Apologies, trips, and a ZBL update!

So I have been quite remiss in updating my blog, so I apologize to everyone. First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone who has been reading this, I'm extremely flattered! So the last week has been pretty crazy for me, and I'm not even sure why.

Easter Sunday, the day when all good Christians are supposed to recognize the sacrifice that Jesus made, I was out climbing with my Jewish friend. I'm going to hell. Anyway, I got the chance to play guide to him. We went out to Leavenworth to climb R&D, a 5.6 climb on the Yosemite Decimal System.

For those not down with the YDS, it is a numerical system used to rate the difficulty of climbs. Originally 5.9 was considered the hardest climb conceivable. This was back when people climbed in boots and used hemp ropes tied around their waist to climb.

Now a 5.6 is considered an easier climb, approaching moderate. I brought out my buddy, Lucky, to climb. This climb was a 4 pitch climb (4 rope lengths, roughly 500ft long or so total) that I had to onsight (climb without any real knowledge of the moves of the climb). This was great for me, since it is a realistic thing I would do with clients.

I was able to get through all the moves pretty easily, despite the cold snow falling on us off and on all day. Some of the route was wet, all of it was cold cold cold granite. Our fingers were freezing and Lucky had on a very uncomfortable pair of rock shoes. We were on the route for almost 4 hours. At the end he had a big smile on his face, since he got to do the hardest climb he has ever done.

That smile was all I needed to know that I am definitely in the right profession. It was a great day, and he was spent at the end of it. We drove back home without incident, and relaxed over some pizza at his place. He paid. It was a great tip to get as a homeless guide. Oh, and he let me use his shower. AWESOME! It's the little things that get me excited.

I worked the rest of the week, and went climbing with my buddy Ian (an amazing guide) Friday.
We hit up Leavenworth, and got to climb a bunch of harder routes. Again, the snow was falling on us intermittently, and the rock was COLD! Luckily all we had to do was shove our hands into the even colder cracks, wedge the backs of our hands against the sharp granite, and pull up our body weight. Over and over again.

Of course the cold makes the skin a bit more fragile, so I have some stellar cuts and scrapes. It's awesome.

ZBL UPDATE: He was pampered Thursday, getting new rear brakes (to the tune of $335, still cheaper than rent!) and a bath. That's the first bath since leaving Jersey. I'm pretty sure I heard him thank me somewhere in there. He is quite the champ, making both trips to Leavenworth over the past week. He totally deserves some pampering. Also, he has been given the past couple of nights off, as I am couch crashing for a couple of days. Don't worry though, I won't be getting too soft on everyone now though :-)

What happens when the dream becomes a nightmare?

So I am getting closer to the guiding season, and despite all of my workouts in the climbing gym and the gym gym I am not really ready for the mountains. For those who don't hike or climb, you may not know about mountain legs. They are kind of like sea legs, but they need to be much stronger and able to go for hours on end, day after day.

I haven't been able to climb much since we are getting a bunch of late season snow, so I decided to get in some skiing. I went out to Mt. Rainier on Wednesday to skin uphill, and slide back down. For those not familiar, Rainier is the mountain on the title section of this blog. It was a good day, and let me build my mountain legs a bit.

Last night I decided to load up a pack with quite a bit of my gear and hike Mt. Si early before work. As with many plans, I was waylaid. The parking lot for Si is known for car prowlers, and this was my primary concern. I thought that since I was going up at about 4:30am on a Friday morning I would be good to go. I should have been back to my car by around 7am or so. This is far earlier than thieves get up, right?

Wrong.

At 3:30am I woke up to headlights shining in on my car. I watched a car drive around the parking area (which is a secluded area that no one really has any business in besides hiking or stealing) and spin back with headlights right on my car. As they pulled closer I saw that there were three people in the car. I poked my head up above level of the window and they saw me, and immediately pointed their car out of the parking lot and left.

I still don't know what they were doing there. I checked again that my doors were locked and went back to sleep. From this point, however, I would not have a good nights sleep. As I dozed waiting for my alarm to wake me, I dreamed of cars pulling in. One was pointed right at me, but was parked with a note saying that the owner was off climbing, and please don't tow the car. After I sorted out this note, I saw another car driving directly toward me.

I was sleeping in my seat still, but aware of this dream car coming closer. It had its lights directly on me, and the driver got out of his car and came toward me. He opened my passenger door. I still didn't move. Then he tapped me on my shoulder, the shoulder closest to my drivers side door. I could literally feel the tapping, and it wasn't just in my dream. I tried to say something, but I couldn't. Suddenly I sprung awake, trying to shout "WHAT!". It came off my thick cottony tongue as "wht." I looked over, now awake, and SAW SOMEONE SITTING IN MY PASSENGER SEAT!

Now remember that I was still quite sleepy, and it was about 4am at this time. As I tried to swallow my heart back down I realized it was just my pile of clothes in the passenger seat.

I ended up not doing my hike, since it had just been too crazy in that small window of time. I went back to sleep until 6am, and drove back to Seattle. Now I was in a more wilderness area, but it wasn't bears or wolves that made me scared, but people. They are still the most dangerous thing around. The lack of predictability is just too much, and my mind was racing with the possibilities of what could go wrong.

Everything I own is in my car, and it would have been disastrous to have it stolen. For the first time I actually felt vulnerable, and I learned a valuable lesson that will serve me well for the rest of the summer. I am going to make darn sure that every trip I go on will have nothing in my car that could be appealing to someone with less than honorable intentions.

So this time living the dream was kind of tough, but it didn't deter me from pursuing what I want to do. It just showed me that sometimes I need to be more flexible, and that I have to be ready for changing plans.

For those of you who are waiting to hear more about Zbl, he is now sitting at 264,083miles and running strong! I think 400k is not out of the realm of possibility! And if you are wondering, a Honda Accord drivers seat folds almost completely flat to the back seat, and makes a fairly comfortable bed. Give it a try sometime!

Alright everyone, my parting words. Don't let the inevitable nightmares deter you from your dreams. If you look through the haze you'll find those fears might be nothing more than a pile of clothes next to you. Do your laundry!