I Should Have Brought My Skis

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. I'm rested, breakfasted, and over-coffeed. Time for some journal writin'.

I'm in Yakima, Washington, which apparently has a lot of wineries. Good thing. For a moment there, I was afraid that I might go the entire day sober. It is hot as balls out here in central Washington, and I'm going to need a way to cope. I also may have a mild sunburn. You know what doesn't give you sunburns? Drinking wine.

Think about it.

What does give you sunburns, however, is spending the day hiking around the snowfields of Mount Rainier. I pulled up to Paradise (elevation: 5400') yesterday morning, saw the towering mass of the mountain above me, and thought: let's do this.

Problem is, the summit of Rainier is over 14,000 feet above sea level, and is surrounded by pointy rocks and glaciers and crevasses and avalanches and very little oxygen. It's not the sort of thing to take on alone, without mountaineering equipment, after a late morning start. So I toned down my plans for the day, and just went halfway up to Muir Camp, a collection of squat stone shelters and overloaded outhouses that serves as a base camp for summit ascents. I was told it would take four to five hours to make it up to the 10,000-foot camp. I did it in three.

Did I mention that I'm a fast hiker? I am. I hike at a rapid pace. I'm proud of this. You should bring this up next time you see me. "Dave, I've noticed that you are a very fast hiker," you can say. "I get it. You walk fast. Now shut up about it."

I'll try. Getting back on track, I made it up to Muir Camp, where I could see the beauty of the Cascade Mountains spread across the horizon under a perfectly clear azure sky. It also smelled strongly of pee. Now, there's a lot of snow up on the slopes of Rainier. Hiking up (fast!) I could see a number of people with skis strapped to their packs, and immediately wished that I had brought my skis along with me. 4,500' down wide-open snowfields in perfect spring-skiing conditions? It would have been sweet. As it was, I had to make do glissading down on my boots. Glissading is fun as hell. Especially when I could get in a groove where someone had gone down on a sled earlier, creating a chute of slick, slushy snow that I could glide down, on the brink of lising control and falling on my face the entire time. It was perfect.

It also was very sunny. And I was in a massive snowfield. Above the treeline. So despite massive applications of sunblock, I picked up a bit of a sunburn. I'll take that trade.

It wasn't all fun and games, though -- I had to cope with loss. The loss of my pants.

In Memoriam
Dave's Pants - 2005-2008

I bought the pants back in (I'm pretty sure?) 2005, when I was visiting friends in NYC. We were walking through Greenwich Village, and came across one of those shops that sells highly fashionable clothes at insultingly high prices. It was going out of business. I found a pair of pants (Dunderon? something like that. They're made in Sweeden) that looked good and cost under 30 bucks. They were lightweight and allowed full movement, like running or hiking. Over the years, my pants lost various buttons and developed various holes, and my wallet pocket ripped. So I relegated them to hiking duty. They had a hole in the crotch, but it had only become mildly scandalous. Until yesterday.

I was sitting down at Muir Camp, and happened to glance down. And guess who poked his head out to say hello to the world? My penis. Now, I can deal with some pretty good-sized crotch holes, but when Little* Dave starts flopping out in the breeze, throwing off my aerodynamics, exposing himself to sunburn, prickly underbrush, and hungry birds -- well, it's time for new pants. You can look forward to an exciting upcoming post, "Dave buys new hiking pants."

*"Little" only in relation to the overall size of my body. I cannot stress this enough. I am Dave, he is Little Dave. He's damn big enough for when he's needed, and don't you dare say otherwise.

