I N T H E N I G H T K I T C H E N
Snowshoeing on Mt. HoodWent up a couple days ago with a group from Parks and Rec to snowshoe on Mt. Hood. It was supposed to be a "moonlight snowshoe" as the full moon was out and the closest it's going to be for years. We ended up with a very challenging afternoon that turned windy and chilly.
A not-so-great pic of me. Here we're hiking along a ridge below the towering peak of Mt. Hood. Ironically, we could see for miles but couldn't see the mountain. As we got closer to Mt. Hood, the clouds started circling.
Here, I'm posing with a cornice. You can see it beyond my right shoulder. If you are on a ridge, it's important to stay within the boundaries of the trees or at least near the center. You don't want to accidentally walk out on a cornice like that because undoubtedly it'll break away and you'll plummet. If you fell off this one, the ride would have entailed an 80 degree skid over two hundred feet. It would have hurt.
Adventurer T.
He's been volunteering with Parks and Rec since he lost his job so he's been going out on day trips snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. I was impressed at how good he was with the group, hanging back and not pushing and being quite cheerful.
You can barely see it but back on the horizon line in the middle of this shot is Mt. Jefferson. My digital camera just can't do these shots very well.
A cloud gliding in. The sky show in Oregon never ceases to amaze me. I could have stayed up there for hours just taking photos of the changing sky.
More dramatic clouds coming to obscure the mountain. Here you can see the top of Timberline Lodge which served as the exterior for the hotel in
The Shining.
The dip down that you can see between me and the lodge is a deep gully which you'll see in the next image.
This gully nearly killed me.
My lungs just aren't back up to par. My muscles were willing but my cardio-pulmonary system was weak. It was a steep and unrelenting climb into the wind. I had T. take this picture because the blanket of clouds just gave it an air of desolate remoteness.
We did end up seeing the moon as it came over the mountain horizon but we saw it from the lodge over beers.
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I wasn't going to write about this but it's just too horrible not to. The week before last, T. was actively sick and I could feel that feeling in the back of my throat that whatever he had I was getting. I was working on the taxes and trying desperately to get to a stopping point before I felt truly horrible. (I didn't succeed and still have gobs of work to do but that's beside the point.) I happened to be at that time in the throes of my period. That morning found me in my pajamas, agonizing over the computer and the taxes, feeling fat and horrible and knew that I was coming down with something evil. I took an innocent trip to the bathroom. I flushed some paper and the toilet overflowed. As in, the water flowed over the edges of the toilet -- is there anything less terrifying than watching the water head toward the brim? I jumped into delayed action, pulling off the top of the tank and grabbing the little lever that stops the water from flowing. In the process, I managed to shatter a glass that was next to the sink. I then proceeded to have an all out screaming temper tantrum of as epic proportions as can be managed with your hand down the back of a toilet tank. T. gamely came to the rescue and scattered towels about to soak up the water and unclogged the toilet and I went straight to bed where I pretty much stayed for a week.
I wasn't going to write about it because it just seemed so horrible. However, I can't imagine a more perfect confluence of pain, frustration and agony than being on your period while working on taxes and trying not to become ill as the toilet overflows. It's a good thing we don't have any stairs in our house or I probably would have fallen down them. Hell, I probably would have thrown myself down them.
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