2009 Hiking Week Begins!

It is Saturday, August 15th. I left home this morning at about 6:30, running late by about half an hour, to meet with Guido to pick up the keys to Guido and The Goober’s condo up near Mt. Baker. They graciously offered me the use of their condo for the week so that I could do some good, old-fashioned, North Cascades hiking.

When I arrived at their house this morning, Guido handed over a ton of stuff. Some of it was for my use at the condo, some was to leave at the condo for them, and some was for me. One item was a carrot cake, which I’m assuming The Goober made for me, in light of the fact that Guido doesn’t seem to cook anything that isn’t either lasagna or barbecue. It is wonderful and completely lacking in raisins, for which I’m eternally grateful and quite enthusiastic. If the frosting had any nutritional value and a lower calorie count, I could live on it. Another item (or items) was 40 bottles of Jennifer’s 40th Birthday Celebration IPA, a Super Limited Edition beer, made just for me. All of the labels are different, and like the geek that I am, I am going to peel each and every label from the bottles and keep them in a notebook I brought with me, because they amuse me. Bottle number 40 says “Holy shit, it’s hard to write 40 of these damn things!” I’ll relate more of those as I drink them. Not that I’m going to drink all 40 bottles. I’m here to hike, not to wreck my liver.

So, yes, I’m here to hike. I’ve not done many of the hikes around here. I think Skyline Divide and Yellow Aster Butte are pretty much the extent of my North-of-Mt.-Baker hikes. I’m going to do Skyline Divide again, but I think the rest of the hikes I’m going to do over the next week will all be new ones for me. I have quite a list, but I’m going to need to pare it down to five or six over the next few days. I have four that are must-do’s, the rest are a little in flux. We’ll see how I feel by day four.

Did I mention that I had a bottle of beer already? Yep, it was #40. I figured that was fitting. Unfortunately, I drank it on a totally empty stomach, and now that I don’t drink much I’m a total lightweight. I’m a little lightheaded, and I am afraid to drive into town for lunch. Maybe in an hour. Also, I had the carrot cake after the beer. So, that was my lunch. Beer for lunch, carrot cake for dessert. Yay for vacations!

Incidentally, the beer is great. Nice and crisp and hoppy. I can dig it. I just need to not drink it all in one place.

Beer bottle #39: “Grab ball. Throw ball. Grab beer. Throw… Noooo!”

For the past five years or so, I have taken a week off for my birthday to do one big, long hike. And every year, I have suffered crappy weather on a Biblical scale. I decided this year that since I had a huge amount of vacation time, I’d take one week off in July and one in August and just do dayhikes on the nice weather days, if there were any. (That leaves me three weeks of vacation and sick time for illness and long weekends. I need to get sick on Fridays and Mondays more often in the summer and fall.) I actually figured that I’d get crappy weather as usual and just spend the time doing projects around the house that I need to finish (the shed, some yard stuff, recaulking the tub, stuff like that). But wow. The week in July was a heat wave, setting record high temperatures all over the region. No rain there. And this week is supposed to be verra nice. I’m a little stunned. So hiking it is. The shed and the yard and the tub can wait.

So here I am, with a list of hikes and quite possibly the weather to make it worth taking some pictures. Today’s not great, but today I’m just organizing and relaxing in preparation for the week. Today the weather can take a hike. HA! I crack myself up. I’m going to head into “town” at some point to check stuff out and get oriented. Maybe hit the visitor center. That kind of thing. In the mean time, I’m typing silly girl thoughts on my new work laptop, which is a very pretty, shiny, sleek, black Dell Latitude E6500. It looks like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I feel like I’m evolving already.

Also, I have a headache. I blame my sinuses. They’re killing me. My brain rattles around in my skull when I move my head too fast. My neck is unusually loud. Everything’s kinda sparkly. So I stole three Excedrin Migraine from the medicine cabinet. Sorry, guys. I had to.

10 Things I Hate About You is on TV. For some reason, I’m watching it. It amuses me. I’m beginning to appreciate Heath Ledger for some reason.

Why is that picture sideways? Is that the Tower of London?

Beer bottle #38: “Grab beer. Grab ball. Grab Duncan. Mayhem ensues!”

So, I left the screen door open for about five minutes to let Duncan investigate the balcony, and I ended up brutally murdering an invading force of roughly 847 bees. Ok, it was three bees. Still. BEES! I managed to shoo another one out the door. The screen door is now closed. And locked. Bees are wily.

The first hike of this year’s hiking vacation is going to be Skyline Divide. I’ve done it before. I had a (gasp!) film camera, so it was definitely a long time ago. I think it was in 1996 or 1997. I’m used to getting up at some ungodly early hour and driving forever to go hiking, but from here it is only 14 miles to the trailhead. I’m a little overwhelmed by how easy this is going to be and how much gas I’m not going to use by staying here to do all of these hikes. I had no idea I was this close to the trailheads at which I’m aiming. It is going to be so fantastic to not have to spend hours trapped in tourist traffic to get back after a hike and take a shower. And eat. And have a beer. Or two.

Is it weird that I just put all of the beer bottles in number order and I’m going to drink them in backward order?

North Fork Beer Shrine. Beer. Pizza. Wedding Chapel. (I’m not making this up.)

I could eat this pizza until they had to remove me from my house with a forklift. Meat pizza, no mushrooms. Heavenly. Hefeweizen on tap, lovely.

I just took Duncan out for a walk. We headed to the right from the front of the building to an RV park sort of place. From there, we went to the left down a dirt track that ended next to an old, trashed RV. We followed a footpath past that for a short way, which ended at a rope tied between the trees. Next to that was a pile of clothes. A hat, pants, a sweat shirt, a pair of shoes. I wonder where the body is.

Duncan just got attacked through the screen door by a black cat that looks exactly like Bagheera. Why that cat was on this balcony, I have no idea.

Next up: the first hike of the week.