Mt. Rainier

Hey! I’m flying back to Ohio! I’m missing the Super Bowl. We are flying from Nashville to Columbus. Why do they show us how to use the life preserver in case of a "water landing"? Is there any large bodies of water between Nashville and Columbus? Is there such thing as a "water landing?". I dunno. I have a whole aisle to myself and I’m catching another high-altitude beer buzz. Some guy and his girlfriend were drinking and got into an argument and the flight attendant made him move to another seat. It must be embarassing to be an adult and be put in "time out" in front of everybody. I have a clear path to the high-altitude potty, but no chances for stealing anybody’s nuts. Life is a trade-off sometimes…

Speaking of which, we traded the risk of falling off stuff for stuff falling on us, particularly shit–loads of snow. The highlands of the northwest have gotten hammered with snow for the past couple of weeks.



It turns out that when a steep mountain receives a lot of snow, it wants to sluff off. This only occurs when people are climbing below them. The snow falls on the little tiny people and buries them. It is very difficult to breathe when covered by many feet of snow. More often than not, this causes a condition called “death”.

We avoided death. Yay. The high danger avalanche hazard made it safer, cus nobody made it to the summit any peaks this weekend, unless they were dropped there by a helicopter.

Speaking of helicopters, we climbed some of the base of Mount Rainier with snowshoes. We were trudging through 2-4 feet of snow. In a way, snowshoeing is like cycling. The person in the front must break through the medium you are traversing and does the most work. It was tiring because I’m not too bright and I broke trial a lot. We got up to about 7,000 feet and a place called Panorama Point at the base of Rainier. It’s basically the base of the steep part of Rainier. It snowed the entire time we were there. When we got to the point, we turned around and caught the two foot view of the whiteout conditions and then promptly turned back. Maybe next year we’ll be able to go higher and see more.


I love this corner of the country. It’s starting to beat out the upper right as my favorite corner. I better go now. It’s getting bumpy and I don’t want to spill my beer.

Cheers.