Put in a solid three and a half hours this morning and ticked off Mount Si with Dean. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, and with light packs it was a fairly easy hike, other than the distance (+/-8 miles) and the altitude (@ 3700 feet gain). It was fun to see how this training has paid off, even if just a little. The scramble up to the top of the Haystack was cool, as it’s been about 4 years or so since I’d been up there. We had an amazingly clear view all the way from Rainier to downtown Seattle and the Olympics, and up to Baker. The plan is to not do Si again, if we can help it – there’s just so much more out there to do…
To catch up, this past Monday Dean and I, along with James and his wife, hustled up Little Si. This spring has provided a real good stretch of decent weather, and it seems wasteful to let these mornings go with no mileage covered… We spent two hours up and down, as the pace was a bit slower than normal, but good times. Good times.
It was just the fact that we’d been living for so long in the valley, surrounded by all these hills and I had yet to take advantage of them that got me started. I’d picked up the new map of the area and had read a little here and there about a certain Mt. Teneriffe, so for some reason I got it into my head I had to get out and hustle up it. I remember sitting at a party over at J’s place the night before and making up my mind, and starting to put together a pack list in my head. The route I’d read about had one ascending up the first part of the main trail, and then instead of continuing over seven miles to the top, simply going up the southwest ridge and cutting the mileage in almost half. Totally possible, I thought to myself… Things were packed quickly that night, and the next morning I was up at 4:30 with my bike in the back of the Acura.
At the trailhead, headlamp in place, pack on, ready, steady, go…
The logging road wasn’t too bad. It had been a long time since I’d been on a bike, so it took a second or two to really ease into the saddle, but before long I was at the end of the road and ready to start walking it. Throwing the bike into the brush, I start up, still in the pitch dark with my little double-LED headlamp leading on. I could hear the water, but still wasn’t sure I was on the right path. In the darkness it took a little more effort than normal to stay on the trail, as every little jog and spur seemed to have major footpath potential. The trail was narrow and led up, audibly paralleling the creek, until some major windfall blocked my progress. Huge douglas firs had fallen, maybe as recently as the week before, and the smell of fresh evergreen boughs was still in the air. With my little light, I simply had no way of figuring out where I was supposed to go. It being my first solo outing in such a long time, I decided not to push my luck and headed back down. The bike ride down was fun, as I outrode my light nearly all the way down, just for the thrill. It was dissapointing to not have made it very far, but after having made this first little step into taking charge of my mornings and “shaking the wickedness out” – it made it very easy to do it again, and again, and again…