altitude slickness

Having grown up in Wyoming and Washington, my perspective on the Great Outdoors is pretty biased. I’ve been lucky enough to live and travel in some of the most beautiful parts of the country, and thanks to my father and his example, have been able to experience that beauty up close and personal through family trips, Scouting, Search and Rescue, and even now, just heading out by myself or with friends or my children into the mountains to refresh and recharge my spirit. This has always been a part of my life, and something I’ve probably taken for granted. My experiences outside define a large part of who I am and how I see the world, and it’s something I really value and give thanks for daily.

This year I’m fortunate enough to be able to participate in a program through Backpacker Magazine, that will help give others an introduction to those same kinds of experiences. The “Summit for Someone” program is put on by a non-profit group called Big City Mountaineers out of Colorado. BCM provides urban teenage youth in need of positive adult mentoring with challenging, safe outdoor experiences designed to build self-esteem and positively impact their beliefs about themselves and others. The program has climbers such as myself raise funds that will send at-risk teens from around the country out on a 8-day backpacking or canoe trip, and allow them to experience the great outdoors in a way they might not otherwise have a chance to.

This coming July will hopefully find me climbing Mt. Olympus as part of the program (not with the kids, but as part of a guided group of climbers sponsored by BCM), and I will be working on raising funds ($3500) from now out until a month before my trip. I am appealing to those of you who read through all of this to help me reach that goal, and if you’re willing, then please click through to learn more and donate. Any amount is appreciated, and all of it makes a difference.

I’ll be making some progress in both raising funds and getting into shape over the next few months, and will keep things up to date here as often as I can with photos and trip reports from training outings, so stay tuned.

1987:

2004:

Having started my climbing “career” in Washington probably around 15 years ago, I’d read and heard a lot about one Fred Beckey. Articles in outdoor magazines and the Cascade Alpine Guide series were my only real view into who this guy was and what he’d done, but after some time I discovered a more of his work (Challenge of the North Cascades) and really started to recognise what a unique character he is.

Last night Mr. Beckey gave a nice little slideshow here in Portland that I was lucky enough to attend. He spoke for almost two hours about the mountain ranges in North America and just how lucky he was to be able to get up them with various partners and in various conditions. He’s actually a great photographer and has a good eye. The photos of his slides I snuck don’t really communicate that very well (I wasn’t looking at my settings) but you get the idea. After the slideshow he offered to sign books and chat for a bit, so I went down with my older CAG (the brown one) and had him drop his signature on it. I asked him about his China trip next year and he lit up and said they’ve got a financieer now and if I can talk Nike into getting them some shoes I can come along. I smiled and told him, “Well, I work with Converse, so I’ll see what I can do!”. The folks in line behind me chuckled and I thanked him for his time and shook his hand and that was that.

I had run into Fred a few times before back in North Bend. A few years ago I saw him sitting at Denny’s on our way out, and I walked up to him with Ian in my arms to say hello.

“Excuse me, Mr. Beckey?”

“Mr. Beckey?”

…

“Fred?”

He was sitting there with his little notebook reading and eating an omelette or something and didn’t even budge. I didn’t want to make a big scene or anything, so I just smiled and said “Nice to see you…” and kept on going. I really couldn’t belive I’d been snubbed by someone who I’d always considered a bit of a hero or something, so I was practically laughing outloud as we walked out the door. Amy was totally confused so I quickly explained who he was. Right in front of the restaurant was his red subaru parked almost diagonally across the two handicapped spots, with a ton of gear and stuff in the back. I just laughed again and smiled all the way home.

You have to realize, I had pictures of this old man up on my wall in college, and Fred Beckey was my pen name in my freshman english creative writing class. The fact that his backyard was my backyard was just fun – and made for a lot of good reading and armchair mountaineering, as well as actually following in his footsteps.

The other time I met his was in Marten Volken’s climbing shop in downtown North Bend. Fred had come in and was talking about his new AT skis with the crew there in the shop, and it was the first time I’d considered that the reason I was snubbed back at Denny’s was probably because the man is pretty deaf. You really have to talk loudly to get his attention, and this thought was only reinforced at the slideshow. Standing in line watching people try to ask him questions was pretty funny while they tried to get a straight answer from him, and he’d just smile and repeat himself a few times about something close to what they’d ask, but really not quite. It was just nice to know he’s maybe not as cranky as I’d first thought…

All in all, it was a fun evening and a pretty cool chance to meet someone I’ve admired for a long time. For a guy in his 80′s he’s still hustling and that’s pretty inspiring.

It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to get outside, but that’s not to say I haven’t had my mind on things of a vertical nature.

Last week I signed up for an annual membership to the Portland Rock Gym, and have been climbing all the V0′s in sight after work. With all the rain coming down, it’s been nice to get back into that kind of environment and know that I can get back into shape and hopefully improve some of my withered climbing skills. I’ve purposely been climbing the easiest things out there so as to not hurt myself getting back into this, and I’ve dug up some material about training that will help get some structure into my program and show me some results in time for this coming summer.

Tonight Beetle and I went to see Beth Rodden and Tommy Caldwell speak at the Bagdad Theater. We ended up behind them while waiting in line for our pizza, but I didn’t bug them. Some guy came up and had them signing a couple of magazines and a bunch of posters, and you just don’t want to be That Guy. They’re both a lot shorter than I thought they’d be. During their presentation Beth said she’s five-foot-one “on a good day”, and that being that short isn’t necessarily a bad thing in climbing. “It all averages out”, she said, as her smaller size allows her to use holds and moves that would tie the taller of us into knots. They both seemed just like really nice people and very much like someone Amy and I would hang out with. It was just inspiring to see them climb together and support each other so much while pulling off some amazingly superhuman feats. The presentation was first a slideshow from their free climb of the Nose on El Capitan, and then a short film about Tommy’s suffer-fest free climbing both the Nose and Freerider in a day. They answered a bunch of questions and tossed out some gear, and just impressed me as a couple of just really nice, laid-back people.

It was inspiring to see what they could do, and just made me a bit more determined to be able to climb how I know I can and dial up the things in my life that bring me joy. I get distracted too easily and I think I’m just tired of being distracted. I really wish I’d have been able to bring Amy or the Boys… They all would have had a good time and come away just as inspired.

Over the last year or so I’ve found myself reaching the point of just having to get up and go outside for a while. Saturday morning was the lastest incident, and was the culmination of a couple of day’s worth of planning to stretch the legs. A few weeks prior, we’d driven out to Beacon Rock State Park as a family, just to scout it out. We didn’t get much farther than the bathroom at the parking lot as Camille had fallen asleep, but it was impressive enough for the boys to know they were looking up at the remains of an ancient volcano. There’s a quite a bit of climbing on the thing, but it’s the path up the southwest side that’s interesting (at least at this point in our Vancouver explorations…). Hopefully soon I can get out and up on the rock, but I haven’t run into any potential climbing partners yet, so we’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, I’ll still be escaping on Saturday mornings and trying to get some legwork in.

Dean and I went up early last Saturday morning, starting from the parking lot just a little before sunrise. Time was short for both of us, but by taking one of our shortcuts up the hill we managed to spend a few minutes up top enjoying the view… Lots of birds out, but oddly enough, we were the only ones out hiking that morning, which doesn’t happen very often on Saturdays. Having something as accessible and close as Rattlesnake Ledge will be sorely missed once The Move goes down in a few weeks. That said however, I’m really looking forward to exploring the Columbia River Gorge and the south end of the Cascades. The boys and I picked up a few books at Marmot last week and it looks very promising.