So yesterday, I did my big hike (halfway) up Rainier. The day before that, I did an equally big hike up Hurricane Hill in Olympic National Park. Don't let the name fool you -- It may just be a "hill," but it's 5,700' and it's right near the ocean, so the trail up it climbs just under a solid vertical mile. That's a lot of vertical. It was a beautiful hike, through lush, dense forests at the base to wide-open alpine meadows at the summit. Unfortunately, you can also get to the summit by driving most of the way up along a road on the other side of the hill, and then hiking a piddly little mile or so to the summit. So after six miles of solitary hiking, I ran into mobs of car-tourists up at the top. I turned right around and made my way a bit down the trail to get a bit of quiet for my lunch. I was taking a nice post-lunch nap in the sun, when I heard what I call

"The Most Inane Conversation Ever"

I can't remember it exactly, because my brain is trying its hardest to repress the memory. But it went something like this:

"Wow, look at all these wildflowers"
"Yes, there are a lot of wildflowers"
"There are a lot of flowers over here"
"Yes, and over here there is a different flower"
"That is a different flower. There are a lot of them"
"Yes, there are so many wildflowers"
"Really. There are more wildflowers than last time"
"Yes, there weren't as many flowers last time"

And so on. The actual conversation may not have been so intellectually stimulating. But it was longer. And it was LOUD. Seriously, it was like these people had built-in microphones. I swear I could hear them half a mile away, waxing idiotic about every single thing they saw.

The experience led me to develop Dave's Law of Conversation Volume, which is as follows: the volume of any given conversation is inversely proportional to the intellectual content of the conversation. Under this law, a couple of philosophers discussing the nature of a man in some bohemian coffeehouse will speak in reserved, hushed tones; and the flower-lovers disturbing my nap will speak at volumes rivaling jet engines. My theory is that the node of the brain responsible for moderating thoughts before they are spoken out loud is located directly above the mouth. People with a well-developed node will have a smaller mouth, and people with a tiny little node will have a massive mouth that has grown to fill the gap.

So after such a wonderful day, I was hunting for a campground. I found one, but it was full. At least, that's what the host told me. It was actually less than half full, but every empty site had a "reserved" tag on it. Bastards. So I had to do a little hobo-camping in a small gravel pit off the road in the national forest. It didn't have a toilet or a firepit or a water source or a picnic table, but it did have a space where I could put my tent and a flat spot for my stove. I cooked up some ramen and opened up a tin of tuna with secret hobo spices (cilantro-lime. Those hobos know their spices). This is what I get for planning my route only a few hours in advance and trying to find a campsite on a friday night. It is also the reason why I made damn sure to get a hotel room and a big freaking dinner at "Smokin Bones BBQ" last night. That was some damn good BBQ. And the chef/owner made a point of making the rounds of the restaurant, greeting each table and asking them how their meal was. I appreciate that kind of service. I also appreciate the "BBQ Combo," a mass of beef ribs, smoked kielbasa, and half a freaking chicken piled onto a plate and drowned in barbecue sauce.

Good times.

I also got to relax in the sulfur hot pools at Sol Duc hot springs several days ago in Olympic, and I got to see the Hoh rainforest. Both experiences were enjoyable. I'd write more, but it's time to get moving and check out of my room. More to come soon.

"I start with the best part of the chicken -- the neck! Then I add secret hobo spices"
-Moe Syslak


Bears in Cars BONUS!
See into the mind of the creator, with this exclusive late-night journal post outline!

It's getting late, I'm tired, and I've got about ten pounds of barbecue sloshing around in my stomach. I'm just getting a quick outline up so I don't forget what's been up for Dave. I'll fill in the details later.

In more-or-less reverse chronological order:

1. glissading is fun as shit. Especially on Mount Rainier. I wish I'd brought my skis.
2. In Memoriam: my old pants.
2a. Little* Dave pops out. *"Little" is only compared to my entire body. I cannot stress this enough.
3. Hobo Camping: the key is adding secret hobo spices.
4. Hurricane Hill: a mile of excitement. 10k vertical in 2 days.
5. Hot springs are hot.
6. The most inane conversation ever is also the loudest conversation ever. Fucking wildflowers.
6a. Dave's Law of Conversation Volume.

-deuce-