Tag Archives: anniversary

Sep13

Backpacking to Peggy’s Pond, and summitting Mt. Daniel, 17-19-Aug-2019

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Saturday, Sunday and Monday – 17, 18, and 19-Aug-2019

Summiting Mt. Daniel in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Washington!

Vital Statistics:

Duration: 3 days, 2 nights

Distance: 17.59 miles, as the GPS records

Elevation: 5,800 ft total

Elevation, Saturday: 2,000 ft

Elevation, Sunday: 3,800 ft

Elevation, Monday: -2,000 ft

Campsite: Peggy’s Pond

Backpack weight: ~38lbs

Four years ago, roughly, Sarah and I started dating.

It was on a weekend adventure, sitting in a room in Hood River, and we discussed what we each wanted from our relationship, what we wanted in general, and whether we wanted to pursue those things together. We’ve had a lot of adventures since then, but that day was the start of it all, and the 15th of August is enshrined in both our calendars forever more because of it.

Our last adventure was a simple and easy hike on Mt. Hood… but for a 4-year anniversary (which is, notably, the longest relationship either of us have been in) we needed something bigger. The last post talked about epic adventures not always being necessary, but in this case an epic trip was definitely called for.

We needed a summit.

We needed beauty, crystal clear water, crisp air, and stunning views.

We needed Mt. Daniel, in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, in central Washington State.

So we drove.

Just us, incidentally – While Ollie is an amazing hiking dog, the path out to Mt. Daniel is fairly steep, and extremely rocky… not good terrain for a pup, no matter how rough and tumble she is. Tumbling isn’t allowed on steep terrain. So off to camp she went, for a chance to work on her socialization and playing well with other dogs.

Saturday

As mentioned, we drove.

We drove with bellies full of delicious breakfast sandwiches, and a huge thermos of coffee keeping us going. We took shifts on the way out, even – I drove for a while as Sarah napped, then I napped while she drove. It worked perfectly – the drive went quickly, and we arrived at the trailhead refreshed and ready to head in.

Quick note – holy crap the trailhead was packed. We’re talking overflow parking for nearly a mile down the road. Thankfully, our drive from Portland is a lot longer than the Seattle crowd’s drive, so by the time we arrived a few folks must have left already, and we found a parking spot right near the trailhead. Win!

The hike in was pretty clean, if rather impressively long and tiring. We hiked, we rested, we snacked, and we hiked some more. We hydrated a bit, and trudged onward and upward. The interesting thing about the trail up to Mt. Daniel is that the views sneak up on you. They’re always there, barely vqisible through the trees, but they don’t come through slowly – instead, you just turn a corner and get a face full of Cathedral Rock, bracketed by a beautiful meadow and views of the rest of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness range.

Magestic is the best way to put it.

The amazing views heralded the most technical section of the trek into Peggy’s Pond – traversing around Cathedral Rock itself. It wasn’t far, or too tough, but it was a noticable change from the wide switchbacks of the forest. Here we scrambled, following rocky passes around and up until we finally topped out into the basin between Mt Daniel and Cathedral.

I could say that we quickly set up camp and then zipped off to scout the route up… but that wouldn’t be true. That wasn’t the goal of this hike! Instead, we set camp and relaxed; cooked a few backpacking meals for dinner, read a bit, and were in bed before 9:00.

Sunday

We got up early… But not so early that we were the first people heading up the trail. Sarah actually got up to peek out of the tent at the sunrise, but pretty quickly crawled back into her sleeping bag for a few extra bits of sleep.

Breakfast was quick and beautiful; a mountain house and some oatmeal, along with some nice coffee packets we brought along. All by the shore of the pond, watching the sun burst over the peaks around us.

Fed and caffeinated, we struck out onto the trail.

It went up.

A lot.

Sometimes there were switchbacks, but sometimes it was scrambling.

Always though, there were views. Amazing, magestic, sweeping, soaring, and awe inspiring views.

