3/18/12 Posting--Welcome and introduction

I am so very excited for CHS 2012 to begin, and I hope that you'll enjoy the season! As mentioned in the last entry, this blog will be used to talk about varying topics, mostly hiking related. I hope that it will also serve to keep my weekly emails shorter--brevity is not one of my strong points.

I joined the Mountaineers in 2006 specifically to register for CHS. I had just quit smoking and chose hiking as a way to get fit. When the course started, I was overweight, out of shape, and in over my head. I kept thinking, "Man, these guys hike fast!" "Hey, I just caught up to you having a break -- how come you're leaving now?" "Wait, I have to catch my breath!" But I kept at it, even after a potentially season-ending post-holing incident that May and an ankle sprain that August. The reason we recognize the "Most Improved Hiker" each year at CHS graduation? This guy.

Today, I'm still overweight. But my love for this program has inspired me to become a hike leader, to volunteer with the Seattle Hiking Committee, to take up backpacking and photography, to promote CHS and the hiking activity to new and prospective Mountaineers members, and now to serve as the course administrator. I can thank the course's creator, Kelly, for all this. She and her husband, Matt, have become my lifelong friends.

I live in Federal Way with my wife of 27 years, Rhea. We have three superstar daughters: Chloe in Portland, Dani in San Diego, and Jo in her freshman year at CWU in Ellensburg. Rhea and I have adapted remarkably well to the empty nest and the shrinking grocery bill. I've worked as an estate planning and probate paralegal since 1994. It's pretty dry stuff, so I like to get outdoors as much as possible. And I volunteer. A whole lot. Rhea and many of our friends would say too much. I prefer beer to wine, coffee to tea. I'm a pescetarian (vegetarian with occasional fish) and a Food Network junkie. I'm allergic to mangoes and niacin.

We'll have plenty of opportunity to get to know each other as the season progresses. I look forward to hearing your stories!

Steve

Welcome to the 2012 Season!

It's almost time once again for CHS to begin again! The off-season always seems to pass so quickly!

Once the course begins on March 24th, Steve and other guest commentators will start making entries into this blog. These entries will cover hiking-related issues of interest to folks in the course. Topics are generally educational in purpose, but we may also discuss and state an opinion or two about pertinent outdoor issues. You may respond to this blog if you wish, but please keep all comments polite and on topic. We do have the power to delete entries and are not afraid to use it!

You do not need to be follower of the blog to read these entries, but if you are, then you will be notified when we make updates to it. Generally speaking, we make an entry each week, usually around Sunday or Monday.

We are looking forward to another fun season of CHS!

10/2/11 Final Posting

The time has finally come to say goodbye for the summer. I enjoyed seeing many of you at the graduation party in your non-hiking finery. Thanks for helping to making the evening such a fun time for everyone involved!

My favorite memories of the course are from hiking with you this year. Thank you for another fun season of CHS. I enjoyed meeting all of you and hiking with many of you. Congratulations on gaining a significant achievement. Even if you don't plan on doing longer distance day hiking ever again, you have gained the skills and knowledge you need to perform confidently on the trail, regardless of difficulty.

Several of you have shown interest in either taking the course next year or helping out with it. I'm glad that you enjoyed the course enough to want to be involved with it again. We could definitely use all of your support! Please email myself or Steve with your interest and one of us will be in touch when it comes time to start planning CHS 2012. And remember that even if you decide not to take the course again, you are always welcome to come along on any of the hikes that do not fill up by the Wednesday before the hike—one of the perks of graduating from the course.

I also wanted to reiterate again my comment from last night about finding some volunteer activity—even if it’s not CHS—that you are passionate about and making it a part of your life. One person committed to a calling can make a difference in this world. I encourage you to find your calling in life—be it outdoors-related or otherwise—and keep working to make it happen. And while you’re at it, visit your National Parks and see what dedication by others can do to make a difference in other people’s lives.

If you were unable to make it to the party, I have your graduation certificate and picture CD and I will have the clubhouse mail them to you sometime before the end of the month. Please make sure today that the address you have on file at the clubhouse is the correct one.

