The Future

No one knows what the future holds. Just ask Wall Street. It can be easy to let analysis paralysis set in and keep you from doing much of anything, because the fear of "what if...?" makes it sound dangerous and scary.

You know what, the future is scary at times, just like the past was scary at times. The future is rosy at times too, just like the past was rosy at times. You can't let it stop you from doing great work. I'm editing the video from Mt. Rainier, trying to condense it down to 10 minutes, and wow what a beautiful day that was! If we let fear seep in and overwhelm us, we will never be able to experience things like that.

Movie Review: Everest

For starters, Everest was way better than I expected. In the trailer there were a couple things that were  very dramatic, which I will get to, but on the whole, it was quite accurate. There were no explosions, the visuals were stunning, and some of the harder aspects were covered. So, I will dive into the various aspects that were especially good or bad.

Everest from Kalla Patar, 18,500 feet, April 21st, 2014

• The movie really hit on the mental and emotional side of Everest. All mountains are a mental challenge. All mountains provide an emotional experience. But, Everest... Everest is different. It is the tallest. People don't get summit fever, at least not very hard, on most mountains. On Everest, people will walk uphill to their death. The movie moves a little slow at times to give the mental and emotional side of the story, but that is really the story I appreciate.
• There is a scene where Krakauer asks, "Why do you do it?" and the responses are given in the same silent, uncomfortable (or bravado...) manner than real mountaineers answer the question.
• At a different time one of the climbers says roughly, "When I am back in the world I feel a black cloud over me all the time. But when I am out here, on a mountain, any mountain, it doesn't exist." I get depression, I have had some mild depression in the past, at least that's all I will admit to publicly, and I don't have it in the mountains, even when I turn around low on the mountain.
• The dramatic parts on the ladders and the fall on the Lhotse face were ridiculous. Yes, it is possible they could have all happened, but unlikely to have happened like that. Actors often make things look dramatic to get the feeling out there, but just wait until I have a video of our Mt. Rainier climb done, my partner takes a fall, not too dramatic. If you fall on a fixed line, your ascender stops you after like three feet. 
• The series of bad choices that lead up to accidents are well portrayed. Typically things happen slowly and usually a series of bad choices leads to people dying. Also, a movie visually explains the bad choices in a way that books do not. When Rob heads back up, with Doug... you need to see it!
• First, the weather is intermittent, which is a small issue and typical in the days before good weather forecasting, but definitely a contributing factor.
• Second, the missing oxygen bottles at the south summit. Someone could have perhaps carried up a few bottles from the south col, or told everyone to go to a lower oxygen flow rate. This actually only encourages me to climb without bottled oxygen.
• The route was not fixed, they seemed to be surprised about that, and they had to wait while someone with rope got to the traverse before the Hillary step to fix the route. All of these contributed to people being tired and slow. It's amazing what you can do with 20 meters of rope.
• After that the reasons that individual people died had to do with a variety of decisions, a little different for every person. For example, Rob helping Doug to the summit at 3:15 PM... bad decision. Andy Harris heading back up to Rob when he knew there was no oxygen and the weather was getting terrible, more difficult decision because it was a rescue at that point, but he died.
• Anatoli was portrayed very well. Not only did he help rescue a few people from the other side of the south col, he went back up to Scott Fisher, and fixed the route up the Hillary step, all without using bottled oxygen. It's not dramatized either, he actually did that stuff.
• The visuals and graphics were great! They were incredibly accurate. The trek in through the villages was accurate and the mountain scenes were accurate. Vertical Limit apparently took place on K2, but none of the shots are from K2. Cliffhanger supposedly took place in the US, but it was filmed in Europe. The Eiger Sanction is fairly accurate though. (And if anyone wants to buy me those DVDs or Bluerays for Christmas that would be great!)

Again, Everest quite exceeded my expectations. It was more accurate on the important points that I expected. My biggest fear is that it will motivate 100 ignorant people with no experience to get themselves up on Everest and their stupid mistakes might affect me up there someday.

Everest from Pumori Camp 1, 18,500 feet, April 16th, 2014

I Live in Iowa: Week 223

Another week, living the dream! I like that saying because after one says it, one has to wonder, 'am I living the dream? Because I just said I was, and while my life is not perfect, it could be worse.'

Work was good. Oh being a drivetrain engineer is so different than being a structures engineer! In the world of axles and transmissions change happens slowly with much testing, where as a structural change can be implemented in days with maybe a little FEA or a hand calculation. My particular job is a little slow right now. We are just starting the next project, while solving continuing problems on the last project, but not fully into the next project... So it's a little light right now. Time to make sure I do the details and learn about the decisions made to get us to where we are so that I can ask the hard questions on the next project.

I ran 73 miles... what?! I haven't ran that many miles in a training week since last October, 11 months! Perhaps having a coach has helped, and perhaps I am over this bout of injuries. A 20 mile run on Sunday at 6:48 pace and then an 18 mile run on Saturday at 6:36 pace make for two long runs, and then one little fartlek during the week. No wonder I am tired.

My sister came to town Friday afternoon and was here for the weekend. It was good, we did a small amount of touring, a winery, tried to see eagles, went out to eat with some friends of mine, and the big event, we went to the movie Everest. Wow, I will publish my review of Everest Tuesday, it was good!

Well, short update this week. I hope you have a good week this week!

