Deserts, Rainforests and Mountain Passes

Taking a break in an alpine paradise. Mt. Seymour (4,700').
Click photos to enlarge. 

Hello and welcome back!  Spring is in the air here in Vancouver, and we've been soaking up every bit of it, enjoying the bike paths, beaches and mountains that the area has to offer. I spent this morning on a conditioning hike to the summit of nearby Mt. Seymour, and was back in the neighborhood in time for a late afternoon stroll on Kitsilano beach.  My co-worker slash hike buddy Evan remarked on the summit view from Seymour.  To the south is metro Vancouver, 5,000 feet below us and about 5 miles away.  The view north is dominated by the jagged peaks of the British Columbia Coast range and seemingly endless wilderness, access to which is just an hours drive from the high rises of downtown. Pretty great!  All this makes it possible for me to curse and sweat my way up beautiful mountains to train for my PMC ride, and show you all pictures of it! Let me add here a shameless plug to please donate to my ride for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute!  Every penny of rider raised donations goes to support cancer research at Dana-Farber.  Thank You!  

Downtown Vancouver (center) from the Summit of Mt. Seymour.
Oil tankers in English Bay visible in center right.  

Bailey on the Summit of Mt. Seymour.
British Columbia Coast Mountains in background.  

For today's installment, a road trip down to Oregon USA for a sampling of what the Pacific Northwest has to offer.  I had a week long spring break from school at UBC, so my girlfriend Bailey and I drove down to Portland to meet some friends and decide on which of the multitude of Oregon State Parks we should go and enjoy.  In Portland we recruited my old buddy Simon and headed east from the city along the Columbia River Gorge. 

 The Columbia river flows west along the northern edge of Oregon separating it from Washington state on the other side, and cuts through layers of rock to form a 150 mile long gorge that is up to 4,000 feet deep in places.  17 million years ago, just east of the gorge near the present Idaho border, great cracks in the earth opened up and began flooding the land with lava.  The eruption lasted about 3 million years, and when it was over a large part of the present northwestern US was buried under its lava flows which today are called the Columbia River Flood Basalts.  They are over a mile and half thick, cover tens of thousands of square miles and represent one of the largest volcanic events in earth's history.  Ten million years later the Cascade volcanic range began to push the ground upward.  Rainfall draining west toward the Pacific slowly cut its way through the layers of basalt, and about 15,000 years ago a melting ice age glacier in Idaho would bust at the seams and send thousands of cubic miles of water rushing west to the sea, carving the dramatic gorge we see today. 

About 2,000 ft of basalt lava flows seen in the walls of the Columbia River Gorge.
Originally horizontal layers were tilted by uplift of the Cascade Range.    

The gorge is the only water lane that cuts through the Cascade Range, which runs like a spine from north to south along the west coast.  It is often a good winter route east from the coast, as most other roads must go over the range and are often dangerous or impassable.  We chose the route for this reason as well as to enjoy the incredible scenery that the gorge affords. The Cascade Range acts as a barricade to wet pacific air coming from the west, and while the coast is famously drenched eastern parts of the state are left dry, an effect called a rain-shadow.  With a transition from temperate rainforest to desert grasslands in about a hundred miles,  we would enter a new and different ecosystem with every few minutes of zipping along I-84.  After a great drive through the gorge we went south into the central Oregon desert.  

Bailey hiking at the Painted Hills, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

For our first stop of the trip we had decided on John Day Fossil Beds National Monument,  another of Oregon's geological wonders, and a great place for a sunset hike.  The fossil beds at John Day record the evolution of plants and animals here over the course of 40 million years.  These fossilized remains are found in various layers of volcanic ash and lake bottom sediments, and preserve a story of a changing landscape from the steamy tropics that the dinosaurs knew, to the dry and temperate climate of today.  Vibrant red volcanic ash and green lake-bottom clays add up to make this place a natural wonder, and we arrived in time to hike around for a couple of miles and watch the sun go down on it.  

Sheep Rock, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.  

Painted Hills, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

Simon and Bailey enjoying a hike at the Painted Hills

As the desert began to get cold and dark, we hit the road on an empty gas tank and headed deeper into the middle of nowhere.  I knew we had some distance before any civilization in Prineville, what I didn't know is that we would have to go over the Ochoco Mountains to get there.  The next hour or so was pretty hairy, calculating the odds of making it to town while watching the fuel needle bottom out.  By the time we reached the high point of the range I was mentally prepared to be pitching the tent on the side of the road for the night, but miraculously we were able make it over the summit and coast into town.  I pulled into the first gas station I saw and pumped 14.953 gallons into my 15 gallon tank, which by my calculations gave us about a another 700 feet before sputtering out.   After a diner dinner and some giddy laughs at our luck, we made the short drive to one of my favorite places in Oregon, Smith Rock State Park, and pitched our tents in the dark.  

The author enjoys a morning coffee at Smith Rock State Park, OR.  

We woke up to a beautiful day beneath the stunning spires that this park is famous for.  Smith is a great place for hiking, biking and horseback riding, and its tall beautiful rock walls are world famous for climbing.  I had been here before to climb but hadn't yet a chance to enjoy the hiking trails, and there was a particular little number I had in mind.  We fried up some eggs, packed up our bags and hit the trail.  We spent our day on the Misery Ridge trail, which went up and over a ridge of spires on steep switchbacks and then around the base of the ridge along the Crooked river to get back to camp.  It was a great trail, we had good weather and it was a hell of a workout.  It was a round trip of about 8 miles with 1,500 feet of elevation.  

Switchbacks at the bottom of the Misery Ridge trail.  Smith Rock State Park.  

Tiny people on the Misery Ridge trail. 

Simon and Bailey in a desert pose-off. 

Having a good time.  

I taught Simon my patented tent drying technique.
Highly effective, and a great workout. 

This desert is a beautiful place in the winter, but after being fried by the sun all day and frozen solid all night we decided on a change of scenery.  We spent one more dreamy night under the moonlit rock towers of Smith, then packed up and drove west.  Thankfully we had another day of great weather, after driving out of the desert we would be going up and over the Cascade Range.  The road took us past great vistas of high Cascade volcanoes like Mt. Jefferson, Three Fingered Jack and the Sisters before dropping down into the familiar coastal rainforest.  The dismal winter weather at the coast keeps crowds away this time of year, we had most of Cape Lookout State Park to ourselves and were able to score one of their coveted yurt shelters.  We went on some walks, played some wiffle ball on the beach and nursed our sunburns in the cool mist.  Our time off had just about run out.  We dropped Simon off in Portland, drove back up to Vancouver and went back to work.  

Wiffle ball in the mist at Cape Lookout State Park, Tillamook, OR.  

Yurt camping in luxury at Cape Lookout.  

The road trip.  Google Earth.  

That's about it for this one!  Training here in the city is going well, it doesn't hurt that everybody around here is in great shape and constantly running everywhere.  I swear you can't stop and stand anywhere in this city without turning around to find someone angrily jogging in place behind you, waiting to get by.  Donations are starting to come in, but I have a long way to go, so please DONATE if you can!  Dana-Farber is making great progress everyday on treatments for cancer, but they need our help to keep going!  

Tomorrow I'll be hiking up to the glacier field on Mt. Garibaldi to scope it out for a summit attempt later in the season, so watch out for that one.  Stay tuned for my next blog,  I'll be jumping with both feet into backcountry skiing in the Canadian Cascades!  

Walking with some big trees. Stanley Park, Vancouver. 

Bailey on the bike path.  Fairview. Vancouver.  

Spruce Harbor marina, Burrard bridge and North Shore Mountains.
From the bike path, Vancouver.  

Winter

Sulphur Mountain Gondola Terminal (7000').  Bow Valley, Banff National Park Alberta.  Dec. 2012

Greetings and welcome!  It has been a fantastic winter here in British Columbia!  I've been lucky enough to get out on the hills a lot so far this year, and I've been pushing it hard for the PMC!  I write to you fresh off of a trip to the Canadian Cascade range for some beginner ski mountaineering, it was very awesome and very painful.  It turns out the average person learns to ski when they are much younger and perhaps more ductile.  But more about that one later, for now let me catch you up on what has been a busy 2013.  On top of school and staying fit while in the city, I've been out enjoying the incredible recreation areas that surround Vancouver in every direction and on both sides of the border.

Bailey and I finished off our 2012 with a fantastic little road trip to Banff National Park in the Alberta Rockies, about 500 miles northeast of Vancouver.  On a short notice decision with a few days left in my christmas break, I planned a few hikes and we hit the road.  After 12 hours and a dark and terrifying ordeal through heavy storms and endless mountain passes, we arrived in heaven.

Looking northeast from Sanson's peak (7,400') over Banff National Park.  Banff village in lower left.   

The Canadian Rockies are some of the most dramatic mountains in North America, and Banff village is right in the middle of them.  We had dozens of options for hikes, and there are hundreds more we didn't have the time or equipment for.  Route after route on mountain after mountain, the adventures are limitless in a place like this.  During midwinter it's so cold that the snow and air are bone dry, and compared to many ranges the weather is relatively stable and sunny.  All this makes it a winter camping and mountaineering paradise.  Especially so compared to British Columbia's Coast Mountains, which are constantly buried under an ocean's worth of warm wet snow.

Cascade Mountain (9,800') from Banff village.  

Despite the good conditions mentioned above, at this latitude, elevation and time of year, a trip in to the backcountry is a serious commitment.  With such little time the giants surrounding us would be off limits, so we scoped out a couple of trips closer to town.  For the first day a nice snowshoe loop on the Bow River near town,  not too much elevation gain but a great time, and 7 miles.

Bailey snowshoeing along the Bow river near Banff village.  

Sulphur mountain gondola.

I wanted to spend our second day busting my ass up a hill, because well, that's what I enjoy doing.  We found a great hike on Sulphur mountain not too far from the village. A gondola runs up to a summit station on top,  and a steep switchbacked trail follows beneath it.  With little gear and little knowledge of area navigation or current avalanche forecasts, I figured this would be a safe but ass-busting choice.  It definitely turned out to be  the latter and I thought it seemed safe, but was promptly informed by a sign at the top that under no circumstances should I come up that trail because of avalanche danger in the gondola track.  That made a lot of sense, the sign placement not so much.  Thankfully, the dry air leads to low snowfall and generally low avalanche concern... is what I told Bailey.  

We spent the afternoon on the summit of Sulphur and nearby Sanson's Peak soaking up the incredible views and some much needed sunshine.  These mountains are east of the rain shadow of the Cascades, and most of the moisture from westerly ocean winds is wrung out and dumped on the coast ranges.  While those of us close to the ocean are under clouds for the majority of the winter, sunshine can usually be found a few hours to the east at any time of the year.  Free return gondola rides are offered to hikers in the winter, and we gladly  accepted.  We had done about 5 miles and 3,000' of elevation, and it was time to hit the town for some burgers and fries and christmas lights (which were just delightful).  And that it was is it for Banff, for now.  I bought some books and maps, and I will be back.

After the beginning of school things got busier and the trips became more local, but living here in Vancouver that's not exactly a bummer.  First up were a couple of classes on Mt. Seymour, one of the closest mountains in the North Shore mountains right outside of town.  These peaks can be accessed from neighboring North Vancouver, and offer a true alpine experience just minutes from the city.  Hosting both a provincial park and a small ski resort, Seymour has options for everybody including hiking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, camping and climbing.

The North Shore Mountains and downtown Vancouver from Kitsilano Beach.  Oct. 2012.  

In January I took an avalanche awareness course on Mt. Seymour with the Canada West Mountain School. With all the snow and the wide variety of weather conditions that we have here on the coast, the North Shore Mountains are a great natural laboratory for avalanche education.  I had taught myself on the subject to the best of my ability, but formal education on mountain safety is always best if you plan on spending any amount of time in the backcountry during winter.  We spent a day in the classroom learning the theories of avalanche forecasting and victim rescue, and the next day hiked up to treeline to put it all into practice.

Talking snow stability on the mellow summit slopes of Mt. Seymour (4,700').

Snow test pits for avalanche hazard assessment.

There are two broad categories to avalanche safety awareness.  The first is to know what parts of a slope that you plan to travel on are likely to slide.  This is first done by careful study of weather patterns in the area, as weather creates the snowpack.  The next step is digging into the snow to analyze the many layers deposited by each successive storm event.  In doing this we are searching for poor cohesion between horizontal layers, as this is where storm layers, or 'slabs', are likely to slide off of the layer below and start an avalanche.  Once you have an idea of the likelihood of a slide in certain areas, you can plan your travel to avoid these areas. These assessments are not perfect of course, and in the event of a slide and the loss of a party member swift rescue by the remaining party members is a must as victims usually survive only 10 or 15 minutes once buried.  Technology and rescue protocols have improved over the last decade or so, and thankfully avalanche fatality figures have remained flat despite the huge jump in backcountry use in the same time period.  Avalanche education like this is becoming standard procedure for everybody, and most of us would not travel with someone who was not avalanche aware.  We had great weather and a good instructor, and I hiked about 8 miles and 1,500' of elevation with a loaded winter daypack.

A class with the University of British Columbia outdoor club brought me back to Mt. Seymour the next weekend.  This time we were ice climbing, and as one of the more experienced folks on this trip I would help instruct.  I drove up and met some other instructors the night before our class, and we hiked up to the summit area in mixed light of the moon and the ski area floodlights.  It was a very pleasant trip up on the snowshoes, though laden with winter overnight gear and climbing gear to boot.  The weight adds up fast on a trip like this and it was a great workout to be sure.  Every step under a brutal pack like that has me imagining those last few miles of the PMC.  I know it's coming and I know that it will be tough, but every one of those steps makes me that much more ready.  Hard as it was, we were rewarded at the top with clearing weather and a stunning view of greater Vancouver lit up beneath us.  It was relatively warm and calm and clear, and we set up camp right in front of that view.  The next morning brought more great views and great weather and some pretty decent climbing (the coast mountains aren't known for great ice, but we do what we can).  All told I probably did about 6 miles and 2,000' of elevation under an overnight winter climbing pack.

Sunrise over Mt. Baker, WA, USA (10,800') from Mt. Seymour.  

Downtown Vancouver under fog from Mt. Seymour.  

Between trips I've been staying fit in the city as much as my school schedule allows. I have my choice of the gym in my neighborhood or the one at school for weight training and cardio training, and I make good use of Vancouver's beautiful bike paths for biking, walking and running.  I usually manage something like this at least 3-4 times a week so things are definitely picking up, and it's great to start to feel progress in any training program.  That's about it for now, thanks for visiting!  Please tell your friends about the Pan Mass Challenge, and please DONATE if you can!

Stay tuned for our next installment, where I'll be getting beat up on the backcountry ski slopes of southern British Columbia, and sunburned in the central Oregon desert with Simon and Bailey!

Bailey on the bike path, Fairview district, Vancouver.  

Boats, the Burrard bridge and the North Shore Mountains from the bike path, downtown Vancouver.  

Introductions

Bailey and I on a cloudy Mt St Helens WA 8,300'.  April 2012. 

Let me begin by welcoming you and thanking you for stopping by my blog!  The ultimate goal of this webpage is to raise awareness for the Pan Mass Challenge fundraising bike-a-thon.  The PMC is a 33-year tradition of physical fitness and support for the Jimmy Fund, the fundraising wing of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.  Located in Boston, MA, Dana Farber has been a world leader in cancer research since 1947. In its 33 years the PMC has raised and contributed $375 million to Dana Farber and in any given year is responsible for half of Dana Farber’s total revenue.  Every penny of the PMC’s rider-raised donations goes to Dana Farber, and I hope to raise $4500 before my contribution deadline in October 2013.  Donations can be made to my ride at the PMC website here (thank you!).  As I am fundraising over the coming months, I will also be training for the 192-mile ride from Sturbridge in central Massachusetts to Provincetown at the northern end of Cape Cod.  In addition to the gym and the bike, I will be training the best way I know how:  by climbing mountains.  Mountaineering, backpacking and hiking have been passions of mine since childhood, and I cannot think of a better way to get in shape for the ride.  This blog will keep you updated on my fundraising and training progress and take you along on the outdoor adventures.

Bailey at Crag Camp cabin, Mt Adams, NH 4,200'.

My girlfriend Bailey and I moved from Massachusetts to Oregon last year so that I could go to graduate school.  I hadn’t been accepted anywhere mind you, I just knew that I wanted to go back to school and that I wanted to climb some big mountains.  I had a great job at the time, working at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Mass.  I built and operated all kinds of machines in a Carbon dating lab.  I spent my time poring over tiny fragments of wood and the fossils of ancient microscopic sea creatures.  My job was to extract all the carbon atoms so that we could count how many of them were radioactive ‘Carbon 14’.  Knowing how long it takes an unstable Carbon 14 atom to decay, how many were there to begin with and how many are left, we could tell you how old your sample is.  I worked with great people and did interesting work and went swimming in the Martha’s Vineyard sound every day, and every free weekend I drove the five hours up through Boston to the White Mountains of New Hampshire to hike and climb.  

Tom and me on the summit of Mt. Bond NH 4,700' White Mountain National Forest, September 2010. 

I have been hiking in the Whites my whole life, at first with the boy scouts as a grade-schooler.  The Carter range, the Bonds, the Kinsman range, Franconia ridge and of course the Presidentials, I still feel like I have barely scratched the surface of what this place has to offer.  I remember one of my first long hikes in the Whites, on Welch Mountain in the southern ranges.  I remember nearing the summit and walking out onto the rolling granite slabs that Welch is famous for.  With the wrinkled green carpet of the White Mountains sprawled out in front of me, I decided that the grueling two thousand foot staircase of rocks I had just come up was well worth it. A decade or so later I had worked my way to the technical routes of Huntington and Tuckerman’s ravines and winter summits of Mt. Washington, the highest mountain in the northeastern US and home to some of the most dangerous weather in the world.  These peaks were a great training ground for me, but with bigger mountains on my mind, I turned my sights to the west. 

The Presidential Range in late spring from Jackson, NH.  Mt. Washington 6,288' dominates the view. 

The Huntington Ravine headwall.  Technical climbing routes on this face lead to Mt. Washington's summit plateau above. 

On Mt. Washington's summit plateau in good conditions at about 5,000'. January 2010. 

Me, Tom and Jamie, Mt Washington NH 6,288'.  March 2009. 

After convincing first myself and then Bailey that it was a good idea, I quit my good job and we moved to Portland, Oregon.  As an outdoorsman, the Pacific Northwest had always drawn my interest.  I had a couple of old friends living in Portland, and there were some good graduate programs at schools in the area.  We settled in a quiet corner of the city, and I got to work on school applications and doing as many trails as I could afford gas to get to the trailheads.  The Columbia River Gorge, the Coast Range, Mt Hood, Mt Adams, Mt St Helens, Crater Lake and many more.  It was one hell of a year, to be quite frank.  

Bailey near Mt. Defiance, Columbia River Gorge OR.  June 2012. 

The summit of Mt. Hood OR 11,250' in perfect conditions.  June 2012

Me on the summit of Mt. Adams WA 12,276'.  August 2012.  Mt. Rainier in the background. 

Bailey heading up the slopes of Mt. St. Helens WA.  April 2012. 

Bailey and I hiking in the dark, Crater Lake National Park OR.  July 2012. 

Sunset over Mt. St. Helens from camp at 10,000' on Mt. Adams WA.  August 2012.

Luke and Simon near the summit of Mt. Hood OR at around 11,000'.  June 2012. 

Bailey on the Cape Lookout trail near Tillamook, OR.  May 2012. 

Bailey and I above Wakeenah Falls, Columbia River Gorge OR.  April 2012. 

Simon and I on the way up Mt Thielsen OR 9,200'.  September 2012. 

Bailey prepping for a predawn start on Mt. St. Helens.  April 2012. 

Crater Lake from Mt. Scott OR 8,900'.  September 2012. 

Multnomah Falls trail, Columbia River Gorge.  May 2012. 

Smith Rock State Park, Oregon desert.  March 2012. 

Jamie at camp at 9,000' on Mt. Hood OR.  March 2012. 

                Once we were good and comfortable in Portland, I was accepted into a Master’s program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, so we packed up once again and moved north.  Since that time I’ve been busy getting used to school and yet another new country, and of course starting to explore my new local mountains.  I will be pushing myself into as many trips as I can manage and will do my best to keep you all updated on these, as well as all other PMC training and of course the fundraising.  So, thanks again for visiting, please come on back, and please please DONATE! Thank You!

 

The North Shore Mountains behind Vancouver's West End.  My new backyard.  January 2013.