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Dave's trip write-up

Dave Hale updated his Olympics Adventure site with the wrap-up.

"Next year?" he asks ... Yesterday, I'd have said, "No" ... today, I still would, but by next year ... I'd probably say yes.

The other Dave's view

Some great hike pictures from Dave Hale!

Hike photos

I've uploaded a set of photos from the Olympics Adventure here, and you can view them as a slideshow, too.

I only had room in my pack to take my small Sony DSC-T1 pocket camera rather than my Nikon D70 SLR, but I'm definitely glad I didn't have that extra weight, even if it did mean that I couldn't take much photographic advantage of the great landscapes we saw along the way.

That's one theory, I suppose

My mother-in-law says this about the mystery flash we saw while camping:

Maybe it was the wives setting off fireworks celebrating your camping trip!

Sounds plausible.

Olympics Adventure, Day 3

We woke on Day 3 to rain. That made it difficult to break camp, but we made it out of there around 9:45 a.m. and headed out for our last day of hiking.

It was 7.5 miles, but almost all downhill or flat, which was very good planning on Dave Hale's part, since by this point, Dave and Billy were really feeling the hike in their knees, and I was feeling it in my everything.

The amazing thing about the Olympics is how the entire ecosystem can change in the space of a very few miles. After the sweeping vistas of day 2, with views of mountains and valleys (and oh yeah, a huge herd of elk), day 3 was all about rain forest. Although it rained most of the day, we stayed mostly dry as the tree cover was so thick the rain never hit the forest floor. We of course did get wet in some spots, but it was kind of refreshing.

The last mile was the hardest, as it seemed so much shorter coming in (well-rested and optimistic), then it did going out (tired as hell, aching, and just wanting to get home).

But finally, we did make it out, all safe, all tired, but in good spirits.

So good, in fact, that we were laughing like school girls most of the way home, but again, probably not appropriate to mention in a family blog the sort of things that we found so hilarious (you can likely imagine what three mid-30s married (or nearly so) men would find funny).

Olympics Adventure, Day 2

(I neglected to mention on Day 1 -- we still don't know what that flash actually was.)

We figured that Day 2 would be "Hell Day" and that turned out to be an understatement. It was all uphill, despite what the elevation profile may look like.

We also made a detour down to the Seven Lakes Basin to have lunch at Lunch Lake. While this sounded like a cute idea, it was a tough climb down to the lake and a killer climb back up. I have informed Dave Hale that he may no longer mention the words "lunch" or "lake" to me until otherwise notified.

We hiked about 7 miles, hitting our highest elevation of about 5,300 feet (we started the day at 3,500 feet, for reference).

The last mile into camp at Heart Lake was a killer, with lots of up and down areas. Finally, we arrived and got the very last campsite, which turned out to be pretty nice.

I was so tired at the campsite that I basically pitched my tent, crawled inside, and didn't move the rest of the night. I simply stuck my bowl out of the tent to get a serving of chicken and rice (our best freeze-dried meal by far) and stuck my head out to look at stars.

Earlier in the day, Dave Hale spotted a bear about 400 yards away -- far enough for safety if too close for comfort. We went out of our way to store the food on bear wires, or at least Billy and Dave did, as I was too tired. Late that night, we did hear some animals around our tents, but no incidents.

The weather all day had been as perfect as it way on day 1, but around midnight it did start to rain.

Updated: Check out this map view, which is an actual GPS track recorded as we hiked (as opposed to the above graphic, which was a drawing of the trail by hand on a topo map).

Note that the actual length of our day was actually around 9.75 miles instead of 7! A lot of that was the actual path to Lunch Lake, which differs quite a bit from the map (way more switchbacks than the map would suggest!)

Olympics Adventure, Day 1

After more than a month of planning, our Olympics Adventure finally began on Friday, Aug. 26, 2005.

The crew was David Hale, Billy Stauffer, and yours truly, Dave Stewart.

After a long drive from Seattle, with stops to get lunch (Dairy Queen) and camping permits (at which time we saw what might have been the largest cold sore in recorded history), we set out on Day 1 around 2 p.m.

It was our shortest day, although we had quite a bit of uphill climbing in the 3.25 miles that we traveled to our first campsite at Deer Lake.

Weather for the day was perfect, clear skies and not too hot.

At night, we looked at the incredible star field -- you can see so much more without the city lights getting in the way. We saw several satellites fly by, but the most interesting (and disconcerting) sight was a very bright flash on the horizon that lit up the skies in what we thought was the direction of Seattle (although I think maybe it was more like Olympia at this point).

It was so bright and unexpected that we actually thought Seattle might have been struck by a nuclear blast. Thankfully, it was not, of course, but we had no way to know, with no radio and no other human contact.

Not only was it eventually good news to find out that Seattle was OK, given that our loved ones are here, but it was also a relief given that our plan for repopulating the Earth (after a suitable mourning period) was seriously flawed in many crucial ways that I hesitate to mention on a family blog such as this.

At this point, I was regretting my decision to keep costs low by using as much camping gear as I had on hand, rather than spending money to reduce pack weight -- I was at about 50 pounds of gear, which was far too heavy. Little did I know how much worse day 2 was going to be.

All hiked out

We're back from camping -- it was pretty strenuous! Therefore, I am going to go to bed and blog about it tomorrow (I had enough foresight to take tomorrow off work!)

Campin' Dave

DSC01375
Originally uploaded by dstewartms.

Picture 2

Campin' Dave

DSC01374
Originally uploaded by dstewartms.

Picture one

Camping trip!

I can't believe I have forgotten to blog about our camping trip, coming up tomorrow. Me, Dave, and Billy are going on a three-day Olympic Adventure. I just weighed my pack -- 40 pounds. But I still have to put water in my bottle and figure out how to stow my camera gear!

"Hidden" Mickey

While I was browsing around the Virtual Earth, I saw this in Orlando, FL.

See Laurel run, virtually

Still have some work to do on this one, but I think it is already pretty neat: Laruel Runs the Virtual Earth.

Six Feet Over

I wonder how many times we'll see that headline this week. Anyway, I was in tears for most of it, and for all of the extra 15 minutes at the end. Laurel claimed to hate the ending, but I saw her dabbing at her eyes a little.

First > $3 gas spotted in Redmond

Two gas stations we passed in Redmond yesterday had $3.05 and $3.07 per gallon for premium gas. Here in West Seattle, the highest price is around $2.95. We're still under $3 everywhere in the area for lower- and mid-grade gas, though! The crazy thing is that it costs about as much now to fill our Volkswagen GTI as it did to fill the Nissan Pathfinder, though of course we don't do it as often.

Happy Birthday, Mark

Today is Mark Ciccarello's birthday!

He is about 5 years my senior, and our lives used to be similar enough that on his birthday, I'd ask him, "OK, what do the next five years have in store for me?"

However, I think we've diverged enough that this is no longer applicable (unless I suddenly develop a keen interest in oceanography -- you never know!)

(It's sort of like Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels, where the predictions are spot-on at first, then start to unravel -- but then mysteriously start to converge again. Still waiting on that last step in this case.)

Dave's Mo' Better Cornbread

In the spirit of the Tulsa County Library System essay contest (where I submitted one-third of the total entries but won 100% of the total prizes), I submitted two out of the three entries to this year's Vargas Chili Cookoff in the "cornbread" category (new this year after Laurel's outstanding showing last year).

Unlike the library contest, however, I only won the top prize (mini muffin pans), with second place eluding my grasp by a sweet-tasting corn-cob-shaped cornbread (that I actually preferred to my own). There was no third prize.

My submissions were Dave's Mexican Heat Cornbread and Dave's Mexican FIRE Cornbread ... the former being a modification of this recipe I found online (I used jalapenos rather than green chilies) and the latter being the same plus a TON of Tabasco sauce. "Dave's Heat" was the winner, as many could not take the FIRE.

As for the chili, Garrett Vargas himself took second prize, unlike last year, but still a suspiciously strong showing.

However, I personally thought Garrett's chili was the most creative and quite tasty, although wateriness seems to be a Vargas chili trademark. The best chili of the day was, in my opinion, also by Garrett but was not entered into the contest: A can of Stagg.

Laurel's running log for Saturday, August 20

Laurel's run at 9:09 AM on 8/20/2005:

• Time: 02:07:27
• Distance: 12.6 miles
• Average speed: 5.94 mph
• Average pace: 00:10:06 / mile
• Average heartrate: 0 bpm
• Calories: 1527

Run was in Redmond, WA, United States.

Satellite map:

Street map:

This one is for my mother :)

Update on Laurel's activities: I have one more week of school, with three more finals to go. My night class ended tonight - Biology - A+. After school is out, I have jury duty the following Monday. More than likely I'll be dismissed since I have to go back to school in September. Labor Day I'm running a half marathon. That's in 2 weeks! Wednesday, I'm doing a 9-mile practice run on part of the course. My Saturday runs are going well. Unfortunately I didn't get any pacing info from my super-fancy running watch for the last one because it never acquired the satellites for the GPS. Bummer. It was the best run yet. That is all until I get my well-deserved break from school in a week.

Happy birthday, Dave!

Not me, Dave, but the other Dave (Hale). We were able to stop by to see him, Kelsey, Henry, and Sadie all-too-briefly this evening, but I got a few photographs and even some by Henry. Not only that, but we got some cake, pears and beets. It's like it was my birthday, except for the beets.

Laurel's running log for Saturday, August 06

Laurel's run at 9:20 AM on 8/6/2005:

• Time: 01:48:13
• Distance: 10.1 miles
• Average speed: 5.6 mph
• Average pace: 00:10:42 / mile
• Average heartrate: 167 bpm
• Calories: 1210

Run was in Redmond, WA, United States.

Satellite map:

Street map: