TR: My Floridian girlfriend goes climbing.

[Bug]

Carol grew up on Merrit Island, Florida, elevation 9 feet. She was a beach girl who could spot a tourist from a hundred

paces and to this day disdains Speedos. Gators n snakes lived just beyond her back yard and the "Florida room" was a

screened in porch. She became an accomplished physical therapist with healing skills well beyond physics and physiology.

She smiles easily and her disposition is positive and adventurous. She is of approximately the same vintage as I and so,

"has seen things". We remember the first TV on the block, Martin Luther King Jr, Gloria Steinem, friends who died in Viet

Nam, Flower Power, acid rain, and Timothy Leary before he dropped back in. We moved into the seventies with a sense that

expanding the mind is part of growing up. Some of us came through those times with a sense of wonder that the world can

be so huge and so small at the same time. We carry a sense of responsibility to leave it in good shape for our children.

We both have two daughters.

 

My brothers and I got together this summer at our parents house. We climbed a little, snorkeled the

Big Blackfoot, taught our children how to catch crayfish and eat them and exchanged a few guitar lics. We talked

about growing up in Montana chasing elk, climbing peaks, shooting rapids, and hiking in all conditions, generally avoiding

trails. We talked about the skills and muscle groups we had aquired by sheer repitition. Where to step in the mountains,

wether in logs, brush, grass, snow, slush, ice, sand, mud, talus, scree, or solid rock, is something you have to learn.

You don't get it reading a book or having a conversation. Our father is a stout man with an intense approach to everything.

He didn't jog. He ran 10 miles a few days a week over hills and mountains until he was in his early fifties. "Backpacking

with Dad" is a book in itself. We were lucky.

 

There are times in everyone's life when you wonder if you really deserve what you are getting. Spending time with Carol

is like that for me. Our differences are as spice to the similarities we share. Life is good.

That is the only grain of salt I will offer here as I feel too old to change my writing style now. Or to make it clear,

if you are going to be all sensitive and shit, maybe you should turn off the computer and go watch Oprah now.

 

Carol and I do a little backpacking and hiking together so I knew not to take her climbing with crampons, ice ax, rope,

and stuff. I left all that behind after rethinking it from every angle. When I planned our recent five day trip near Mt

Daniel I was careful to find routes that seemed reasonable on the map. I even did a recon trip (http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/696138/page/3#Post696138) and changed

our plans accordingly to avoid some slab and glacier work. Besides, Carol is an adult. She is perfectly capable of making

her own decisions and could turn around anytime she wanted to.

 

I planned a very mellow first day of paddling on Tucquala Lake. What could be more mellow than that? I drove us

over Snoqualmie pass, through Rosalyn, past Cle Elum Lake and ten miles up a nasty, bumpy, dusty road to Tucquala Meadows where

I dropped her off with the kayaks. Then I drove down the lake to a good take out and pedaled my bike back up to her and the kayaks.

I had glanced at the map and saw that the entire lake and section of river we were going to float were on the same contour.

We pulled our lake kayaks about a hundred yards down to the Cle Elum River from the Tucquala Meadows trailhead. It was a little

full so I helped set her foot pegs to paddle white water and listed the obsticles we would want to avoid. Even though we were

still on the bridge, I knew something was wrong immediately. She was willing to go but her eyes kept flitting from me to the water

rushing under us. So I suggested we pull our kayaks downstream a little ways to make sure there wasn't a log around the bend. The

first part was pine needles under a mature canopy and all was well. But as we got further and further into the brush and over a few

logs, Carol started complaining about her flip-flops coming off. Since I was wearing flip-flops too, I tried to give her advice on

how to keep them on. I even related to her how my flip-flop had been pierced by a stick but she did not appreciate my empathy.

Finally, I pulled both kayaks and gave her the paddles but she still fell behind. I whistled a little and yelled now and then so

moose and bear would know we were coming but I'm sure they heard us from a hundred yards anyway.

Finally, we found a place to put in and paddled about 50 yards when we were forced to portage around another large log jam.

This portage took us well into the forest and back through the open brush to get back to the main channel. We waded and yanked and climbed over

logs for a ways before Carol expressed her first doubts. I pushed onwards through waist deep water with the waning hope that the main

channel would appear before she asked to turn around. When it did, it was still blocked by a small log jam. I waded out to

check it out and it was just passable with a little help. Carol got in and I pulled her to the log jam and pushed her boat up

and over. She eddied out just below it. I pulled my boat up onto the logs and launched. From there down, it was an incredibly

picturesque 2 mile paddle with fish jumping, birds singing, and miriad wildfowers everywhere. The only thing missing was an ice cold

six-pack. Carol had forgotten it.

