South Sister, the "easy" sister.

"South Sister turned out to be a decidedly less than extreme climb that demanded nothing more in the way of technical skill than energetic walking, and was in fact ascended by hundreds of farmers, house pets and small children every summer." - Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

This speaks to my frame of mind as I loaded up my car and headed to Bend to meet Jesse for our "energetic walk". I had done a little research and knew it was 12 miles, but other than that I was going in blind. We met in Bend, drove the 45 minutes to the trail head, parked our cars and called it a night.

The plan was to start at 5am, when 5am rolled around I had only slept 20 minutes and it was still dark and very cold out so we ended up leaving at 6am. As we embarked on our adventure it was business as usual for team Jesse/Kristi, we laughed (at each other mostly) and caught up on life. Since the beginning of this year Jesse has been my hiking partner extraordinaire, we have laughed our way thru directional challenges, battled unmaintained trails, and even suffered heat stroke, but in June he moved to Eugene and it'd been a couple months since we'd hiked together.

We arrived at Morraine Lake and I made the comment "so we should be at the summit in about 1.5/2 hours... right?" Jesse chuckled at me, yea no. I love hiking with Jesse because we have the same sense of humor, every hike we have a Princess Bride moment where we talk about one of us falling down a hill shouting "As you wish!!!!", then there's the Malcom in the Middle moments where we start sounding like the asthmatic kid that can't breath, usually followed by a nostalgic talk about some 90's tv show or movie (this time it was Sister, Sister). We laughed at the gaggle of over exuberant "bros" that passed us as we made our way to the false summit.

It was a mostly enjoyable hike up, although admittedly I probably should have stopped at the false summit. We stopped and ate lunch by a beautiful alpine lake and I got to feed a chipmunk right out of my hand! I made Jesse take a picture of me while I was feeding said chipmunk to which he responded "Sometimes I forget you're a girl" in his most disgusted voice, that may have been the nicest thing he's ever said to me =).

We spent then next couple hours battling volcanic scree and finally made it to the summit where a fellow hiker greeted us with "Congratulations! You're done with the optional part!" Crap. After doing our best Dumb and Dumber reenactment "We're here!" we sat right where we fell. The Summit was beautiful, with panoramic views of Middle and North Sister as well as Mt. Bachelor and Broken Top. After spending about 1.5 hours at the top, it was time to go down. I found this to be less than pleasant. As hard as it was to climb up the volcanic scree, it was even harder come down. It's worth noting that other people (everyone else) seemed to be getting down with relative ease however my bad knees did not allow me this luxury. I was passed on the way down by literally everyone, this included a Chihuahua with a limp, not shining moment for me, but luckily I have a stellar buddy that refused to leave me behind despite me telling him to numerous times.

The 6 miles back felt more like 16. I prayed to see the road around every bend and started to question if I really enjoyed hiking. After a 13 hour grind we finally made it back to the cars! In this adventure there was blood (Jesse), sweat (both), and tears (me), but it was worth every step. If I had to do it all over I would do it again in a heart beat. There is something intangible about the bonds that you build while out on trail, sweating, and hurting, and laughing all the way (well, most of the way). Thanks for the adventure Jesse!

Mt. Adams Adventure

At the beginning of the year I started my "2016 list", things on my list include : Backpack the Kalalau Trail, go sky diving, get a tattoo, CLIMB A MOUNTIAN. Basically anything pushing myself outside my comfort zone. Honestly, I didn't think I was going to cross "Climb a Mt"off my list this year, so when my neighbor Vicki called and said "Want to climb Adams with me?" I jumped at the opportunity.

I had a little over a month to get myself ready. I got busy with a couple trips and a lot of excuses and didn't end up doing much training during the month. As the climb got closer, my anxiety level increased. I'd never done anything like this before so I had no idea what to expect and if you know me at all you know, I'm a control freak and I like to know what I'm getting into.

A couple days before the climb my neighbor and I went to the Mountain Shop to rent our equipment.
I have hiking boots but I thought I needed something a little more sturdy to opted to rent boots (this would prove to be a mistake), crampons, and an ice axe. I was ready.

The day of the climb Vicki and 2 of her hiking buddies came and picked me up and we were off!
We drove about 2 hours to the Ranger Station to meet up with the rest of the group and get our permits. There were 18 people in our group. 18!



I felt really good as we started our hike to base camp, that feeling was fleeting. As we came to our first stop I could feel the "hot spots" on the back of my heels signifying the beginning of what would be 2 of the most glorious blisters to grace my feet. By the 2nd stop I had 2 gigantic full fledged blisters. Now this is not my first rodeo, I know when you start feeling hot spots you should stop and tape but my ego and stubbornness got the best of me and I thought "I'll just take care of it at base camp". After a couple detours to lose my lunch I slowly made my way up the last stretch and stumbled into base camp, wrecked.

I set up my tent as quickly as I could, zipped myself inside and began having a meltdown. I sent a couple "I don't think I can do this" texts. I knew how bad my feet were but was trying my hardest to pretend I was good. I decided the best course of action was for me to sleep it off. We had a 3am wake up call and I was deteremined to summit this Mt.. Fast forward 8 hrs later, I'm suited up, crampons on, ready to tackle this Mt., I got about 20 ft up the Mt before it was painfully clear that this wasn't happening for me. My blisters were bad, where the crampons clipped into the boots were digging right into them. I haven't been that disappointed in while, I HATE not finishing things.

I had a lot of time to think as I lay in my wind battered tent. I was battling myself  "Could I have done it?", "Is this the right choice?", "Is everyone going to think I'm a quitter?", I beat myself up for hours, then suddenly. Peace. I'm a very stubborn person, I often take things to far to prove I can do anything, sometimes to the point of bad decision making. Turning around was hard for me, I considered my physical predicament, it was dark on the mountain

so if I had to turn around I would be wandering down the Mt in the dark by myself. I thought about Noah. It was the right decision for me.

While I was up there my dad sent me text that said "Your best is good enough", and that stuck with me. Last year I would have never dreamed I would be sleeping in a tent I assembled on the side of a mountain. I learned some valuable lessons on this adventure, don't rent boots, stop and tape your blisters, and YOUR BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH =)