Thursday, September 2, 2010

I've been married to the same man for 39 yrs. who would've thunk it :-)

We decided to spend our 39th wedding Anniversary on the coast, didn't know we were going into the world of  "Twilight"! The Vampire series book is placed in the Olympic peninsula towns of Port Angeles, Forks and Lapush. We were inundated with twilight signs, good grief......I guess it's been good for these towns that generally had their economic base from logging, which has really been cut back (wow, what a pun - good for me!) but we were looking for hide aways. We stayed the first night in Sekiu  (a fishing community on the coast.) in a "quaint" (there can be various definitions to the word quaint, I'll let you use your imagination on this one.) cabin.
It was very late and it was basically the only thing available.

We then went on to Lake Ozette to do the 9.2 triangle boardwalk/beach hike

 We had done with our kids when they were young. That trip ended with a torrential rainstorm, but that is a story for another day.

The boardwalk trail is one of my favorites



The beach walk is so wonderful it travels from - Cape Alava

   
to Sand point. The beach has heads that you walk around, and if the tide is in you have to hike around the heads. Sometimes it is a simple trail. Other times they provide rustic stairs. The last head we had to go around wouldn't you know it the tide had been coming in and we would have had a sketchy rock ledge climb around, so we decided to do the over the head route. When we came off the rocks in our attempt to go around the head we had to circle back to where the trail was. When we came around  the corner we were surprised to see about  an 80 ft.  STRAIGHT up trail with a rope afixed and knots every foot or so for a grip (wish I'd taked a picture, but was too focused about how I was going to do this). In the past my fear level was pretty intense for doing things like this, but my new attitude about life and enjoying opportunities has really kicked in. I wasn't scared at all. I was very surprised in my ability to enjoy the effort without my hands and feet shaking. Guess what the way down was exactly the same STRAIGHT down with a fixed rope. Had to just lean back, hold on to the rope and step down. Just like that - Wow :-)
The next day we went to Ruby beach, so wonderful to hear the waves and walk on the sand




All in all - A wonderful Anniversary!

August 28, 1971 and 2010 were both great days.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

On top of the World - climbing Mt. Humphreys

Climbed 12,633 ft. Mt. Humphreys in Flagstaff, Arizona July 16, 2010.

 Going up was much easier than I had remembered the last time I had hiked it. The last time was in 1999. The altitude had really bothered me, and I had a constant ache in my left arm. I know doesn't sound good. I did make it up alive, but it really was difficult. This time I didn't even have any pounding in my chest when the trail really began it's incline. The trail above the saddle is just a long, long up.

 I can't explain the euphoria I felt when I made it to the top. I really felt good and did feel like I was at the top of the world. We hiked during the monsoon season so we didn't stay on top too long as the clouds were building fairly quickly. When we sumitted in 1999 we quickly signed the climber sign-in log, had a quick bite to eat as there were lightning strikes all around. We didn't stay on top very long then either, mostly because I was being pretty fearful of the lightning. It felt so good to know that I was getting in better shape and could even handle the altitude this time.

There is a sign-in box at the top and we found a summit flag there that someone had left. I was very proud to pose with the flag. Such a thrill. 

The way down however was harder than I had remembered, it seemed to be the never ending death march. It just went on forever. I obviously didn't take enough electrolytes. I was very relieved to finally get to the meadow and know that I was almost to the car. That night in bed as my tired body was aching letting me know that I had worked really hard.