So I’ve resolved to quit doing this half-baked trip report stuff. The stream-of-consciousness lists of memories don’t really do justice to the experience for anyone who reads it, other than myself. It’s embarrassing to be so lazy about something I feel so passionate about, so there you go – no more laundry-list trip reports.
That said, please bear with me as I try to extract a readable report from my saved laundry-list notes on hike up Table Mountain this last August. I do wish that I’d have sat down and really put this together when my emotions were still as fresh and personally poignant as the day we got back, but this will have to do.
We’d been looking forward to this trip for some time. My brother-in-law Boone had suggested a hike with the oldest kids as a kind of ‘end of summer’ adventure, and so we put a date down and called it good. The cousins Ian and Bailey were excited, although Ian was honestly a little intimidated. His biggest hike to date had been Little Si, a round trip excursion of around 5 miles, and he wasn’t interested in climbing any huge mountains quite yet. We assured him we’d just be going to look at the big mountains and that this would be nothing more than a long walk up a steep hill.
Poor guy.
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So we’ve made it – the big transition, I mean. The Grand Experiment, Neilson’s Folly, whatever you want to call it. We’ve settled (for the time being) in Star Valley, Wyoming and so far, are loving every minute. Saturday morning I took a quick run/hike/wheeze up the only place I was really familiar with up here – a little place called Strawberry. Just east of Bedford and about 15 minutes to the southeast of us is a canyon which supplies about 9 gigawatt hours of power annually to the valley via a little hydropower setup that’s created a nice fishing hole at the start of the trail. The actual trail heads up for about 7.5 miles into the Salt River range before connecting with other trails that lead you even deeper into the Bridger-Teton wilderness. I only spent a couple hours up there and didn’t get too far, as the photographic opportunities were pretty much overwhelming, so hopefully next time I can actually get some mileage and altitude underneath me.
Photos soon.
Long story short, (aren’t all of these posts just the short version? I’m so lazy…) Dean and Mark and a couple of Mark’s friends from work, Tom and Kyle, headed up towards Mount Adams on the last weekend of May. Weather was mostly cooperative, and we were nearly successful, except for a slight case of electricity that greeted us about 200 feet shy of the summit. We made it safely down to our high camp at 8500′ though, and after a long walk out enjoyed some amazing food in Hood River. Since this is officially an Alt.Slick. Terrible Trip Report™, I’ll just keep it short and promise to update it at a later time and throw down some photos instead.
View the Mount Adams 2008 set on Flickr
Read Mark Griffith’s Complete and Unabridged Trip Report
Day 1:
Jeff picks up Seth around 8 PM
Drive down
The Tavern
Meet up with Mark
Jeff gets friendly with the natives in the bathroom
Stash the car
Onwards to Aberdeen!
It only takes a few tries to get on the right road…
The Olympic Hotel
Night Clerk is obviously from Aberdeen
Up and showered and on to Denny’s
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So there’s a couple of trip reports to catch up on… Lots of them, actually. Photos from various trips, including my latest hike up below Mount Daniel are out on Flickr. Mark wrote up a good report over here, so that will help out in the meantime…
Also – go get lost reading the lastest issue of the Northwest Mountaineering Journal. They’re up to issue 4 now and it’s chock full of good reads and some slick pics of the area. Super inspiring.