The trail up the slopes of Mt. Daniel basically follows a huge ridgeline, climbing up the Southern face from the Eastern side. The trail actually mounts the ridgeline pretty early on, though Sarah and I missed the well hidden trailhead and ended up doing a bit of exploratory scrambling to catch the ridge trail itself. That’s pretty good though, since we’re both rock climbers and are quite comfortable on semi-exposed rock… for me, at least, I’m honestly more comfortable there than the alternative option of going up a scree or talus field, so I was quite happy to do some clambering on rock.

The trail went on for, roughly, an eternity. There’s not much to say about it, honestly, aside from the fact that it went up and that we took a few breaks to drink water and eat some excellent apple / brie / prosciutto sandwiches. We kept going until we got to the top, is the real report.

The fun part of the path were the views, unsurprisingly. Unlike the day before, we had amazing views for almost the entire route up the mountain – we switched which side of the ridgeline we were looking out over a few times, but the views were amazing and somehow kept getting better as we moved upward. It was actually a bit of a problem, since we ended up hiking a bit slower than planned due to how often we were stopping to take pictures… or even just to gawk at the amazing vistas opened below us.

The summit itself was pretty low-key. We topped out, relaxed a bit, napped for 5 or 10min in the sun, and then headed back down. The only real excitement was when another team that was heading to a further peak took a small fall off one of the ridgelines – they were okay, thankfully, but it was definitely scary to see them desperately clawing their way back up to the ridge. We don’t really know what happened, but from what we could tell two of their team members got off-trail, and found themselves partway down the steep ridge slope below the trail… and then slipped enough that they triggered a small rockfall and slid a hundred yards or so down the slope.

Doubly-scary was that fact that it wasn’t just the two people who fell, but that their dog was with them and followed them down! Thankfully all the mountaineers in question, both human and canine, were merely scraped up a bit. No one needed a rescue, and everyone was able to walk out that same day under their own power.

Our descent was, thankfully, uneventful. It was definitely long, and definitely tiring, and I absolutely didn’t enjoy it… but it’s a descent. That’s kind of par for the course, you know? The descent isn’t the fun part – dreaming about dinner is the fun part! And dinner was worth dreaming about… delicious beef stroganof, hot cocoa, and relaxing by the pond were in order. And for me, I even took the chance to swim for a bit! The water of Peggy’s Pond was frigid, but amazingly fresh and enjoyable, definitely helpful in washing off the sweat, bug spray, and sunscreen of the day.

Dinner was, similar to the night before, mountain-house freeze-dried dinner with some lunch leftovers added in for flavor. Not the most exciting… but hey, after a full day of hiking and scrambling and summitting? They were pretty amazing, thankyouverymuch.

Bed came soon after, though I did enjoy the chance to read a bit of my comic book in the sunset while Sarah sketched a bit. It was a good evening.

Monday

You’d think that after two days of going to bed super early we’d wake up early.

Remember, though, that we’d just summitted a huge mountain. We were tired, man… we slept in again.

I mean, okay. We didn’t actually sleep in that late, in comparison to how late we usually sleep when we’re in Portland. We were up and moving by 8:00, if I remember right, and on the trail pretty soon after. We still did a lot of photography and sightseeing, but the trail was mostly downhill on the way home, and so we made pretty good time while taking pretty infrequent breaks.

We did see a pair of jets flying through the mountains at one point… maybe F-18s, though I honestly couldn’t tell you what they were, since they flew by so fast. It was really neat to see, but also a little disconcerting that they were flying so low, and so close to the various peaks.

There’s honestly not much to say about the hike out. It happened, we were tired, and we drank a lot of water? It’s the hike out – you don’t really want it to be eventful, you just want it to be safe, and quick. Which it was, though it did feel pretty long at the time…

Anyways, after the hike came the drive home – two parts stick out in the story.

First – the food in Roslyn. Sarah’s been to Roslyn before, when she was working on the pilot for Man in the High Castle, and so she took some time to show me around town… “town” being quite small, so the tour was basically us walking the 5 minutes from where we parked to the diner that she remembered being the best in town. It was amazing – a perfect burger with excellent pulled pork (I was hungry leave me alone) and the absolute best parmasean truffle fries you could ever imagine.

Second – the adventure home. It’s been a while since I’ve had to use my AAA membership, but thankfully I still have the number saved in my phone from all the times that they had to come and save me during drives home from the Loj, back in New Hampshire. It came in handy again, when the car lost power in central Washington on Monday evening during our drive home. Thankfully the nearest tow truck was not only a local expert, who was able to pinpoint where we were on the highway after a few quick questions, but he was also less than 20min away.

The drive home wasn’t quite what we’d expected when we left the Alpine Lakes wilderness – It wasn’t as quick as we’d aimed for, but it was a heck of a lot tastier than we could have hoped for. And hey – not only did we get home well-fed, but we still made it back to the house in time to get some good rest before work the next day.

Not a bad anniversary weekend. Not bad at all.

Sep10

Sarah and Ben’s three year anniversary!

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Sarah and Ben’s three year anniversary!

Tuesday, August 14th and Wednesday, August 15th

 

Three years.

Three years of adventures, excitement, challenges, love and mutual admiration.

We’ve lived an hour apart, Sarah’s gone on a multi-month roadtrip, and we’ve lived together in a tiny town of 7,200 people.  We moved her from Portland to Hood River, and then from Hood River back to Portland.

We’ve been to Spain, England, Scotland and Italy – not including layovers.  We’ve climbed all over, succeeded at summits and given up on summitting less than 100ft from the summit block.  We’ve backpacked and hiked, biked and roadtripped.

Three.  Years.

 

Now, our anniversary fell on a Wednesday.  Thankfully, my job is flexible enough (and limited to a hard-cap of 40hrs per week) that I was able to bend my hours so we could take the whole day off.  Our original plan was to go up to Mt. Adams, and camp out at a small lake near the base of the mountain… but unfortunately this is fire season, and that plan pretty quickly got dumped in favor of driving somewhere a little less smokey.

Sarah searched far and wide, pouring over maps and lists of campgrounds.  She cross-referenced air quality maps to campsites, and finally found our destination: a campground on the North Fork of the Siuslaw river.  It wasn’t a short drive from the house, but that wouldn’t be too much of a hassle – She’d pack the car, and then as soon as I got home from work we’d catapult off into the sunset!

 

Tuesday

Getting on the road ended up taking a bit longer than expected, unfortunately… but that’s how things go, and soon enough we were burning gas escaping the smoke and smog of Portland.  We had a few hours of driving ahead of us, but we churned through it pretty quickly – even making some time to stop at Dairy Queen and have a quick snack to help us power through the last few miles to the campsite.

 

And man, this was a campsite.  Nicely secluded in the woods, surrounded by massively tall trees and miles away from the highway noise or forest fire smoke.  A dense tree canopy overhead, and a nice tent pad for us to set up on.  Ollie, of course, was freaking out the whole time about how awesome it is to be in the woods.  Thankfully she wasn’t barking, but just running around in circles trying to smell all the trees and bushes and branches and dirt all at once.

It kept her occupied, though, which made setting up camp a heck of a lot easier for Sarah and I.

Once camp was set up?  I’d love to say that we made a small fire and relaxed around it, just talking and enjoying the night… but honestly?  We just passed out.  It had been a really long drive, after a rather tough escape from Portland, and by that point we both needed the sleep more than anything else.

 

Wednesday

Waking up in the forest, in a tent, is amazing.

Even when waking up in a forest, in a tent, with a dog who desperately wants to run and explore and hunt.

Logically, it should be really annoying – Having someone literally standing on your face, whining and yelping to be let out is not really pleasant or relaxing.  But somehow it’s endearing, just how earnest Ollie is about it.  She’s not doing anything to be mean, it’s just that she’s effectively a machine designed and bred to hunt and track and explore… and there’s an outside that needs to be hunted, tracked, and explored.  You want to be annoyed at her, but all you can do is smile, hook her up to her leash, and set her loose.

So, that meant we got up fairly early, for it being our day off.

I mean, we were awake fairly early.  We’ve gotten wise to Ollie’s ways by now, and had set up a leash for her outside that bought us a solid extra 45min of sleep before we had to legit get out of the sleeping bags and start making breakfast.  But that’s okay – Coffee and oatmeal is always a good way to start the day, especially when it’s camping!!

 

Once coffee was drank and a light breakfast was eaten we headed back into town toward out first stop of the day – a coffee shop on the river near the bay.  Yes, yes, we’d just had breakfast and coffee… but we still needed second breakfast, obviously, and second coffee to go with it.  The views were gorgeous, the coffee was strong, and the breakfast burrito was… well, it was definitely interesting.  It was delicious, but the fact that we had to microwave it ourselves was a little surprising, to say the least.

Staring off over the fog-covered river though, we didn’t mind a microwaved burrito to go with our artisnal lattes.  It was beautiful, and since Ollie was hanging out in the car we were able to thoroughly enjoy ourselves.

We relaxed at the coffee shop for a while, then did a bit of a walk around town.  It was a small tourist / fishing town, sort of like some of the smaller places around Maine or New Hampshire, and I really enjoyed it.

 

 

From there, we headed toward our main target of the day – Hobbit Beach.

Sarah had picked it out because it was a fairly short hike in from the trailhead, was mostly deserted, and had huge long runs of open sand for Ollie to run and play on.  Ohh, and it also had faces carved into the cliffs.

That last part was pretty key, actually.  Really adds to the mystery of the place, you know?  Not creepy at all, imagining faces being carved into cliff sides…

The hike in was lovely – it was a bit steeper than we expected, but it went well which is what matters in the end.  Sarah’s legs held up quite well, and we both enjoyed the chance to get back into the woods and enjoy the outdoors a bit.  Seriously enjoy the outdoors – Sarah was literally giggling the whole time, hopping around and loving the fact that she could fully walk again.

The beach itself?  It was what you would expect.  Lovely, huge views, and the amazing sounds and smells of the pounding Pacific Ocean.  The cliff side carved faces were a bit less impressive than expected, but that’s totally fine because it meant that they were far less creepy than we’d expected.  Sarah did carve her own, of course, but went with a bit more whimsical option instead of the standard fantasy-style faces.  She made a cat.

 

After enjoying the beach for a good long while we headed back, and drove back home to Portland.  Simple and easy, but pleasant and extremely fun.

Nov27

An anniversary, a birthday party, and a slide show

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Summer, 2014

 

My Grandparents are amazing.  All of them – and I’m lucky enough to have four sets.

For the time being though, I’m going to focus on my Biologically Maternal Grandparents – My mom’s Mom and Dad.  They turned 90 this year, and have been marries for 65 years.  So what do you do for your 90th birthday, that also happens to be very near your 65th wedding anniversary?

You party it up.  Obviously.

So, everyone came over to the apartment in Brookhaven on two days, where we had dinners and got to sit down and hear stories from the past.  But we didn’t just hear stories – My mom and I put together a little pair of presents for my Grandma and Grandpa as a sort of tribute to the past.

My Grandpa was a prolific photographer.  Everyone dreaded the sound of his tripod being set up, and the inevitable call to assembly for a group photo, rigorously curated and tweaked until it was perfectly in line with his exacting standards.

But it turns out, those pictures are a great window to the past, and since they had all been saved as slides in my Mom’s attic, we could look through those windows… if only the slides could be sorted and organized into a complete show.  And that… that is exactly what my mom did.

She was able to work through over 2,000 slides, and put together an amazing collage of pictures from my Grandparents early years, all the way through to the near-present day.  Everything from family vacations, to work parties with my Grandpa’s company, to the houses they lived in and my Aunt’s first days in college.

But it didn’t go up to current, of course… since my Grandpa hasn’t been taking pictures as prolifically as before.  Thankfully, other people have, which is where I came in.  I was able to find a good electronic photo frame, and loaded it up with pictures of all of us – pulling from facebook, blogs, family shots, and everything in between.

The best part though, was the reveal for everything.  My Grandma and Grandpa had been kept in the dark the whole time… I have no idea how my family was able to keep a secret at all, much less for this long, but it worked somehow.  When she walked into the room the look on her face was perfect.  Complete surprise, then a bit of shock, then a bit of confusion about the projector set up.

But as the slides started going, there was nothing but love and pride in her and my Grandpa’s eyes.  And that was the best response that any of us could have asked for.