But I forgave her.

 

Carol napped through the afternoon heat at the takeout while I sorted through our gear for the evening hike to Sqaw Lake. Our packs were pretty

light, especially hers, so I asked if she would be willing to carry the sixpack now. She only looked at me so I almost asked again. But something

about her twitching triggered my well developed feminine side. I asked if she would prefer to carry another bottle of Merlot. The long silence

was broken by her water bottle inexplicably exploding in her hand. Must have been the heat. Soon we were happily on our way up the trail

carelessly chatting about my exploits in the mountains. I think she was beginning to understand how great a climber I used to be. When I arrived

at Sqaw Lake I set up the tent immediately to get out of the bugs. Carol arrived swatting furiously at the recent hatch of mosquitoes and hurriedly

climbed in. We were hot and sweaty so we went over to the lake to swim. I found underwear, a T-shirt, and campsuds on a rock. Carol would not let

me keep the underwear even though they were in perfectly good condition and my exact size. I thought about putting them on over my pants and

cavorting around as "Super-Backpacker" to cheer her up but Carol was already cheering herself up by making funny noises under water.

I couldn't get her attention.

 

The next morning was warm early and we got going about 10AM. At the pond beyond Spinola Meadows, it was already at least 80 degrees so we stopped

for another swim.

 

By the time we were cooled off, the temperature was hitting 90 so we hung out awhile longer. One party of two passed by the pond

while we were resting. After a couple Crystal Light slurpies I made from a snowbank, we wandered up to the junction up by Cathedral Rock and started

down toward Deep lake.

We passed one solo backpacker aborting his Snoqualmie to Stevens trek due to back problems. After him, we saw no one

else for the rest of the trip. The switchbacks down to Deep Lake are excruciatingly level but we made good time and found ourselves on the rocky

point halfway along the lake. I fished a little ways from camp so they wouldn't be scared off by Carol's frantic waving of arms and caught a couple

trout. We fried them up with rice pilaf and a glass of wine. This area is a bird paradise and they sang beautifully. It was nice to have a full

sized 2 person MSR tent I bought at the Carl Skoog memmorial sale to hang out in. We caught the mosquitoe hatch near it's peak.

 

The next morning we were up and moving quickly toward Lake Vicente. A short but violent thunderstorm caught us about halfway up. It was a nice

diversion from the heat and bugs. When we arrived at the lake it was more like a large pond and I was not sure there would be any fish in it.

We went for another swim to cool down and dried off in the sun. Since our skin was cooled off by the frigid water, the bugs left us alone for awhile.

 

I caught a few more fish and they were tasty with Spanish rice and Merlot. I kept looking up at the ridges above us and hatched a plan for the next

day. We could hike up to the notch on the SW ridge of the Citadel, drop down the back side and get back up to the ridge top beyond the rock

outcropping. From there, we could continue around the basin and drop back in from the other side.

 

The next morning we woke up early and I proposed my little day hike on the ridge circling the lake. Carol was game and we put everything in my pack

that we might need for the day. We hiked upwards for about 1/2 hour and reached a point where we could look over the entire Vicente basin. It was

beautiful. From there it was a short ways to the snowfield that would take us to the notch. The snow was soft and easy to kick steps into but kept

getting steeper. We resorted to the bergschrund as it was shallow and safe. But as we got higher and came around the edge of the schrund, we could

see that the snow was steep and the rock was steeper. A sane non-climber would have turned around at this point but Carol kept following me. I found

a way out onto a ledge system that was easier but a little more exposed. Carol was clearly nervous and I stayed with her as closely as I could without

getting hit by rocks or impailed on a trecking pole. As we topped out on the platue, there was a small herd of goats to greet us. The views of the

surrounding countyside were spectacular. The rock outcropping I thought we would be able to traverse around was much more substantial than I expected.

I knew I had to find an easier way down. We ate a snack on the platuea.

Then we started down. I went back down to the notch and could see that it was just as bad as it

was 1/2 hour ago. So I went over to the next notch to the west. It was a little steep to begin with but probably a little easier than some of the

parts we had come up and not as exposed. I knew she could get down it but then we would have to get on the snow and make a controlled descent. This

part worried me as I had not ever seen Carol do a glissade. I studied the map and proposed a different route altogether. Instead of going around

the Vicente basin we could cirumnavigate the Citadel. It looked quite reasonable on the map. I talked Carol into it by running ahead of her with all

the food. From the notch it was clearly easy going to the north ridge and from the platue I had seen that it looked reasonable from the east ridge.

So all that remained unseen was the north face. The topography looked pretty good and when I got over to the north ridge, everything I could see

was pretty mellow. Except for the start. This was where I gave Carol her first lesson on glissading. The slope was about 45 degrees, 150 feet of

vertical, and flattened out at the bottom. Perfect! All I had to do was get her started and gravity would do the rest. I sat on the edge and showed

her how to hold her trecking poles to control her rate of descent. I dropped over and stopped once to demonstrate and then cut loose. What a ride!

After I had picked all the snow out of all my crevasses I looked up to see Carol's head peeping timidly over the edge.

We exchanged some advice we each thought the other should be aware of. Carol traversed south toward the Citadel to see if she could find an easier

way down. Of course, there wasn't one which is what I kept telling her. So as I was getting into position to get the next photo, she put herself

into an adrinaline trance and launched herself over the edge where I had descended. She immediately gained a high rate of speed and continued to

accellerate until the slope leveled off. I figured she was a speed junkie as she apparently made no effort to slow herself down. And what a photo!

From the bottom of our descent it was an easy walk across snowfields and low angle rock toward the east ridge. At least as far as we could see.

Once we got over the first hump in the horizon, it was clear that the snow slope would get really steep again. So I looked up. Sure enough, there

was an easy way onto the ridgetop. We scampered up and walked along fairly easy ledges a little ways until we came to a narrow ridge crest with

500 foot drops off either side. Carol got down on her butt and skidded across the 100 foot section and I went ahead to find a way back down to the

snow beyond the steep part. But it was not to be. We had to drop directly down to the snow on the north side again. It was not difficult climbing

and not horribly exposed so Carol did fine. When we got to the snow, it was steep and I remembered the results of my previous glissading tutoring.

So I elected to stay in the bergschrund as far as it would let us go. We went for a couple hudred feet and then got on a narrow ledge. This came to

an end over a ten foot drop into the bergschrund. The only option was to climb out onto the snow above a nasty looking fall. I reviewed my options

for arresting Carol's potential fall and both left me with only two working limbs to stop two bodies on a 45+ degree slope. Luckily the snow was a

little softer than before and I was able to kick a ledge to climb onto and brought Carol out. We then descended down and east kicking very good

steps all the way. Finally we were over a clearly safe runout below and I figured it would be better to descend to easier ground than to cross

above a couple rock bands. So began Glissading With Trecking Poles 102. I descended a little ways and realized I had lost a basket from my pole.

I looked up and did not see it anywhere. Carol was going to pass by the same spot so I asked her to watch for it. She didn't answer audibly. Carol's

second glissading experience was just as exhilarating as the first.

 

But I was not in position to get a picture. Anyway, we were now down to lower

angle snow and were able to scamper over to the east ridge where I had planned to arrive. We ate lunch and amicably discussed the days events.

I assured her it would be easy going from here.

After lunch we started down the low angle scree slopes. We started out on slab with a little scree on top. This was a little unnerving for Carol

and it took us awhile to get to where the scree was six inches deep on slab. Finally we got back to our tracks and dropped down to camp.

We finished off the wine as I fixed dinner.

 

Day five was our last and I did not want it to be boring. We descended the trail we had come up and found the trail to the horse camp in the huge

meadow below Deep lake. We waded across the creek, took a short break, and started up through a meadow and into the brush. Amazingly, we found an

old trail that climbed up steep switchbacks to the the top of the ridge. If we had stayed on it from there, the rest of the day would have been

uneventful. It does not show up on the map but was obviously a well used trail at one time. We went to the pond above Sqaw lake to confirm our

location and found it to be a delightful swimming hole.

If we would have gone back out the trail, it probably would have dropped us onto the Trail

Creek trail. BUt I thought the bushwhacking would be short and we would be on the trail we came up in no time. Unfortunately, there were cliffs,

logs, bugs and other northwest delights. We did get down to the trail eventually and wandered back to the van in good time. I had one scrape on my

shin and Carol had a rug burn on her forearm from her first glissade.

 

Carol was in over her head. What was a fun hike for me was an extreme adventure for her. I got her into it and would do things differently if I had

it to do over. She had every right to be pissed off at me but if she was, she did not show it. There was never a point where I was truely afraid

that she would be seriously injured but there were numerous times when she was obviously not comfortable. So I worried about her but remained

confident in her calm head and willingness to accept help. She could be a really good climber if she wanted to be. But I am afraid to ask.

 

Edited July 21, 2007 by Bug

[catbirdseat]

Awesome writing! Bravo! A cross between Irma Bombeck and Dave Berry.

 

So let's hear it for Carol! Hip hip, Horray!

[Bug]

Are you saying I have man boobs?

[catbirdseat]

Gosh, no, but now that you mention it...