Mount Hood

Mount Hood is an interesting place. You Drive up the first mile, then there is a ski lift the next 3,000 feet, and finally a nice little technical hike to the top. Also, unlike most other mountains, it's an extremely small alpine area. What I mean is, most animals that live in the mountains have the easy ability to go down a valley and then back up the next mountain. Mount Hood is isolated, an animal would have difficulty traversing to the next mountain.

We woke up in East Portland at 4 AM. This was our third day with not much sleep. We packed, had bad coffee, and quickly left the hotel. Continuing the process of introducing Steve to unique experiences like espresso shots this summer, or Olive Garden the night before, we had breakfast at Starbucks, another first. The roads were empty and we cruised to the nearly empty parking lot at 5,800 feet. 

Parking Lot in the Morning

The vast majority of the route is a simple hike. I wore running shorts and running shoes until 10,300 feet. Not that it was easy. There was almost no vegetation. The mountain is dry, like a desert, complete with volcanic sand. I wore my buff to keep the dust out more than the sun off of me. If you look closely you can see the ski runs below the treeline in the photo below.

The Haze from about 10,000 Feet

It really was quite uneventful most of the way up. It did get quite steep after 10,000 feet, and the unconsolidated sand, dirt and scree made for very slow progress. Not to mention we did climb Mt. Rainier the day before and had maybe six hours of sleep leading up to this.

About 10,300 Feet

We made it to the snow, finally, in the photo above and put our boots and crampons on. However, we encountered some objective danger at the top of the hogsback snow ridge. I don't have video because my camera filled up. There were multiple rock falls in the 15 minutes we spent there, and also a perilous crevasse/snow bridge crossing that we did not feel comfortable crossing. It is worth mentioning on this day with beautiful weather that we appeared to be the only people with equipment to climb the mountain. I found that surprising, but then again I assume most locals can be picky about weather and snow conditions for their climbs.

Sulfur Steam and Green Colored Rocks

Many times on the hike we would smell sulfur and near the top there were steam vents and green colored rocks. Certainly not the sweet smelling alpine meadows people envision on mountains.

The video below shows the highest point that we reached and what I would call very typical mountaineering.

The hike down was uneventful, which was always good. Certainly tedious, dry and dusty, but not dramatic.

Back at the Parking Lot Safe and Sound!

We then drove back to Portland, had supper and fell asleep before waking at 3:30 to catch our very early morning flight back to Iowa.

Having climbed to within 500 vertical feet of the summit, I would like to go back and actually summit. In fact, Mt. Hood is so accessible that I would like to try and do laps on it. I think you could do it twice in one day, on skis in April when it is snow covered and there is good weather, between breakfast and supper. The key is snow conditions. From the top of the hogsback snow ridge through the gully leading to the summit you need solid snow conditions, and I would need a set of alpine touring boots and bindings. Next time...

Another Look

It's just so good!

A Little Core Work

I get so lazy. When I should spend five little minutes after a run doing planks and sit ups and bicycles... I don't. Just a minute a day would help keep me away from injuries. Every month, even week there is a new article with this exercise or that exercise to keep this injury or that injury from affecting you.

The last few days I've been on top of doing a few minutes after every run. Well, except for my 20 mile long run, but just recovering is enough after 20 miles at this point for me. I just realized, as I was thinking about this, the general public does not do core workouts! They don't carry around the guilt of not doing two minutes of planks five days a week. I realized, that we have failed. Oh sure there are a variety of "work" movements that use your core, like moving around bags of dirt, simply standing, or not leaning against anything. However, a growing number of people seem to sit in chairs professionally, and your muscles just decay if you don't use them. (Decay is a strong word, weaken is probably a better one.)

I'm not saying you need to go do 100 sit-ups. I would struggle to do 100 sit-ups! But how about 10? Maybe even just five for starters? Make it five crunches, they are a little easier than full sit-ups. You can't do a plank for a minute? I can't sometimes either. But even doing 10 or 20 little seconds is way better than continuing to sit there, and saying you will start tomorrow. You won't even get sweaty in the fraction of a minute it takes to do three pushups.

Do a little core work, trust me, you'll feel better afterward, provided you don't get hurt in the process. Break it into the smallest possible exercise, do six inches for all of a few seconds, when no one is looking. Your body will thank you.

I Live in Iowa: Week 222

It was a nice week, a little quiet, which is nice sometimes. 

Work was not too eventful, which believe me, is a good thing. We even had an off site lessons learned meeting for the last five years of stuff that we have worked on. Off site meetings are rare. They are a treat! We had lunch, we even received little wooden plaques from the leaders for our work!

Running was good, I ran every day for 43 miles I think, no workouts. Getting back into it. I was sore the first few days of the week from all of the hiking last weekend. 

Obviously getting back to Dubuque after summering Mt. Rainier and almost Mt. Hood in three mountain days is great! It doesn't get much better. This coming weekend I am excited to go see the movie Everest!

In the magnesium chronicles I took my first Epsom salt bath Thursday night, and then slept from 8 PM to 8 AM. Epsom salts are magnesium sulphate, and again, magnesium relaxes your muscles. 

In other news, at the 24 hour national championship Harvey ran a course record 157 miles, Olivier ran 153 and Jenny on the women's side ran 137 miles! A strong race! Way to go friends! On the other side of the country Kelsey, who I helped bicycle across Wisconsin, rode 510 miles in the Silver State 508 in something like 46 hours including sleep without a crew!