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 My first scheduled official Mazamas club climb for this season was cancelled due to weather.  The first that actually took place was Middle Sister on June 28-29, 2014.  Here are some photos from the trip.

We started at the Pole Creek Trailhead, several miles southeast of the town of Sisters. This area was burned several years ago during the Pole Creek wildfire, and still shows the effects

Off we go

We set up camp at the base of Hayden Glacier, which runs down the east side of the saddle between Middle and North Sisters

The summit is in the clouds during the evening before summit day, but the weather forecast said it would clear during the night

The view of North Sister from my tent at 4 AM the next morning shows the forecast was accurate

The team assembles to start the climb

We head up the Hayden Glacier. Middle Sister is the summit to the left, already in sunlight

We arrive at the top of the saddle, on the ridge running along the spine of the Cascade Mountains. The Willamette Valley is to the west, and Central Oregon is to the east

The view to the north: North Sister is very close; Mt. Washington, Three Fingered Jack, Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood poke through the clouds. Mt Adams is barely visible in the far distance (hard to see in photo)

“Formal” summit shot

Cool fisheye lens photo taken by another team member with his GoPro; South Sister in the background. We could see as far as Mt. Shasta to the south

Middle Sister as seen from Pilot Butte in Bend

Interactive Google Earth Track of the climb. Blue track is Day 1; red track is Day 2:

On Tuesday morning I got an email from a friend of mine, a Mazamas Climb Leader, saying that weather conditions on Mt. Hood looked great for a climb Thursday morning, she was trying to put together a group to go, and did I want to be included?  After checking my work schedule (yay! no meetings all day), and checking the home calendar with Beth, I responded in the affirmative.  So I met with 3 of the others at one of their houses in Portland at 11 p.m. Wednesday to car pool up to the mountain, where we met up with the fifth climber in the Timberline Lodge parking lot for a 1 a.m. start.  After hiking uphill several hours we arrived at the large “Hogsback” snow ridge in the summit crater, the spot where technical climbing really begins.  After pausing to put on our harnesses and dropping off our hiking poles, we decided to head up the eastern “Pearly Gates” route, which these days is a steeper and much more technical route than the more popular “Old Chute” route to the west (interestingly, the Hogsback drifts back and forth from east to west front year to year, and the 10-15 years ago, the Pearly Gates was considered the easy route).  Here’s a few photos from the trip.

A moustache, a bit of a runny nose, and freezing weather is not a good combination

The group arriving at the top of the Hogsback

Lisa heads up the Hogsback to scout out whether or not the Pearly Gates are passable. We ended up taking the “left chute” right near where the Hogsback tops out

I’m just about done with the traverse over from the Hogback to the entrance to the chute. High angle snow face, necessitating kicking in steps in the snow and a tool in each hand. The ice tool that I got as a Christmas present from the family came in handy

Lisa leads up through the chute; Dave and Amy wait to follow

I’m almost at the top of the chute; Lisa at the rope anchor on the right; Dave chillin’ near the summit

At the summit, with Mt. Jefferson in the distance: me, Dave, Amy, Lisa, and Tommy

Me stylin’ in my new prescription glacier glasses. Beard does a good job of catching frozen drool

The Hillsboro Community Youth Choir presented their winter concert “Northern Lights – Songs from the Lands of the Aurora” on December 15, 2013.  It included songs in Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, and French, including this one by the Encore Choir Boys:  “Dans Les Chantiers” (The Winter Camp), a French Canadian lumberjack song.  It tells the story of a young man’s miserable winter in the “chantiers” (shanties). When he doesn’t get paid, he vows never again to return to the camps.  A bad online translation (I’ll try to find a better one):

Here’s a recording of the entire concert (except for two songs flagged for copyright reasons by YouTube):

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

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”

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

In mid-November, Beth, Barry and Ruairí travelled to New Jersey for Barry’s Mom’s surprise 80th  birthday party 

Beth made this video with some of the footage she recorded during the visit; enjoy!

Thumbnails of pics we snapped during the trip.  Click on any one for a full-size image:

Warning: Shameless Boast Ahead

Hi this is Barry.  This is a shot of the scale on my weekly weigh-in on November 17, 2011.  It notable as this is the first time it’s been below 197 lbs.  This means my BMI score was below 30; in other words I waslonger clinically obese.   I’m still classified as “overweight”, but this is big change from 8 months ago, when I had a score of 43, “Class III” obesity on the WHO scale, also referred to as “morbid obesity”.  That was 90 pounds ago, when I was forced to see a doctor due to my tendon rupture, and I found out what bad shape I had gotten into. 

I put on my old pants for this photo. No wonder fitting in restaurant booths was sometimes a challenge.

My sisters found this photo of me in ~1986. Looks like I got a ways to go. 😉

This was the January 27, 2012 weigh-in.  More than 100 pounds down from where I started (102 to be exact).  The following chart shows the results of  a large epidemiological study, and how my predicted health risk has changed as a result:

Body Mass Index vs. All-Causes Mortality*

* From: Berrington de Gonzalez A, Hartge P, Cerhan JR, et al. (December 2010). “Body-Mass Index and Mortality among 1.46 Million White Adults”. N. Engl. J. Med. 363 (23): 2211–9.

Some shots of our 90 gallon discus tank.

End Grain (“Butcher Block”) Cutting Boards

This year’s family presents are end grain cutting boards made from Eastern Hard Maple and Padauk.  End grain boards make superior cutting surfaces, as they are very hard and the knife edges tend to go between the wood fibers rather than severing them.  We intended thse boards to be used.  They are assembled with a waterproof, FDA-approved glue, and finished with food-grade walnut oil.  While the glue is waterproof, when cleaning they should just be rinsed and at most only briefly immersed in water.  The oil finish will need to be replenished occasionally to maintain it (the walnut oil we used was obtained at Whole Foods).  

Research at UC Davis has shown that wooden cutting boards actually discourage bacterial growth better than plastic boards. Apparently, once plastic boards are used a bit, they develop deep scratches that tend to harbor bacteria. 

We took a few photos during the project. 

Ruairí with the raw material at Crosscut Hardwoods in Portland

Beth's old Subaru does the hauling duty (before it was repaired after its fender-bender).

Pieces milled and cut to length acclimate in the house

Pieces cut into strips before the first glue-up

Boards after the first glue-up, still in the clamps

After the first glue-up, boards are cut into strips again at a 90 degree angle to the first. Alternating strips are then flipped to make the "checkerboard" pattern. Lastly, every board is rotated 90 degrees before glue-up to reveal the end grain surface.

A pile of boards ready to be sanded smooth. Since the end grain surface is so hard, sanding each one was quite of bit of work. Beth and Erin took care of much of it.

Barry and Ruairí apply the walnut oil finish

Beth made a little video while the guys were applying finish: