Archive for November, 2013
Climbing Season Recap
November 27th, 2013 | 
Author: The Mazamas held their Annual Celebration on November 15. The keynote speaker was Conrad Anker, famous for finding the body of long-lost mountaineer George Mallory on Mt. Everest.
The Mazamas give out various hiking and climbing award certificates every year, and make them available for pick-up at the Celebration. The easiest climbing award to earn is the “Guardian Peaks”, earned by summiting Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Saint Helens on official Mazamas climbs (they don’t have to all be done in the same year). This spring and summer was my first season climbing with them, and I managed to earn the Guardian Peaks. So needing to pick up the certificate was a good-enough excuse to attend the Celebration. 😉
All and all I managed to summit 7 mountains this year. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to next year.
They did a nice job with the certificate
Mount Hood Summit
Mount Shasta Summit
Sitting on the Summit of Mount Thielsen
Summit of Mt. Adams, with Rainier Peeking through on the Right
At the Base of the Summit Pinnacle of Castle Peak in Mt. Rainier National Park, with “Big Momma” herself in the background 😉
On the Summit of Mt. Washington (the one in Oregon). Awesome Rappel on the way down 🙂
Mt. St. Helens Crater Ridge; Spirit Lake and Rainier in the background. It was very windy
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The Next Father-Son Hike
The Kings Mountain hike a few weeks ago went so well that Ruairí and I decided to tackle a bigger challenge. The Columbia River Gorge is filled with many incredible hiking trails. This day, we crossed over to the Washington side to hike to the top of Dog Mountain, a popular trail. With an elevation gain of over 2800 feet from trailhead to summit, this one is a bit more daunting than the Kings Mountain Trail, and about 50% longer.
The weather was forecast to be sunny, cold, and very windy, which it was. We were prepared with plenty of layers. We were somewhat disappointed in the views, since an inversion layer made the air a bit hazier than we had hoped (I’ve been up here later in the winter, when everything is crystal clear). Even so, we had good views on Mt. Hood, Mt. Saint Helens, and Mt. Adams. We took the popular “scenic route” alternative of the Dog Mountain Trail on the way up, and took the Augspurger Mountain Trail back down, for a nice ~7 mile loop.
At the top, with Wind Mountain and the Columbia River down below
Ruairí takes the lead near the summit; Mt. St. Helens peeks above the ridge to the left
At the lower viewpoint (1600′ elevation) on the Dog Mountain Trail “scenic route”
Father – Son Hike
Recently Ruairí and I hiked to the summit of Kings Mountain in the Oregon Coast Range. With 2500 feet of elevation gain over a one-way distance of 2.5 miles to the summit at 3226 feet, this is a challenging hike. On a day with less-than-great weather at the top (~25 mph winds; hail), the view was almost non-existent. Accordingly, we left quickly after signing the Mazamas-maintained summit register and enjoying my traditional summit snack (M&M’s Peanuts). Once back in town, we headed for a well-deserved, hearty lunch.
At the Kings Mountain summit, by the signpost and the summit register box