Keep in touch and I hope to see you on the trail again soon!

Kelly

9/26/2011 Posting

This weekend I went on not one but two graduation hikes! I co-led a CHS1 hike with another hike leader to Lake Janus/Grizzly Peak. The second hike was a CHS2 hike to Mt David and I went along as a third person so the hike wasn’t cancelled due to low turnout. Almost 30 miles and 8000 feet of gain later, I’m one tired person, but it was a great weekend and a great ending to the season for me personally.

I have been thinking about the significance of these two hikes. First, Lake Janus. According to Wikipedia, in ancient Roman religion and mythology Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions, endings, and time. Most often he is depicted as having two faces on his head, facing opposite directions: one face looks eastward and the other westward. Symbolically they look simultaneously into the future and the past, back at the last year and forward to the next. So I felt that my Saturday trip to Lake Janus this weekend was symbolic in one way that it was an ending to this particular season of CHS.

My Sunday trip to Mt David was symbolic of beginnings and endings in that in 2004, Matt and I hiked it for the first time and didn’t quite make it to the top as I was a fairly inexperienced hiker and found it a bit exposed. It’s a bit of a butt-kicking hike in many ways and as we sat and ate lunch at our stopping point 200 feet below the summit, Matt and I talked about how we wished we knew other hikers who would like to do this sort of hiking with us, and voila! The seed of CHS was born.

Now, seven years later, I’ve successfully hiked Mt David twice since my first failed attempt, so this was my fourth hike of this peak. This time, we didn’t quite make it to the top due to a badly placed snowfield and deteriorating weather conditions. Thinking about this, I find this even more symbolic as an ending—to my career as CHS administrator. Next year Steve Payne will be taking over as the leader of CHS and I will be taking a back seat doing administrative tasks and leading hikes as needed. Steve has been an invaluable helper to me—you could say he has been a Spock to my Captain Kirk—and with his promotion to Captain he will bring new energy and ideas to the program. Many of you have commented to me recently about Steve’s great organizational abilities with the CHS campout and other activities. He will bring this same great ability in this new position. He even already has the Captain’s uniform shirt…

I have greatly enjoyed my tenure as head of the CHS program; through the years I’ve met hundreds of great people, many of whom have become lifelong friends. I’m glad that the program has touched so many lives in lots of different ways, and I am especially glad that it will endure past my stewardship of it.

Thank you to all who have let me know how much you enjoyed the program either by your enthusiastic endorsement to others, your repeat participation, and many by your willingness to volunteer as a hike leader or helper for some aspect of the course. You have all made it a wonderful and meaningful journey for me from my beginning and ending at Mt David. A new hiking season will soon be around the corner and I hope you’re as excited for it as I am. Let’s go find the phoenix!

9/18/11 Posting

Soggy weekends like the one we just experienced make me wonder what I’m going to do with myself when snow comes back to the places I like to hike (didn’t it just leave??). I must admit to being a bit of a football freak, so I could very happily perch myself on the couch the whole weekend for both college (Go Oregon Ducks!) and pro (the Seahawks are a bit painful to watch right now) football.

However, I feel lots better physically if I’m able to get out and exercise a bit during the winter. I do a little bit of classic cross-country skiing and I’ve vowed to try out skate skiing this year. I really don’t enjoy snowshoeing, but I have several friends who find it to be great fun. So if you’re looking for something to get you outside this winter, both activities are good ways to do it and the Mountaineers offers several courses that can teach you the basics. It’s also pretty easy and inexpensive to rent the equipment if you’re not sure if you’re going to enjoy the activity enough to warrant purchasing your own equipment.

Mostly I still like to hike during the winter; however, I restrict myself to lowland hikes where I don’t have to deal with much snow or drive too far. If you’re looking for some good winter hiking places, then check out the hikes that Mountaineers hike leaders like to lead during April.

I also mentioned in an earlier blog, that I’m interested in trying out some indoor bouldering to work on my upper body strength. There’s a new climbing gym opening up on in Bellevue that looks pretty interesting.

