Mountain gets what mountain wants

Shawn and I recently went on our summit attempt of Mount Rainier. It didn't go as smoothly as we hoped it would.

RMI (our guide service) does their typical rainier summit in 3 days. The first day is called "Snow School", the second is the hike up to the Muir base camp, and the third is the summit attempt.

Our snow school day started with good weather, Shawn and I made it to the RMI shop at 7am sharp, and after renting the gear we didn't already own (crampons, plastic boots, snow goggles - see all suggested gear here) it was off to Paradise to start our hike.

Along with us were another 7 climbers. We hiked up to the snow fields to start training. We started with the basics of using an ice axe, moved on to crampon use, and then over to rope-team dynamics, and simulated falls. It was a fairly relaxed day compared to the next two.

Here's a picture of a few of the climbers hanging out during a short break between lessons:

You'll notice a fuzz ball in this shot. My friend Li who sponsored me on this trip asked me to bring it to the top. I believe it's a tribble.

The tribble and I got along quite well over the trip:

 

The second day was our hike to Muir. Again, the weather was looking reasonable for the trip, but as the day went on it degraded.

We arrived at Muir ahead of schedule, and went to bed on time at 6pm for our inevitable wake-up call which was to be at 11:30pm (yes, PM)...

The picture below is our camp which is absolute luxury compared to having to sleep in a tent during blizzard conditions...

 

11:30pm comes early, and I don't think I slept a wink that "night". We started our hike at 12:30am Sunday morning in what was for sure the worst August weather I have been in.

We climbed up to 11,300ft at our first rest stop in 35mph winds, no visibility, and a ton of snow, which made it hard to stand still let alone climb.

At this point the guides got together to discuss the situation. Two minutes later they came back with the bad news - we had to abandon our summit attempt, and head back to base camp.

This was at about 2am, and by the time we got back to where we had started it was 4am. We were cold, tired, bummed out, and not looking forward to waking up 2 or 3 hours later to hike down to the base, and then have to tell everyone we didn't make it to the top.

But we did, and went down to the RMI camp to have burgers, and talk about the plans for coming back to do another climb sometime soon. Unfortunately you only get one chance per RMI climb, so we have to pay our way for the next climb which is not cheap. There is a chance Shawn and I can get on a climb this weekend if all goes well.

We hope the weather, and conditions co-operate because at the end of the day the mountain gets what the mountain wants.

Best Crankworx Ever

Cheryl and I are proud, and very excited to announce that we got married up at Whistler July 28th. It was a very small, but absolutely amazing ceremony up at the top of the Whistler gondola overlooking 7th Heaven on Blackcomb Mt., and some of the best scenery you can possibly imagine.

Before I go further I would like to mention that we are planning a larger ceremony next summer where we will be sure to invite friends and family to come to the west coast and celebrate this occasion with us.

Those of you that know Cheryl and I are likely aware that we began dating a long, long time ago back in Wawa while in high school. We both went through university together in Waterloo, and both moved to the west coast to be closer to good skiing, beautiful mountains, and everything the west coast has to offer. For many years we've been commuting back and forth from Vancouver to Seattle every weekend, and recently Cheryl was able to secure an amazing job at Casey Family Programs in Seattle. Now we are both in the same country, employed, and very happy.

Cheryl and I have been through a lot, from road trips during MHS Vikings sporting events, to multi-day hiking trips on the West Coast Trail, from Mount Wawa to big mountain ski trips in Big Sky, Big White, Mt. Baker, Whistler, we've traveled from Costa Rica to Australia, and we've biked from the North Shore and Whistler, to the local Seattle trails. Cheryl shares my love of biking, skiing, wine, family, NPR, the Daily Show, Colbert Report, music, and sports in general. Cheryl makes me a better person in so many ways that I hesitate to start enumerating them. Suffice to say that I feel very lucky.

Whistler has, for many years, held a special place in our hearts, we have had so many good powder days in the winters, and so many solid bike runs in the summers, so the biggest day of the summer (the Crankworx Slopestyle competition) seemed like the logical date and time for us. Let me pull together a few pics, and run through the events of the day.

...

We asked Glade and Jen to be our witnesses, and they graciously accepted. We were lucky to have Henry and Trang along to be photographers for the event (all pics here are from them). We woke up at the early hour of 6:30am to start the drive to Whistler. Given the work on the highway as part of the 2010 Olympics renovations we wanted to make sure we were going to hit our 10:30 appointment with the marriage commissioner.

We arrived pretty early, but Cheryl was more than a bit skeptical that I could get a run in ahead of the ceremony, so we waited for Jen/Glade, and the marriage commissioner instead. To make a somewhat longer story short everyone arrived on time, and we got into the gondola.

Jen, went above and beyond as our witness. She supplied Cheryl with the veil she wore at her wedding, a place setting taken from the wedding she attended the night before, and a blue ribbon. Along with Cheryl's old shoes she seemed to have something old, borrowed, new, and blue...

Here's a picture of Cheryl seeing the veil for the first time:

We proceeded to move behind the roundhouse lodge where we could see a great view of Seventh Heaven over on Blackcomb Mt. for the ceremony.

Afterwards we had a chance to just sit in the moment for a few minutes with the clouds, the mountains, the wind, and ourselves.

During the ceremony a congregation of tourists joined, took video/pictures, and gathered around to see what was going on. At the end of the ceremony Glade/Jen/Henry, and Trang came along with Cheryl and I to pose in front of the Inukshuk.

From Wikipedia an Inukshuk: is a symbol with deep roots in the Inuit culture, a directional marker that signifies safety, hope and friendship.

It seemed somewhat relevant to our situation.

After the ceremony we ran into the Roundhouse lodge for some pre-biking champagne, and food...

After food and drinks we had a great time in the bike park. Cheryl rode all day with her veil, and was known as "the bride" by everyone in the bike park all day. Glade decided it would be a good idea to tie cans to the back of my bike, but that didn't last long:

Cheryl had an amazing time in the park, and since a picture is worth a thousand words...

We had a full day in the bike park, and then had the chance to watch the Slopestyle competition which is the craziest event at Crankworx.

By the time the day was over we were ready to head back to Vancouver...

 

This is probably the longest blog post I've ever put together, but I hope it was worth running through. You can see the rest of the pictures we took during the weekend here.

My favorite one is here:

I think that's it for today, have fun!