getin ready for Rainier

We are starting the climb on Rainier tomorrow. We will be climbing on the Kautz Glacier route or Fuhrer Finger, on the south side of the mountain. We plan to check in with the ranger station in the morning for route conditions and recommendations. We should be off the mountain by Thursday:)

I love panorama mode...

slept in a bed last night:)

I love you mom!!!!

After pizza we drove around in the dark looking for a place to camp...nothing inside the park was open, but we found a nice spot called Gross Ventre just outside of grand Teton park. set up tent, passed out...woke up at sunrise to a MOOSE IN OUR TENT! well, they weren't in our tent, but they were in the campsite, Johnny took some great picks...


Packed up, went into Jackson to restock on food, make a few calls, and blog, spent three hours in the most comfortable little coffee shop...

Drove north to Yellowstone...watched the back country camping saftey video, then hiked about 3 miles into the woods. great spot, but the bugs were terrible...finally, we got to have a FIRE!










woke up and cooked some gorme poptarts on the fire, saw a lone Bison chillin in a field, eating grass, then hiked out to the car. drove around looking for animals, found another bison crossing this bridge, atleast he was in the right lane...Johnny brewed up some great soup for lunch while we considered our options. We planned on spending another night in yellowstone, Eric was all like, "bag that" and johnny said, "where are the bears?" and I kept saying, "what top knot?"


SO, we decided to head to Boseman for the night...food was way expensive so we went to Arby's for dinner, Primo Delux Arby's, solor panals on the roof, free Wifi, big comfoy round both... drove around the national forest until we found a place to rest our heads, at the end of this gravel road...


Now, we are in Seattle, I know, how did we get here so fast? we dicided to expedite this trip, hit the big mountains, skip Glacier, and finish a little bit early. Drove from Boseman to Seattle yesterday, stopping in Missoula for a cool little art fair, watched the finish of a little 5k road race, gave some change to some hippies, continued on.




BURNNING RV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we really should have taken a picture of this, but didn't, it took us about 12 hours (should have taken only 7 or 8) to get to seattle because of a burnning RV in the middle of the highway just out side of seattle, sat in traffic for about 3 hours...but it was well worth the wait.


we are currently Staying with Eric's aunt and uncle, incredibly nice people, Aunt Margaret cooked us up a feast! beef with vegies, samon with salsa, sweet corn, fruit salad, corn bread, pule banana bread and brownies...too good to describe. Plan is to stay here one more night, and climb Ranier starting Tuesday morning...hopefully off the mountain by thursday evening.

