fourth kit watching. I continued to watch and was thinking, this is a lucky sight and since I know where the den is, I can easily come back. About this time the first kit, decides to join the other three. They four of them start running around and playing. I couldn’t believe it, I just started holding the button down on the camera to get as many pictures as possible of them.

     After an hour and half of watching them, the mom decided that I much have some food and decided to approach me. At this point I left. From there I drove out to my trailhead on the eastern side of the park.

     I started on the Silver Falls Trail. The trail first goes past a hot spring. From there the trail follows a large creek or small river. After about a mile, Silver Falls appeared. Silver Falls gets its name from the color of the water. The falls is fed by an active glacier so the water is white in color.

     It was getting late in the day so I decided to hike straight back to my car rather than hiking the additional 3 miles to the Grove of the Patriarchs. After I made it to my car, I drove to the Grove of the Patriarchs. I know this is cheating but it was getting late and I didn’t want to be hiking at dusk in cougar country alone.

     When I got to the Grove of the Patriarchs, I decided that I would hike the 1.1 mile loop. The loop follows a crystal clear stream. This spring is feed by an inactive glacier so it doesn’t have the white material that other streams are plagued with. After a short walk, the trail crosses a suspension bridge to a large island.

After the bridge, I entered the Grove of the Patriarchs. Grove of the Patriarchs is a stand of tree that is over 1000 years old. These trees were over 150 feet tall and an diameter of 5 feet. It was very impressive.

On my way back, I ran into some of the other employees from Singapore. They were amazed I was hiking by myself, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. We talked for a bit and then I went back to my car and headed back to Paradise.

Day 24 and 25– Busy as a Bee

Since this weekend is a holiday weekend the hotel was at about 80% capacity which was really good considering the weather (snow and foggy). I was working both lunch and dinner shifts so that meant we were really busy, no sooner did I get a table cleared and re-set would it be filled again. This meant I was always moving and having something to do. Despite being busy, it was more fun than the days where we had no one.

In case you haven't noticed or figured it out most these posts are about a week behind due to no internet in Paradise (they still tell us its coming but I am not holding my breath)