2 week count down

Two weeks to go until Jeff and I are on the mountain!  I've been checking reports of mountain conditions and they are improving.  Two weeks ago the weather was not so favorable, high winds and two feet of snow.  Teams that were climbing were forced to turn around at the lower camp.  Last week conditions were good and all climbing teams summited, yeah! (one team included our lead guide Lee Lazzaro).  There is still a ton of snow, 14 feet at the starting point of our climb, WOW. 

As for my training this past week, I did two altitude adventures.  Last Sunday my long time ski buddy, Billy Stanford, and I enjoyed skinning and skiing Berthoud Pass.

For those that are not familiar with skinning, it is a method of traveling up hill by attaching a skin to the bottom of your ski.  The skin has a fabric side, which creates friction between your skis and the snow, and a sticky glue side which sticks to the bottom of your ski.  Special bindings are used, called AT (alpine touring) bindings, which allow you to raise your heel as if your stepping and sliding the ski up the mountain.

We had a great day on Berthoud.  We skinned around 2500 ft and got three exceptional runs in.  I didn't carry much weight (around 15lbs) because I wanted to enjoy the skiing more.  It is hard to enjoy turns when you have 40lbs whipping you around!  Here are some photos of the terrain we skied down:

My second training venture was yesterday with my climbing comrade and Rainier partner, Jeff Moriarty.

We wanted to simulate our first day climb on Rainier of 4600 ft in 4 miles on the snow.  With the warmer temps around Colorado the snow is melting fast!  So we decided to climb Mt Shavano (14,229 ft) a 14er we have climbed before.  Shavano is south of Beuna Vista just north of Poncha Springs.  Shavano has a cool snow feature called "The Angel of Shavano" which stays around to late spring.  See if you can see her in this photo (her wings have already melted, her head, body and arms remain)-



The Angel was our objective.  It is a 4600 ft climb in 3.75 miles one way.  I carried 37lbs of gear which is close to what I will carry on Rainier (40lbs). 

We reached the bottom of The Angel in 2 hrs 13 min

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The snow in The Angel was starting to soften and still required us to wear crampons and us our ice axes.  It was around a 35 degree slope angle at its steepest point.  Fun Climbing!

We ended up climbing The Angel's left arm until we ran out of snow.  We found snow again on the East Ridge to the top.  We summited after 5 hours of hiking!  I was wiped out and had some ill effects from the altitude and exhaustion (a little disappointing because of all the training I've put in- then again we were at a higher altitude with weight on our backs!). 

Here I am on the summit with Tabeguache Peak (another 14er) in the background-

On our descent, made our way back to The Angel for a glissade.  Glissading is basically sledding on your bum without a sled.  You use your ice ax as a break to control your speed.  We had a thrilling 800 ft glissade!  The rest of the down hike made my big toes sore; I'll look forward to losing my left big toe nail soon and I formed a blood blister at the end of my right one.  Come on toes and feet toughen up already will ya!!  We spent 8 hours climbing on the mountain.  The weather was fantastic.  What a great and grueling training day.  We headed into Beuna Vista for a beer and some great eats at Eddyline brewery, relaxing on their outdoor patio taking in the mountain view.  I highly recommend the brewery.  The cheese steak with jalapenos is mighty fine.

Today I will do a "lighter training hike" of 1,300 ft with 35 lbs at Deer Creek Canyon.  Until next week...