Mt Ellinor

We hope everyone had a lovely Memorial Day weekend, despite the crummy weather in the Northwest. This past weekend we got in a little bit of training, some family time and even gear shopping.

The weekend started for us on Saturday with a hike to Mt. Ellinor. We woke up pretty early to catch the 5:45am ferry from Edmonds to Kingston, and then had about an hour and a half drive to Hoodsport. The weather was dismal when we woke up, very rainy and gray. We packed all of our rain gear and lots of layers prepared for the worst. As we got closer to the trail head the clouds were starting to part for glimpses of blue sky and sunshine. We met up with several other Mountaineers, representing both the Seattle and Olympia branch, at the Hoodsport Ranger station and then caravan to the trailhead. By the time we hit the trail (~9:15am) the clouds were back, and as we climbed the clouds just got thicker, so much for the chance of sun. It never really rained, but the air felt quite moist. Once at the top we had a little snack, which included a gourmet treat from our trip leader, Curt. He made pumpkin scone like cookies with lemon frosting, delicious! We hung out awhile hoping for the clouds to break but without much luck and the wind picking up, the best choice was to head back to the cars. The climb up was steep and in several feet of snow, a lot of work, but also a perfect setting for being able to glissade down. We glissaded down about 1500ft of our descent, what a ride, and it only took us about 20 minutes! The hike overall was great! We have plans to return in nicer weather to see the acclaimed views.

Mt Ellinor Stats: Highest point - 5944ft, Elevation gain ~ 2300ft, Time to hike up was ~ 2 hours and the descent took ~ 1 hr.

Close up of me, with a good angle of how steep the climb was behind me.

Heading up the last part of the climb, in soupy weather.


The entire group standing at the very top of Mt. Ellinor.


Ryan and I at the top of Mt. Ellinor. Apparently behind us is an awesome view of the Olympic Mtns(we will have to return to verify the rumors). Also check out those cornices, can you believe this is the end of May! Lastly, lets address the diaper like outfit I am wearing, the "shorts" are made of a trash compactor bag and duct tape intended to save my pants from being shredded on the glissade intent. Not only did my pants stay intact but I did not get any snow down my pants (due to the high-nerdy waist line) and it made me a little faster. Although dorky they worked perfectly, a special thanks to Amy and Tash for helping me make them.

The rest of the weekend we had a great time with my dad and my brother Troy. Sunday we did some work on my brother's house which is going through quite the remodel. Ryan got to knock down his first wall with a sledgehammer and crow bar! We took out three walls and a set of stairs, and had to put it all into a dumpster that had an opening about a foot over my head. Quite the unintended upper body workout! After helping out a little bit at my brother's place we took dad shopping in preparation for the climb. He is now loving First Ascent gear as much as us and got just as giddy in REI as we do!

Overall a great weekend, I just wish we had more time with dad and Troy, to take them in the woods for a training hike.

Rock Scramble Field Trip

Hey, its Katie, back from Spain and already hitting the trails again!

This past weekend (5/16) we drove out to Leavenworth for a fun day planned in the woods!
Sunday was our rock field trip for the Scrambling class we are taking with the Mountaineers. The field trip was designed to get everyone in the class comfortable with all things related to going off trail: bushwhacking, slanted rock face walking, rock climbing "easier" paths that would not require ropes, basically choosing the best path to reach your final destination safely and with a thrill or two!

We arrived to the trailhead (just past the snow creek trailhead off of icicle creek road) at about 8:30am and joined up with one of the more challenging groups headed out for the day at about 9am. We were hoping to go moderate but all those groups filled up quickly, so we joined the strenous group with reservation. At the start I was really nervous I wouldn't be able to keep up and in a few places even Ryan was like "wow that was a harry crossing!" but overall we were well suited for the group, no one waited on us. Although the group was strenous and pushed us out of our comfort zone a little bit we learned a ton, and most importantly we learned that we are more capable than we have given ourselves credit for. At the end of the day our leaders were impressed with our group and the ease everyone had getting up the steep climbs our leaders chose. It was a pretty day but unfortunately Ryan and I only captured a few action shots and none of the view, we were pretty focused on our skills and weren't really enjoying the sight.  Hopefully next time we make sure to stop smell the roses and enjoy the great views we are working so hard to reach.

Here is a picture of me practicing a descent with a rope in case of a situation where one wouldn't feel comfortable just climbing down on their own.

Here is Ryan attempting the same maneuver but from the side.  The rope burns your arms and back a little bit this way instead of the way I attempted, but he sure looks cool doing it.

Here I am practicing downclimb techniques.  A leader stood at the top and bottom to provide guidance and I just had to figure out my way down the rock wall.

This trip, just like our other Moutaineer experiences, has provided us with a few more skills to make us feel even more comfortable out in the woods.  The sunny day and great company wrapped up this great trip nicely.

I have been on The Mountain!

Ryan here to report on the latest training adventure.
To me at least it is really surprising that I've yet to set foot on Mount Rainier until today! Katie has been at least once - all the way to Camp Muir above 10,000', but I had only driven around it. So while it was really sad for me not to have Katie at my side today (she is in Spain on business and about to enjoy Mother's Day there with her mom!) I also felt like it was a free chance to catch up to her a bit! Here is a recap of my adventure.

Mount Rainier, due to it's size, seems a lot closer than it is! After 3 hours of driving and about 20 minutes at the Whittaker/RMI rental facility in Ashford (they call it base camp), I ascended a mile high to Paradise, where the road (at least this time of year) ends - at this point one is officially on the mountain. My stop in Ashford was to rent special boots - "plastics" they call them. If you're thinking "ski boots?" - yup, pretty much, which is funny because the gal helping me out mentioned how they are "way different." We'll see about that. Although not really necessary for today's purposes, the idea was to get comfortable in them, because one will really need them up higher (above Muir). They insulate better, they allow one to kick step into ice a bit better, and they also are specially compatible with crampons.
The parking lot was packed, no surprise, because the weather today was absolutely gorgeous. And it's about time - after a lovely winter this spring in Seattle has been awfully cold and wet. With my shiny new rental boots donned and ready, and all slathered up with sunscreen, and carrying about 30 lbs, we gathered and launched up the mountain destined for Pebble Creek. By the way we never saw a creek, which came as no surprise as the entire trip was on feet deep snow.
Starting out it was pretty shallow, and still pretty hard packed icy snow. Ever walk in ski boots on overall level but locally uneven hard packed snow? Same thing. Seriously, trekking/ski poles were necessary to stay upright. As the pitch increases we become single file (which by the way is a bummer because conversations become more difficult), and now we're trying to "kick-step" into partially forged foot holds from those ahead of us. Still a little awkward but not relying on the poles now. Now the pitch increases a lot - maybe to 35-40 degrees. After a quick lesson about "rest steps" and "pressure breathing" we head up. Ahah! This is what these boots are made for! They work perfectly, no awkwardness - now I can just fully focus on making progress upward. And of course my feet are super cozy - and no signs of blistering. Once we level out and stop our leader tells us that's the steepest portion of the entire climb to the summit! Wow - what a confidence builder that was for everyone. Nobody in the group really had any trouble with it, technically or physically - so the group is really kicking butt. On and up we go and the only bummer about this whole thing (because this is a near perfect day so far) is that we all end up looking down so much, carefully planning each step. We really had to stop to enjoy the view, but we did that a lot, and it was beautiful! After only about 2.5 hours our leader just kind of stopped and said - "ok we're there - you made it, this is 7,200' and we're somewhere near Pebble Creek!" It went by super fast, and it was really effortless for me, and I think most of us. The training has really paid off! So we spent about 20 minutes enjoying the sun, having lunch, conversing and so on, and then headed down. A lot of us really wanted to keep going to Camp Muir because it was such an awesome day and we felt so good, but alas we will save that for another day.
On the way down we worked on "plunge stepping" - another skill we've learned already through the Scrambling course we're simultaneously taking. And I think we got down in about an hour was all! And just like that the day was already over.
A few of us followed a recommendation and we met up at the Copper Creek restaurant back towards Ashford for a late lunch/beer - and Jeff swore they had the best blackberry pie ever. You know I had to take that challenge!
PS - he was right.
The 3 hour drive home finished off the day and the only thing that would have made it better was having Katie with me, oh and also Lily dog. No dogs allowed in the park so she had to stay at home today. I've got a lot of outdoor time to make up with her tomorrow in the yard. In total I think only 4 miles, but about 2,000' vertically (on icy snow).

The best blackberry pie of all time (Copper Creek Restaurant near Ashford, WA)

The view to the SE from somewhere near Pebble Creek (Mt Adams lurking out there - see if you can spot it)

The view up from somewhere near Pebble Creek (7,200')

Through Hiking Tiger Mountain with Lily

Howdy folks - Ryan here again! Katie is in Mallorca, Spain on business so it was up to me (and Lily) to represent Team Younkin on Seattle's famous Tiger Mountain today. If Tiger Mountain sounds familiar, it should, because we climbed the west summit just a few weeks ago. But this time was quite different. Today we had two goals 1) to wear the pack for a long time (longer than we will during the Rainier climb) and 2) to enjoy a luxurious picnic midway through. Mission accomplished on both accounts.
Well the Climb for Clean Air folks are not dog friendly. But it's the weekend, and I wasn't about to leave Lily at home for 10 hours while I'm out frolicking in the woods and Katie is out of town. But this presented a challenge beyond just simply keeping her out of everyone's hair. Since the plan was to through hike we had to shuttle vehicles. So we all met at "Tiger Mountain Pass" on the east side (where I've historically mountain biked a great deal), then shuttled to the west side where we hiked last time. But I could either shuttle Lily in someone else's ride while she was still clean or wait and see if someone would shuttle us later after getting filthy (obvious choice). So I asked the group and despite frowns and comments from the "trip leader" (who didn't actually go on the hike) who said everything except "she can't go on the hike," one of our hikers - AJ - graciously offered to haul Lily and I at the beginning so that we could just load up in our own car at the end of the hike.

The day was a wet one, beginning with intermittent light drizzle. The ground we had previously covered is pretty steep, but the remainder of the voyage was a series of small ups and downs. By the midpoint when we stopped to have lunch the rain was becoming constant and often moderate. When we stopped we combined our food resources to build quite a pile of opulent foods (well you know, for being on the trail). It was pretty diverse for there having been no pre-coordination, but there was certainly no shortage of strawberries, cheese, and chocolate. And I brought all of those! One of our leaders brought a stove and boiled a ton of hot dogs. But I missed out! Everyone (21 people) crowded around a picnic table so there was very little room and also I had to control Lily, so I ended up setting up shop with my pack against a tree and my sit-upon pad a short distance away. So I was a tad anti-social (there were others near me doing the same) and unfortunately this led to missing out on a hot dog! Dang it all! I did eventually attack the picnic table and take part in a little of everything while splitting time between controlling Lily and accepting my friend Naisha's offer to hold Lily for me. And may I say Mint Oreo's are oh so good! Someone even brought one of those gallon cartons of Starbucks coffee!

Lily was pretty darn good all day. I kept her on the leash all day and she didn't pull at all! She got pretty wet but she was happy and never got cold.

I ended up having some good pretty lengthy talks with a bunch of new acquantances! Of course Boeing comes up a lot but I really enjoy discussing it with people. But I was really interested to talk to Bill who works at Senior Service, John who runs a wholesale greenhouse, and Eric who used to be lawyer at Boeing. And that's really been the best part of the journey - making friends with these fantastic people! It just so happened John (and his wife Lynn) also brought a dog. They were considering not through hiking because they didn't think they'd have a ride for the dog at the other side. But I quickly assured them there Dalmation "Balder" was welcome to hitch a ride with us - and they graciously accepted.

We left the west trailhead at 9AM and reached Tiger Summit and the east parking lot where we began the day at about 4:30. I'd say we were on the move for all but 2 hours of that. And we travelled something like 13-16 miles. I'm guessing we covered about 2,500 vertical feet. Not too shabby for a day's work.

This photo is from beyond the west summit - part of the mountain I've never visited. We were in and out of the fog here. Oh, by the way, I was rocking the trekking poles and holding Lily and taking the photo, while walking at this point. The spread at lunch somewhere on Tiger Mountain