Guys Weekend 2007 - Sunday

We all woke up Sunday walking a bit stiffly, the result of our climb the previous day. Jesse and Sean cooked up some delicious blueberry pancakes and lil' smokies for breakfast, and then we began to break camp. After getting all packed up, Craig led us in a devo that focused on waiting on Him. It was pretty awesome to sit in a sun-bathed alpine meadow with most (not all!) of your closest friends in the world and reflect on the incredible beauty that surrounded us. As you are out in the wilderness, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that we all are, on our own, insignificant and cannot survive without assistance.





After this time of quiet contemplation, what would anyone else want to do but shoot a firearm!? Using a refried beans can as a target, we channeled our inner Jack Bauer and "squeezed off a few rounds" (key phrase from the weekend). I think the consensus was that Jeff and Jesse (shocker) were the real marksmen among us.



After shooting for awhile, we wrestled our heavy packs onto our backs and headed back to the trailhead. For the most part, the hike out was uneventful other than the fact that there was a lot of hiker traffic and we were stopped by a VERY talkative Forest Service employee who wanted to go into excruciating detail describing his backpacking gear.

Here we are back at the trailhead after a successful hike out:



Aside from a few cuts, bruises, and dozens of mosquito bites, we managed to come away from the weekend relatively intact. It was a great weekend of bonding with friends and pushing our bodies beyond the normal sedentary existences that most of us live. I have dozens more pictures beyond those I've posted here - just leave me a comment if you want to see them. Something that I think all of us who were on the trip realized is that we need to organize things like this more often. We're already thinking and talking about where the next adventure will lead us.

Guy's Weekend 2007 - Saturday

On Saturday, most of the guys slept in 'til around 8:00, and then we started prepping for the climb. From what I had heard and read, South Sister would be a strenuous, uphill climb, but wouldn't contain anything really technical or dangerous. This was the primary reason I selected this mountain to summit. Here we are getting ready to head out (thanks to the self-timer on the camera).

Unfortunately, we ended up taking a very difficult route up about half the mountain, and as a result we had to climb up some very steep rock cliffs for awhile. We learned first hand the old climbing adage that "It all comes down to the route." We dodged falling boulders that were kicked loose from other climbers, and definitely had a taste of real adventure. I think the difficult route we took was the result of a trail that had been covered with snow. Since the glacier covered our trail, we had to "improvise," and that made things much more dicey.

Here is Jesse fertilizing some of the greenery:

Here is a picture taken on our way up:

Here is Craig attempting to navigate the more technical portion of the climb:

If you look very, very carefully in this picture, you can see a white speck in the middle of the picture. This is where Jesse and Sean had climbed ahead. This picture gives a pretty good sense of the type of terrain we faced:

However, after a lot of climbing we all made it to the top. It felt great to accomplish the feat and the view from the top was amazing.



The picture above shows Middle and North Sister from the top.


Here is a short video(no sound) taken from the top. When I zoom in on the lake near the end of the video, I was just trying to focus on where our campsite was.



On the way down, we covered several thousand feet of elevation in just a few minutes as we "glissaded" down a huge glacier. Basically this means that we either attempted to "ski" on our shoes down or some of the guys just sat down and slid right to the bottom (no pun intended). It was tons of fun and an experience I won't soon forget. Sometimes I think as we grow older we tend to get more serious, so "kid-like" experiences like sliding down a steep, snow-covered hill can be really good for us.






Here is a video (no sound) of Jeff and Brian slip-sliding their way down, and after that I have posted a very choppy video that I shot while I was sliding down. You can see my shadow reflected on the snow as I attempt to hold the camera and keep my balance. It's a wonder that my camera made it back from this trip.





We finally got back to camp around 7:30, meaning that we were hiking/climbing for around 9-1/2 hours, but of course we stopped fairly frequently along the way (especially once we were above 10,000 feet). Brian and I cooked up some chicken fajitas for the hungry hikers and we enjoyed some hot chocolate and great conversation to finish off the day.

Guys Weekend 2007 - Friday

We all met at Jeff's house Friday morning before heading out to Bend. Everything went pretty much according to plan. There were only a few things of note:

1. Missi and I hid Jeff's backpack from him since he left it sitting in his wide-open garage. I think we had him worried for a few minutes.

