Penultimate Thought

Children are all grown up, taking care of their own younger generations

Loved and laughed, mourned and cried, lived the fullest of life

and enjoyed good wine and my friends’ company

It was not always easy, but always profitable

I traveled the world to amazing places

Saw Man’s hopes and dreams

I pondered this a while

It was all in vain

Where do I

Go after

I die

?

Fall in Denver

I have had the opportunity to spend some time in Denver this Fall.
Here is a picture of a tree I took on the way to ERC.

Life and Death

Life, in its complexity of interwoven filaments
Stained with indelible remembrance of desperate laments,
Impregnated with the aroma of long and ardent prayers,
Afflicts our bodies but swaddles our souls in protective layers


Death, that amorphous quicksand slowly swallowing the living
Exerts its gravitational force indiscriminately
Consuming our bodies while freeing our souls everlasting
That by work fall downwardly or by faith wander upwardly

It feels so good

It's been more than a year and a half since my hand injury and I finally had the opportunity to go rock climbing.  November 11 2010, a glorious Veteran's day, started by meeting Stewart on the parking lot of Christ Presbyterian Church at 6 am.  We hit the road right away and arrived in Steele Alabama in 3.5 h. We drove to the top of the bluff to catch a great panoramic view of the valley.  However, my eyes were drawn to the cliff below us, wondering what today will bring.

The weather was crisp and clear.  The air was cool in the morning and slowly warmed up during the day.  We parked at the SCC's newest acquisition, an old trailer house up a stiff dirt and gravel road, and hiked our way to the base of the cliff.  We could 'smell' the rocks and it felt so good.  The leaves were beautiful shades of yellow, red, green and brown and the vegetation contrasted against a nice blue sky.

After a little while, Stewart's old climbing partners, Bernard and Sammy arrived.  These guys never stopped climbing and are still very involved with the SCC.  Stewart and Sammy are shown in the picture below.

So, they set up routes for us by lead trad climbing.  That means, for example, that they lead climbed up this cliff and installed device in cracks in the rock to protect themselves in case of a fall.  Pretty amazing.

Afterwards, they set up what is called 'top ropes' for Stewart and I to climb.  That way, if we happen to fall or get too tired to make it to the top, we can just hang there totally safely.  All in all, I was very pleased that my hand injury did not set me back too much.  I was able to do several successul ascents and even attempted a 5.10 route (which is pretty much where I maxed out before.

Stewart was also able to do a couple of climbs.  All in all, this turned out to be a great day.
Furthermore, Stewart and I got to fellowship for several hours driving to and fro Alabama.
God is good.

My first animation using Adobe Flash

This animation is based on a cartoon Lauren did for one of her HS project.

Second Attempt on Mt Hood August 24 2010

After our unsuccessful attempt at summiting Mt Hood on August 23, we had a few days of rest before going to pick up Matt’s brother in Law (Jimmy) at the airport in Seattle. However, in the afternoon of August 24, I started wondering if we could summit Mt Hood before going to Seattle, so I approached Matt with this proposal. Let’s go to bed early, get up by 9 pm and start the ascent by 10 pm. We could summit by 5 am and be back in Hood River in time to pack up and head out to Seattle to pick up Jimmy.

Not surprisingly, Matt the Machine was up for this challenge. So we found ourselves at the Timberline lodge at 10:15 pm and started tracing our steps back to the Hogsback. We stayed away from the moraine and reached the base of the Hogsback by 2:30 am. This time, we headed left of the crevasse toward the ‘Old Chute route’ instead of going right (pearly gates) as we did the day before. There are not many interesting images to show because we did this during the night.

However, you have to imagine a steep snow field (60-70% incline). There were many sun cups, so every few arduous step, we could rest on somewhat level surfaces. The only real exciting time was when a very large rock the size of a car tumbled past us to our left (but not too close for comfort) during our ascent. We stayed away from the obvious rock fall areas on either the right or left of us as a way to minimize objective risk.

Before we knew it, we were on the summit ridge which we followed to the true summit.
As planned, we were there around 5 am. It was windy and cold so we did not stay around too long. After all, the climb was only half way done.

We roped up for the descent, since the exposure going down the ‘old chute’ route appeared greater than when going up. It is often easier to go up than to go down. We tag teamed it with one of us going down while the other placed a quick ice axe anchor. Then, the other one would climb down pass the other climber. We repeated this until we reached the Hogsback.

The descent was pretty uneventful. However, we timed it perfectly, because the entire universe was aligned for us by the time we got back to the Hogsback. The rising sun on the other side of Mt Hood caused a pyramidal shadow to the west of us and the moon hung perfectly perpendicular to it. It was a fantastic sight. We stayed there to take in the view until both the shadow and the moon moved apart. I will never forget this moment we happen to catch.

As we continued our descent, we crossed a couple of climbers coming up the Hogsback. Of all places, Shawn (yellow helmet) turned out to be from Ridgeland Mississippi and he has a daughter going to Olemiss. What a small wonderful world. We might get together on September 25th. We also caught up with the moon stuck in crater rock. You might notice the fumes on the right escaping from one of the volcano vents. It smelled like Hades around there.

We made it to the bottom of the mountain in good form. Mt Hood appeared so majestic behind us as we were driving back to Hood River that we had to stop and take in this beautiful sight.

In summary, here is the route we traveled up Mt Hood using the coordinate from my GPS (blue line) overlaid on a google earth map. All in all, it was such a wonderful adventure and we were so glad to have conquered this mountain.

We also made it to Seatac Airport to pick up Jimmy, so timing could not have been more perfect.
Next, I will send you something a little more involved regarding our climb of Mt Rainier. Lots more excitement to come.

First Attempt on Mt Hood August 23 2010

Matt (center), Lauren (left) and I (right) prepared our gear the night before in Hood River

where we rented a nice 3 bedroom house around 11 pm. We left the house around 11 pm
and started on the trail at the Timberline Lodge around 12:15 am.

We went up the trail to the ski slopes and continued toward the glacier. This part was
not very interesting. However, we then moved up the morraine and reached the glacier
at the foot of Mt Hood. We followed the glacier up to the base of the hogsback, which we
reached around 5 am.

After some rest, we followed the ridge of the hogsback, up to the giant bergschrund, the
large crevasse which forms near the top of a glacier. Upon reflection, we decided to
traverse the crevasse to the right and attempt to summit via the pearly gates.
The initial approach was tricky but not too complicated. However, after ascending more
than 2/3 of the couloir leading to the pearly gates, we came face to face with a very
imposing giant wall of ice covered rocks.

So, we sat and thought, and pondered, wishing to get to the top, which appeared to be
right about this barrier. However, we decided that this wall of ice was too technical for us.
Furthermore, it was nearly 9 am by now, and the temperature started to rise and rocks
started to fall over our heads. One rock hit Matt straight on the helmet while a couple more
hit his right arm. A baseball size chunck hit my ice axe, so we decided it was time to
call it a day. We started descending the couloir, Matt free climbing, and Lauren and I
roped up for safety. We returned to the hogsback ridge.

By the time we reached the base of the hogsback, we could hear and see numerous
rock falls. We then slowly walked back down the glacier, down the morraine and followed
the ski slopes back to the car. Matt walked all the way down, whereas Lauren and I caught
the ski lift for the last mile down the mountain. We ate at the blueox cafe and enjoyed a nice beer.

Lauren and I were so glad to be back down.

More to come when Matt and I attempted the same ascent, but following the 'old chute' left from the hogsback, instead of up the pearly gates.