The Grand Teton

So we left Jackson the afternoon of the 25th and headed towards Grand Teton National Park. This was our first destination of the trip and the goal was to summit the Grand Teton. It is the highest peak in the Teton range at around 13, 770 feet. We hoped that the two days in Salt Lake would be enough to begin our acclimitization process.
We arrived at the ranger station in Jenny Lake and the plan was to get our permits for the next few days. Once we arrived, based on the great weather and plenty of daylight left, we decided to head out early and begin our trek in to the mountain that afternoon. With our permit in hand, we headed to the trailhead, sorted out all of our gear, packed up and hit the trail, beginning at 6000 feet, at about 5:30pm.
Our destination for the night was the meadows at the top of Garnet Caynon. It was the most beautiful campsite we had ever been in. Hopefully the pictures will show you what we mean. It was all uphill from the parking lot, with more switchbacks than I would like to recall, but we made it to camp at the meadows around 7:45pm. We went from 6000 feet at the trailhead to 9200 feet in just over 2 hours.
We arrived at the meadows, saw some wildlife in the form of a pika and set up camp. I took a Bear Grylls style shower in the 33 degree water, man was it cold. Next we made dinner which consisted of Ramen and Mashed Potatoes. We watched the sunset and crawled into the tent for bed.
The next morning we awoke just as the sun was coming up and witnessed and wonderfull sunrise with the light bouncing off the caynon walls. We cooked a breakfast of pancakes and coffee, packed up and hit the trail. We climbed and climbed all morning until we reached our high camp at the lower saddle which resides around 11,600 feet. We were ready for a break by the time we got there.
For the rest of the afternoon we rested up, soaked in the sun and the scenery, and prepared ourselves for the climb ahead. That night we set out our gear for the summit bid, watched the sun go down (amazing) and went to bed early because we were waking at 4:30am to begin our climb.
Morning came quick thanks to some PM Ibuprofen and we made oatmeal and coffee in the dark, put on our harnesses and helmets and gradually made our way up the mountain. We spent the early hours of the morning climbing and scrambling our way up a very steep caynon all in the dark. It was exhilarating and adrenaline pumping for sure, but we were all excitied and enjoying the views as the sun slowly began to shed its light.
We arrived at the upper saddle which sits at 13,120 feet around 7am. We took a quick rest, took in the scenery, stared at the monstrous climb ahead, an almost vertical 600 foot face with a long long fall, and read the guide book once more. We next made our way over to the base of the summit pillar and began to work our way towards the top. We had to traverse sections called the belly crawl, and the crawl at over 13,200 feet with nothingness below us. These few sections gave us all a bit of a reality check and at that moment we decided we had a long trip ahead of us and felt more comfortable with going back rather than attempting the last and most difficult section of the climb.
We made short work of the way back down to high camp and arrived just after 10am. We took a moment to rest and then we packed up camp for the long haul all the way back to the car. Descending over 7000 feet in one day was certainly a work out on the feet, knees, and thighs. We stampered into the parking lot around 2:30pm, unpacked our packs, and re-packed the car. Next we made our way to Colter Bay so we could take showers, which were desperatly needed, washed our clothes and found a great place to eat pizza at the shores of Lake Jackson.

SOOOOOOOOO, I carried my computer up to 11000 feet, on the lower saddle, AND THERE WAS NO INTERNET!!! WHAT THE SCHLEK!?!?! just kidding, sorry for the late post, long time in between internet.

found this picture hanging on the wall in a Wendy's, I freaked out cause its the coolest picture of my life, AND, I had just finished eating a Mandarin chicken salad...


caption bellow the picture...words can not describe what I felt when I read this...




Quick summary: Drove into Jackson, shopped around downtown, wooden sidewalks, found a guitar at a pawn shop, AH YEA, bought a guide book (glad we did that), ate lunch at Wendy's, visited Drock (buddy from app state), then took off for the grand. Checked out the visitor's center, went to the ranger station to get back country passes and po-bags, then drove to the trail head.

7/24 woke up the smell of home made strawberry waffles BIG THANKS TO SARAH AND STERLING ACREE WHOSE HOSPITALITY IS UNMATCHED IN ALL THE LANDS...Eric decided he wanted a job so he drove into Provo for an interview, Johnny and I drove about 15 min from the apartment to Parley's Canyon, sweet cliffs right on the highway.

Afterwards picked up a National Park Pass from REI, checked out the Black Diamond headquarters, then went to Arctic Circle for lunch. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I was all like, “one chicken fillet sandwich please” and she was, “well he ya go sonny” and took one bite and then had to run to the bathroom KKAAAAABBBOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!! never eating there again.

Eric met us back at the Acree estate and we took naps. I love naps. Packed up the car, gave a few hugs, headed up to Logan where Jake (Eric's little bro) is in school, took him out to dinner at a diner where “where the locals eat”. Food wasn't much better then arctic circle. Again, I was all KKKAAABBBOOOOOMMMM! Then we drove to the blue house behind the cemetary to see some of Eric's old buddies from college, Drew and Pink, I think both are on the 7 year college plan...in the words of Pink, “HEY, where's the fire?”


Left Pink the gangsters house and headed north into Cashe Canyon, we found a great little spot by a little river and set up camp. First night of many to be spent in the tent.



Woke up and continued north. Pulled over as we passed Bear Lake, it is so beautiful here...there is no greater Artist then the one who calls the sun to rise and paints the morning skies...





So, now you are caught up, I'm sitting in the back seat blogging away, saw two real cowboys at a gas station this morning. that was cool.