2. Craig bought a rainbow - yes, that's right - a rainbow-striped headlamp from the clearance bin at GI Joe's.

3. Craig and PQ tried unsuccesfully to dunk on Jeff's hoop.

4. Jeff's earlier prediction to me that, "We're not getting out of town without first stopping at GI Joe's," came true.



[Not sure why this picture won't rotate...I fixed it on my computer, but Blogger isn't picking up the rotation. Just turn your head!]

After a stop for lunch in Bend, we finally made it to the Green Lakes trailhead. Although the sign says it is 4-1/2 miles, our actual campsite was around 5-1/2 or 6 miles from the trailhead. Here are some pictures from the hike in.






Once we got to the Green Lakes area, we were met with breathtaking views of South Sister and three beautiful alpine lakes. The rest of Friday was spend setting up camp and eating some delicious stew, compliments of Jeff and Craig.

Guys Weekend - 2007

The Impetus:
One day I was complaining to Missi about how she was always seeming to go off with her girlfriends on these really fun "girl's weekends," and how I never got to do anything like that. She responded by telling me something to the effect of "The reason you never have guy's weekends is because you don't plan them! Just put them on the calendar and make it happen!" Taking her advice to heart, I started talking to a few of my closest friends about have a weekend just for the guys. One of the things I learned through this process is to start planning WAY in advance so everyone can clear their schedules.

The Objective:
Backpack into the Green Lakes Complex in the Three Sisters Wilderness area, camp for a few nights, and climb South Sister, at 10,358', the third-highest mountain in Oregon.

The Participants:
Your Truly
Jeff Evans - friend from MSCC and member of Banning's Boyz (also works with Missi's dad)
Sean Heyworth - friend from MSCC, helped tear down a wall at our house in Eugene
Jesse Foglio - childhood friend from fifth grade (also married to one of Missi's best friends)
Craig Cartmill - old friend and member of Banning's Boyz
Brian Salwasser - my new brother-in-law
Peder Quello - old friend (played soccer together in fourth grade!) and member of Banning's Boyz

The next several blog posts will include photos and recap of this past weekend. It was, without exaggeration, one of the best weekends I've had in my life. I'm already planning our next trip!

The Fray concert

On Thursday evening, July 26, we went to The Fray concert at McMenamin's Edgefield. We were given the tickets as a gift by one of the world's greatest guys, who also attended with his girlfriend. Our good friends Craig and Mauria also came along, so we could've gone to a 4th-grade piano recital and we still would've enjoyed ourselves as we had some great friends with us. As I've written previously, Missi and I love going to concerts together, and this was a pretty good show. The downside was that we got to the venue a bit late, so the only seats we could find were way in the back. The band sounded good and interacted well with the crowd. Overall, it was a great way to spend a summer evening.

"I love it when a plan comes together"

Isn't that what Hannibal used to say on The A-Team? Well, hopefully a plan that I've been working on for a long time will all come together this weekend. Tonight we are going up to Portland to catch The Fray in concert at McMenamin's Edgefield, and tomorrow I leave for Central Oregon to go backpacking with a group of guys. We'll be in the Three Sisters Wilderness Area, and the plan is to climb South Sister (at over 10,300', Oregon's third-highest peak) on Saturday and hike out Sunday. I'll post pictures next week.

Hiking Spencer's Butte with Drew and Zeke

On Tuesday morning I hiked up Spencer's Butte here in Eugene with Drew and Zeke. In part it was just to get out and do something fun with Drew and in part it was to get sorta ready for this weekend's backpack. It's a pretty easy hike, and we woke up about 6:30AM and were done by 8:30. We also happened to find a ginormous slug crossing the trail, which we of course had to take pictures of. It was probably a good 6" long.





Not many things better than a boy and his dog

Zeke gives Drew a kiss

I tried to put my size-12 foot next to the slug for some perspective. It was huge!

Pictures from Jay's Birthday Party

On Saturday night we raced back from Portland to make it to our friend Jay's thirtieth birthday party. Our friend's John and Robyn did a great job hosting everyone and it was a really fun night.

The ladies

One of these things isn't quite like the others

Take One: Something was obviously really funny here or I am in a bunch of pain.

Take Two: Missi's shows us her "Blue Steel"

Take Three: Thank goodness for digital cameras and large memory cards...

Our little princess...

She's got it ALL going on: the little crown, the necklace, the bracelet, earrings, and the blue Cinderella dress! She was dancing to the soundtrack from Beauty and the Beast.