So I’ve got a few ideas for keeping in some shape this winter. It’ll make that first CHS hike I lead in March that much easier to do if I don’t become a totally lazy lump! Hopefully you’ve got some good ideas for keeping in shape as well. Maybe you’ll even try out a new activity or two and discover a new interest.

9/11/11 Posting

Yesterday Matt and I headed up the Pacific Crest Trail from Stevens Pass to Lake Valhalla. It was a pretty hot day and I took the opportunity to take a refreshing dip in the lake. The water was still pretty chilly and I believe I did scream like a girl at one point. We then had a very satisfying pig-out at Zeke’s. Espresso milkshake-yum!

One habit that I’ve really been trying to develop this year is stretching twice a day—particularly after I hike. In the past year or so I’ve started to develop quite a bit of lower back pain and have struggled for several years with a clenching of the muscles between my shoulder blades. Much of this is caused by the fact that I work on the computer for a living, plus my hobby of working of puzzles for hours on end. Hiking with a backpack can sometimes be the straw breaking the camel’s back and I get a tightening of the muscles in my back that’s so bad that I develop a migraine type headache that can be quite debilitating.

So I’ve really tried to be proactive about stretching out my muscles in the morning and evening. I find that if I skip this—particularly in the evening—I wake up in the middle of the night in quite a bit of muscle pain.

Even if you don’t have the issues I do, you should still make stretching a part of your daily life—particularly post-hike stretching. Lactic acid buildup in the muscles and overuse of major muscles in the legs, can make for a stiff and painful experience in the days following strenuous hiking.

If you need some ideas on what types of stretches to do post-exercise, take a look at fitness expert Courtenay Schurman’s website: http://www.bodyresults.com/e1exercises.asp; scroll down to the Flexibility Exercises section. You can also increase your overall flexibility by attending a regular Yoga class. Increased flexibility can improve your hiking enjoyment and help protect you from injury in some cases. One of my goals this winter is to start attending a regular Yoga class and see if it helps with my back issues.

9/5/11 Posting

This weekend I finally got to hike the famed Lake Ann/Maple Pass loop on the outskirts of the North Cascades National Park. I had tried to do it a couple of years ago, but it started snowing the night before we were set to do it. So I kept hearing about how great it was for two more years until I finally got to see for myself this last Saturday. The hike did not disappoint—it was spectacular. We had a perfect day to do it and we got there early enough so it wasn’t too crowded. The late snow melt also meant that we got a really nice flower display along with awesome views of mountains. I’ve added a couple of pictures I took.

Perhaps there are some hikes that you have wanted to go on and for some reason, haven’t gotten around to it. You’ve been busy doing something else or the hikes have been under snow until recently. Whatever the reason, get out now and go to them! You won’t regret it.

If you need some ideas on some awesome destinations, here are several:

• Aasgard Pass/Upper Enchantments
• Cascade Pass/Sahale Arm
• Copper Mountain
• Cutthroat Pass/Pacific Crest Trail
• Elliot Creek/Goat Lake
• Gothic Basin
• Headlight Basin/Ingalls Lake
• Hidden Lake Peaks Lookout
• Image Lake
• Indian Bar/Wonderland Trail
• Kendall Katwalk/Pacific Crest Trail
• Lake Ann/Maple Pass
• Lake Caroline/Windy Pass
• Lake Stuart/Horseshoe Lake
• Mt Aix
• Mt David
• Mt Dickerman
• Navaho Pass/Peak
• Snowgrass Flats/Goat Rocks Wilderness/Pacific Crest Trail
• Sourdough Mountain
• Spectacle Lake/Pacific Crest Trail
• Spider Meadow/Spider Gap
• Stiletto Peak
• Summerland/Wonderland Trail
• Tuck & Robin Lakes
• West Cady Ridge/Benchmark Mtn

I hope that you are able to get to some of these awesome destinations soon or in the near future. Snow is melted from most of these places and now is the time to go. What are you waiting for?