Hogea!

Hindi for: Finished! I managed to stay healthy, the ribs do seem to be fully healed, and I learned a ton about how to fix and maintain my bike in response to various breaks and failures. Brakes? Who needs 'em? Oh wait - I do, and now I know how to adjust my disc brakes to keep riding the crazy downhills we were sent on. The generosity of two French- and English ex-pats living in Pondicherry kept me in spokes (four broken over nine days!) as I bombed my way down that uneven terrain, and lots of TLC kept the rear shifter working despite needing a new cable. The bike needs a new chain, brake pads, shifter cables, and derailer spring, but it made it. Whew!

The course from Shimla to Manali was largely the same, but with harder climbs and longer days than last year, a challenge to be sure. I felt like a stronger rider this year, though - that hillclimb up Mt Baker and paying attention to my technical riding helped. Around 60 people (mostly Indian) started the race, and only 35 finished! A few downhill accidents early on, but mostly just the daily grind of so much vertical gain and mileage, about 75km and 5,000' of gain per day on surfaces of varying quality, from beautifully smooth tarmac to (mostly) broken tarmac/gravel to these obnoxious cobblestones that slow you down on the descent, let alone an uphill effort!

As with last year, my favorite part of the ride is just getting to know people over 10 days of being tired, happy, hungry, discouraged, relieved, impatient and resigned. You can't fake it for that long, especially working that hard. So a few more friends here, people I'll look forward to meeting up with again, either on a bike or not. And of course, there are the random people you meet along the way - a woman who took care of my cold soggy self by the fire on our one day of rain waiting for the other riders to come, an old village woman delighted to have us take pictures with her flowers, the hoardes of kids endlessly amused by the instant gratification of digital images, and all of the people who made this event happen, many of whom didn't really know what to make of this crazy mud-covered lady riding with a bunch of men.

There were only two women riding, and the sponsored Nepali mountain biker was far stronger than I. So I managed to get second - sweet! We found out later that the organizers had tried to cancel the women's prizes since there were only two of us, and were informed of the error of their ways. So all went as advertised, and the prize money nearly covered my plane ticket over. I would have been happy just to complete the event, but racing for position is a good change for me. I don't think I need to do this event again, especially trying to schedule work around it, but might do more bike touring here in the future.

Back in Delhi, I'm sitting in an "American diner", complete with old CocaCola advertisements, car memorabilia and rock-n-roll playing for ambience. There's Heinz catsup on the table, but menu offerings like "Chips and Salsa - Pringles, Dorritos chips and Potato wedges served with jalapeno salsa" and pomegranate smoothies. Close...

Off to a fantastic start

So I do seem to have largely avoided jetlag - don't know quite how.  A little tired, certainly, but not falling asleep in the middle of the day.  12 1/2 hours is a lot to get used to!

It seems surprisingly normal to land here on my fourth trip.  Not like home, exactly, but without that sense of excitement of going to a new place.  I pretty much know how things work (or don't, as the case may be) and where I'm going.

But that doesn't mean things aren't going to be interesting.  The bike I loaned out at my departure from Sikkim in the spring is here in one piece, but some of those pieces are a little... missing.  Missing part of the headset (bearings and top cap) and the nut on the end of the quick-release skewer for my back wheel.  Really, when you're disassembling it, it IS important that all the little pieces get in the box!  So a miracle part supply by friend Dickie and an hour drive later, I'm trying to figure out how much I really know about bike parts - I know what this bike mechanic is doing is wrong, but not quite what is right.  In the end, I took most of the pieces home and put it back together myself - hope this works!!!

We'll find out.  Heading up to Shimla in an hour and the 10-day race starts on Sunday.  Hope my bike works, hope my ribs are truly healed, hope I can manage not to get sick... definitely always an adventure.  Here goes!

Up, down, over!

Three more laps on the mountain and a great hike with some friends to finish off the season.  The good weather continues to hold, at least mostly...

Didn't miss much up on the mountain, in fact it was a great time to be gone.  There had been some pretty horrendous weather on the mountain, and between that and the resulting avalanche danger, no one had summitted for over a week by the time we arrived.  Garrett and Lhakpa Sherpa went up and kicked in part of the route the first day, and Lhakpa and Seth went up the second day and did more work.  Turns out all the snow and wind actually filled in some of the big crevasses we'd had to use ladders over.  They took the ladders out and we walked over the snow again!  I turned around with a climber on this first trip - the potential disappointment inherent in any climb.  But with the help of some other guides in breaking trail, they tagged the first summit in 9 days.

One last hurrah in the Northwest before heading off for many months: hiked the 18-mile Enchantments loop with several friends in one long day.  Perfect weather - it got really hot just once, and we managed to jump in the closest alpine lake for a quick swim.  You know the water's cold when there's still snow melting in the other side... Walked out in the dark, but had a great time through some beautiful terrain.

Last two trips: I ended up staying in camp on the first one with a climber who suddenly realized he's not a climber, and got more sleep than any other three day trip this season.  A beautiful sunrise.  That group went down and I stayed to meet the next group, a crazy bunch of Brits  who had just climbed Mt Adams.  The forecast was completely bad for the next morning, so we took our strong group and did a sunset climb the second night.  Beautiful and, even better, a great call because the weather was in fact crappy when we woke up - no one summitted that morning.  That's what we call sneaking it in.

One day in town and off to India!  Let's see how this one goes...

Off...

Mmm... a nice long break, and only a mini-expedition.  Took a few days off, then cycled up to Port Townsend to visit a friend there, and on to Bellingham to see a couple more people.  A few sprinkles the first day, but otherwise nice weather, and the blackberries are out!!!  Plenty of time to stop and enjoy roadside berries, perfectly ripe and more than I could possibly eat.  At one point I was picking faster than I could eat - double-fisting it!

Then, because working the body hard sometimes feels better than not, up to Mt Baker, site of a regionally-famous hillclimb race.  I had to pack the panniers (bike bags) for a combination of social and recreational destinations, so went pretty light on the camping gear.  It's 35 miles from Bellingham to the town of Glacier, at about 1000' elevation.  From there the road goes UP, gaining 4,000' in another 25 miles, much of it right at the end.  So I went as far as I could the first day and camped at the higher campground, 52 miles from Bellingham.

That made the next day a little easier, only 12 miles (but UP) to the end of the road at Artist Point, then all the way back to Bellingham, making 72 miles, but largely downhill.  A friend joined me for the last 30 miles back, psyched on a new roadbike and looking to ride.

The funny thing is, I can feel the difference in my legs from only a few days of cycling with weight - went for a run and felt strong on the uphills.  MTB Himachal here I come!

Rainier and more Rainier

Yes, it's the bread and butter of the summer season, especially now that it's late in the season, when most mountain climbers have moved on to rock or other objectives not dependent on glaciers to get where we're going.  But not here - we have trips scheduled through the end of September.

The problem is, well, the mountain is falling down.  We've had such amazingly good weather this summer that I actually haven't taken my goretex out of my pack for the last two months!  Very uncharacteristic weather for the Northwest, and it's telling - the glaciers are in the condition that they normally are at the end of September, not August. 

We saw a major rockfall go over the trail to high camp that we had been on only two hours before, and I've had not one but two rocks, one melon-sized, the other microwave-sized, cross our rope (ie: go between two climbers!) on their fall-path down the glacier.  Rockfall = not cool!  Just keep walking, and let's walk a little quicker through this area, please.

In addition, the route itself has gotten interesting as we've tried to maintain a safe path through the many crevasses that have now opened up on the route up the mountain.  

As of my last trip, there were two ladders (one consisting of two lashed together!) and a very narrow scoot-around with a line to clip into in case you fall.  Who needs the Himalaya - we've got it right here!

I'm not tired of the mountain, in fact it has been fun to see it change so much over the course of the season.  But I'm tired of only having three days to try to get to know people, be involved in their lives and goals, and then say goodbye again.  It's time for a break or an expedition, or both.

Here and there

From Bonanza straight to Rainier, then a little time off and do it all again...

I also got to teach a private 5-day skills course on Mt Baker, the last of the variety scheduled through the end of my season.  Two guys wanted to learn all about snow travel and safety as part of their skiing excursions and possible future glacier trips.  Quite refreshing - it's not often that we get people who say, "yeah, the summit is cool, but we really just want to learn more skills."  Sweet!!  A fun week.

In between, a friend and I volunteered for a local cycling event near Mt Rainier to gain admission next year.  Driving back we had to stop for this:

Bonanza!

Mary and I had been talking about this mountain, highest non-volcanic peak in Washington, for a while, and she had been there previously with a friend who convinced them not to bring the right equipment.  It's located on the eastern side of the Cascades, and we decided to go the long way,  22 miles through an area called Spider Gap which I'd heard was beautiful, instead of the "short" way up Lake Chelan and through Holden Village.

Forecast: Hot and sunny.  Sweet!  We crossed over Spider Gap early the second day to some amazing clouds pouring over the mountains to the east.  Beautiful meadows down below, amazing alpine lakes, and dramatic peaks for a backdrop.  Hmm.  Wonder what those clouds are going to do...

On the third day we bushwhacked around the head of the lake and up the classic Cascade configuration of scree field, rocky cliff, start of glacier, crevasse navigation, and dicey transition to rock.  We'd heard many things about the rock - loose, hard, easy... In the end, it was a great 4th class scramble (ie no ropes needed, but don't fall) up fun features to the sharp ridge and summit.

Unfortunately, the vista that greeted us as we gained the ridge included a big thunderstorm not too far away and headed, yes, directly for us!  We don't get thunderstorms much here, hardly at all, but the unusually hot weather was breeding cells in the east that were moving west.  

After a few minutes on the summit trying to convince us both that it wasn't headed straight toward us, we got off there as quickly as possible - I had never had a near thunderstorm experience, and was entirely OK with that!

The rain started as I headed down the first rappel, light and sound coming closer and closer together as the storm moved in.  I was at the next station getting the rope sorted out when that characteristic buzzing started (more like a series of tiny pops between the metal in my helmet) and saw and heard the strike at exactly the same time.  Looking up 150' of rope to where Mary was still perched on the ridge, just 40' below the summit, I yelled up, "Are you OK??"  She was, though we're both pretty convinced it hit the summit, just meters from where she was.  Wow.

She came down and we continued rappelling as the rain eventually stopped and the storm moved on.  Another cell just side-swiped us, dropping a little rain but no big strikes.  Whew!  We took our time down the rest of the route, making our way back to camp in the dark.

The walk out gave us more of the afternoon-rainshower experience as we passed many dayhikers from nearby Holden on our hike out the long way.  My favorite image: five cotton-clad hikers smooshed in next to a tree trunk, doing their best to hide from the downpour and stay warm before making a 6-mile dash for it.  I donned my garbage bag-cum-rain skirt and we walked on...