40 Years of Marriage? Really?

On Friday I had the high honor of attend a 40th Wedding Anniversary and Vow Renewal.  I have never been to such an event.  Bill is a Mars Hill elder and Julis is his amazing wife who just shines with kindness and grace. As an example, at Mars Hill West Seattle, I make coffee.  Who am I? There are 650 weekly attendees here, and I am just some random single man.  Julis gave me an beautiful invitation, with my name hand-written, to their celebration. Who am I?  They had PRIME RIB and Cabernet at the event!  And I didn't have to pay!  Who am I?  I received the grace of seeing two people who love each other even more than they did on their wedding day 40 years later. They spoke of sex and an all-encompassing unity and total connection that has been nurtured by Jesus over the decades in front of 250 people with no shame and no embarrassment.
I mean I am a kid from a family where unity never existed and the marriage exploded not even 9 years in, looking at Bill and Julie and hearing they obvious love for one another, seeing their three amazing kids and their 10 grand kids, hearing their candid explanation of the horrors they have weathered, and the incredible legacy of the hundred plus couples who they have loved and served as marriage councilors and pre-marriage councilors; I think how can this be?  How can a man love and woman and provide well for her and sacrificially serve her and be a good dad and be an exemplary yet imperfect man and an amazing grandfather and an elder in a church and a man who I deeply desire to emulate?  Again and again they pointed to one answer, Jesus.  They are God's grace to me.
Oh and Driscoll was there to honor them both.
Observations jotted down during the celebration:
-Julia's children rose up and called her blessed - just like Proverbs 31:28
-There is hope for me that my marriage rooted in Jesus can last for 40 years
-God please help me to eventually be a man like Bill
-He is such a strong manly man yet he is still broken by the honor of being Julia's husband
-She spoke well of him and showed him great respect
-When she had big strife with her family he protected her
-10 grandchildren and he will leave a legacy for all of them - just like Proverbs 13:22
-My response, tears and sadness (for my parents) and a yearning for something like that for my future
-40 years is hard but it can happen, in Jesus
-Josh, make sure you dance with your daughters at every wedding and every single special event with dancing - be like Aaron Easter
-Be okay with making an idiot of yourself for your wife, even in public

The real Alaska Day 7

Miles: 2,715.7
Average MPG: 19.3
Gallons: 140.71
Bears and Wolves: 12
Alaska Beards: 7
Miles Hiked: 22.6

Present Day:
So I was planning to lead a small tour of Seattle last night where Peter (not sure if I mentioned that I have a genuine German Mars Hill Church Intern living at my house...well I do and his name is Peter) and his girl friend Amy  (also from Germany and also interning at Mars) could be properly introduced to their new home of Seattle (for the next 13 months at least).  Yulia also agreed to come along as well, she has not spent much time in the city, so she wanted to learn about it too.
But in God's providence, my plans were smashed in a beautiful way.  God's plan was better.  Some generous person bought out the 345 section of Safeco Field and gave all the Tickets to Mars Hills Proxy.  So Amy decided to join them with Peter.  So at 1PM I looked for an alternative activity.  After chatting with Kelsey via Sidney on "FacheBuuk", I was given the amazing gift of two free tickets to the game.  Yulia hadn't ever been to a Mariner's game so it worked out. The four of us enjoyed the game, but Peter and Amy were still baffled by many of the mechanics and arcane rules by the end.   Baseball (don't get me wrong, I love to play and occasionally watch) is weird, it just is.  The whole game is between two guys and they take a lot of time staring longingly into each others eyes until every once in a while one of them throws a ball by the other who tries to stop it from being caught by another guy who is dressed up like Optimus Prime. It was a fun night and the conversation was great.

A few weeks ago...in Alaska:
Previously on "Alaska: a Josh's Road Trip Expeience"...
Josh drove a large SUV then didn't sleep, then he hit a bird, then he didn't sleep again, then he got on a bus, then he got off a bus, then he got back on a bus, then he got off a bus, then he bought some tickets, then he kinda slept...
Day 7 YEAH I GOT MY DAYS ALL MIXED UP, thanks Yulia for providing me with your notes about the trip!
So we woke early and Yulia, Nick , Tina, and I all packed up and distributed our gear and headed out:

We left Mirella and Josue at Reilly Creek for one night and two days (with a can of bear mace, 1 Tim 5:2) so the four of us could go backpacking in Denali!  Yeah actually going off the trail across country and camping in the last great American Wilderness.
We sat through the educational training film on how to not die in the back country, packed up all our food into two Bear Cans (designed to keep anything the bears might be interested in out of their grasp behind some stout black plastic), and got on the 2PM Camper Bus.  We were let off the bus at the Teklanika River Bridge in Sector 29 of the park.  We off-loaded our packs from the back of the bus and strapped up as the bus rolled away.  We were left on the dusty road with the roar of water and the whipping of the wind as the reality of our loneliness hit us.  Were were going to be on our own for the next 25 hours.  Remember that the day before we had seen 6 Grizzly Bears and 5 moose (which are more dangerous that the bears) just yesterday, in fact two of the bears we saw were within 4 miles of where we got off the bus.  In Denali, the average concentration of bears is about 0.35 bears or wolves per square mile in the sub-alpine areas.
I don't know if all that data went through Yulia, Tina, or Nick's mind, but it sure as hell went through mine. As an aside, I got a chance to sit down for a Thai lunch with Nate B, he is on staff with Mars Hill this Thursday.  We talked on many subjects, but one thing that came up when I switched seats during the meal is that I try to always see the door when I sit somewhere.  I find all my exits, and I evaluate each person who enters.  This is all automatic, I have just trained myself to process people and locations and evaluate danger.  I don't try to start any aggression, but I try to be ready to respond if necessary.
So I had SO much fun on the approx. 7.4 mile hike into where we camped.  No! Really! That's not sarcasm!  I really had a lot of fun scanning all visual quadrants for any sign of predators, pit falls, or other dangers.  I looked for tracks (I am NOT a skilled tracker, I just know some minor principles of the trade and kinda what to look for) and watched for "animal sign", umm "animal sign" is kinda a euphemism for poop. I don't know why, but it is.  I was just "on" the entire time.

We started on the left from the bridge and completed this circuit.

Anyway, we headed north parallel to the Teklanika and made good time on the sand bars.

Bear Print

Wolf Print

Caribou and Wolf Print

We turned off the river and entered the tree line.  In Denali, the trees are not large (the Pines top out at 70 feet) due to the brutal winters and paucity of winter sun light. We faced our first river crossing and all four of us escaped with dry socks.

We existed the line of woods and entered rolling hills over fresh Tundra. Its composition was 30% wild blueberries, 20% moss, 30% low assorted brush, 10% Crow berries, and 10% grass. Basically when you walk on tundra you are walking on top of plants,about 6-10 inches off the ground.  We crested three rises and gained our first territorial view of our goal.  We actually stopped a mile and a half short of our goal but day light was fading. Our conversations ranged wildly, and slowly waned as energy and terrain took its toll.

 The land was full the sounds of flowing water and the call of small birds, the smell was that of fragrant fruit mixed with fresh wet earth, the taste was that of delicate berries blended with moist clean air, the touch was that of soft ground and pliable flora with the brush of gentle leaves on the palms of my hands, and the sight, the sight was that of yellow purple peaks with blue green creeping forests yearning for the heights they will never achieve and the spring green tundra with blue tasty dots of delight as far as the eye can see.
In a too trite word, beautiful.
We made camp on a ridge in the wind and Nick and I lashed the lady's tent to our tent tying everything down tight.  We ate MREs and stored our food 120 yards away. I placed a branch on the bear can and checked it the next morning, nothing had been disturbed.
I slept for two hours until 11PM then lay awake until morning.  The others slept well and hopefully dreamed of wide open lands and lush hills rolling beyond sight, beyond mind, beyond every fear and every anxiety.

VERY special thanks to Ratatat's "Nostrand" for it's incalculable contribution to this poor excuse for a Blog post. Also Marshall you helped too, you better love Hailey with all that you are.

Confession of a Religious Jerk

Another break from Alaska Posts.
So I had a chance to go and wish my good friend Elliott farewell at a party in his honor.  He is one of my oldest friends, a gentleman and scholar.  He departs for Tierra del Fuego in two days in his anticipation of the end of the world (or perhaps merely the end of civilization as we know it) come December 12th 2012.  He will ride his bicycle from his home of Seattle down the west coast to and through Mexico and on to Panama where the road ends.  He will take a boat to South America and ride its spine to the end of land approximately 9,348.61 miles later.  Truly I say to you this is an Epic trip and Elliott is a man big in heart and strong in soul for such a feat.

Cheers to you mate!! HERE is his awesome blog where he will try to keep us appraised of his progress as Internet connections allow.

So at this party there were 7 people with whom I attended Garfield High School.  The rest were strangers or loose acquaintances. After chatting with Elliott and wishing him well, I settled into a chair under the stars next to Collin. We hadn't seen each other since the times we ran into each other in the UW weight room when I was in grad school. He had had a bit of bourbon and He brought up theology after I mentioned that I had recently completed a brief internship with the "infamous" Mars Hill Church. He mentioned that Mars had a good influence on his buddy who attended briefly but Collin didn't like Pastor Mark.  I asked if he wanted to hear my story of how Jesus got a hold of me; he said yes.  So I told him the whole crooked tale in about 2 minutes.  All the sin and the depression and the hopelessness.  He stopped me several times to say, "What the **** man?  I used to sit next to you in Band class, I switched chair so I could sit next to you and chat.. I didn't know you were hopeless and in that place."  I told him that appearances can be deceiving.  I finished up with my mountain top and Jesus grace.  I really don't like to share my tale, but the reactions are always priceless because it can tell you a lot about where a listener is at. Collin is a deist of a sort and sees Jesus as a good moral teacher, and his reaction to my tale was a nod, silence, and a deep swig of bourbon.
I caught up with Jared later and he told me that he respects Pastor James Harleman from Shoreline and used to attend the Ballard Church before other Mars Hills were started.
So as I sat around the circle of chairs I felt a sadness that these eclectic and beautiful people, from the phone sex worker to the computer programmer, gathered to enjoy Elliott and his adventure are lost and in need of help just like me.
So as I shared my story  with Collin, a gal across the circle overheard a sentence where I mentioned Christianity and said, "Yeah that's stupid." So my ego took a hit and I realized that my religious side was coming out.  Throughout the evening I found myself getting all arrogant!  Seriously?  How can I compare myself to these folks and be all like, "I've got my stuff all together? You need to clean up your act."  Apart from Jesus, I am living the same exact life as everyone else at the party.  The only goodness in me is from the hand of God; all my religious activities are worthless for salvation! My religiousness is always crouching the the door waiting to rule over me like Cain of old.  God please help me.
Each person was looking for saving grace in causes, in relationships, in intellect, in their own pursuit, in the approval of their mates, or in the cosmic consciousness.  Each of the 15+ different conversations I initiated and the 5 that others initiated with me all revealed that they know something in themselves, in their families, or in their world is broken and inevitably they theorized either directly or circumspectly a possible solution. Such a beautiful opportunity to share a little hope with amazing people. Random and likely pointless aside: Even the fact that I initiated any conversations is a grace from God.  Before Jesus grabbed me at age 20, I would only initiate a conversation with people I knew well.  No, liquid courage was not involved!  But my 107 Old Weller Whiskey on the rocks was enjoyable with Daniel's amazing cookies. Last night I knew that the party was not about me being comfortable or just relaxing, it was about the 25 other people, it was about Elliott, and it was about the Kingdom.
Two great conversations and good convictions and repentance, a nice night under the stars on any date on the calendar.

Oh yeah Peter, Amy, Ryan, Nick, Matt, David, and myself went into the woods. Nick and I had the privilege of sharing a little American Culture with two Germans and a former Australian Federal Police Officer. It's nice when you can convert a young lady from uneasy fear of firearms to a little bit of a gun nut just by letting her shoot a 12 gauge (with low recoil rounds, I take 1 Tim 5:2 literally, so I try to be considerate).
And here's a recent video with no context. (I did have a clean back stop) LINK

Alaska Day 6-7

Miles: 2,715.7

Average MPG: 19.3
Gallons: 140.71
Bears and Wolves: 12
Alaska Beards: 6
Miles Hiked: 8.6

Wow Community Group was epic tonight.  First off, the Menashe Family saw me down at the Morgan Junction and gave me a ride down to Brandon Street.  They are an amazing couple; in fact I would "do a back flip off my roof" if I mature into half the man Jack is when I hit his season in life. David (pronounced Dei-vid 'cause he's a Brit, hmm I am too, but I don't call myself Jaw-shua, I respond to Josh, or occasionally "Hey Penguin!", or even "Hey Bone!"), our community group leader, left a note on the front door telling everyone to enter in silence and take a seat.  We sat down and waited.  At 7:30PM, Cole suddenly read Luke 21:29-38 and David invited each of us to set aside all the crap from our thoughts, all the worries and weight of what we are so easily distracted by and take 30 minutes to pray to our Father in quiet reverence. I sat on the floor and prayed to my Dad.  He reminded me how good he is and convicted me that I need to cut out KassemG from my 1 hour a week media time. I love that my God is so specific and takes the time to open my eyes to my blindness. We then transitions to small clusters to talk about what we had heard from God and prayed specifically for each other. After we closed in prayer, I got some time with David and Jack one on one and got some amazing advice from godly married men about how to honor one of God's daughters.
Oh and one more thing before I transition to Alaska, I worked at a Golf Tournament this last weekend.  It was the Boing Classic over 50 PGA event. You know how golf is really really really...not that exciting on TV?  Well it's just as "enthralling" in person.  Still I got to volunteer and help raise money for a hospital and enjoy a really big manicured garden and all the free soda and granola bars I could eat.  I also went to the volunteer appreciation dinner afterwards and I won a prize from Tiffany & Co.!!  You know the really fancy stores  with the vault doors in the malls that sells jewelry? Yeah I won a pair of Tiffany beer glasses!? Yeah they make those, and I now have some.

Alaska:
So I believe I got my days mixed up so I really don't remember what went down on day 6....So on to day 7 I guess.  Maybe what I thought was day 5 was actually day 6.  We might have taken day 5 off and just relaxed all day, I can't really remember. Sorry.
Day 7 was awesome because the day before I picked up our bus tickets so we awoke early and were on the very first bus at 5:15AM. It went from our campground out to Wonder Lake 90 miles down the road. We piled into the big green bus in row 4 and 5, that way were were near enough to the front to hear from the driver but not too far forward as to be uncool.

Funny aside...or maybe just lame you be the judge:  I had no formal education before 6th grade (except for one 5th grade math class at Highland Park Elementary).  So on the first day of 6th grade, I got on the school but for the 40 minute ride to Washington Middle School.  I took one look at the bus after boarding and took the seat closest to the driver because everyone on the bus was huge and very angry looking (I was the smallest and shortest kid in he whole middle school 6th-8th grade).  I huddled close to the driver for 6 months before I worked up the courage to more to row 3. In 7th grade, I made a few acquaintances and moved to row 5. By eight grade I hit my maximum coolness by sitting in row 6.  Through the next three years, before I dropped out of high school, I never developed sufficient coolness to moved father back than row 6. i don't know how that related, but whatever.
So we set out from Reilly Creek and our soft spoken but eagle-eyed bus driver spotted and stopped for these beautiful animals:

So we stopped briefly at about mile 50 on the bus ride, and Josue got to experience life as a Caribou:

So we continued out to Wonder Lake which is 90 miles from the park's entrance. On a clear day, this place has the best views of Mount McKinley, unfortunately there were too many clouds. We actually left the park without ever seeing the peak.  No big deal, we found other ways to entertain ourselves.  We walked down to Wonder lake and we practiced out walking on water skills. Notice the lack of ripples, these pics took real skill to give the illusion of the miraculous:

Man I love to skip rocks and I think I imparted a little knowledge to Josue.

We then went for a short hike into the endless blueberry fields.  I had my bear mace and kept my head on a swivel because we have seen no less that 5 grizzlies on the way out.  We only ran across a chipmunk city, but there was plenty of fresh bear poor broadcasting the big guys' presence.  The berries were tasty and were everywhere.  We came to a peaceful creek and we stopped for some food.  I challenged every one to make their own boat for a little boat race. The Rule was that you had to make it only from what you could find naturally occuring and your boat has to have an occupant. Some builders employed grass and used a little daisy as the occupant.  My strategy was the aerodynamically stable stick with a blueberry passenger.  I came in second, and I think  Tina won the big race.  We ate ravioli out of a steel can cooked on Nick's MSR stove. it was awesome.

The race track...the finish line was the little island in the creek.

We made it back to the bus pickup location and took some silly pictures near the sign:

We rode the bus back toward Reilly Creek and saw some more sweet animals, but this time much closer in:

It was amazing. We got back to the campground and enjoyed some hot dogs and canned corn.  We ended the night playing a Epi game of UNO. We let Tina make up the rule to the game and it was awesome.  She totally messed with us and we all ended up laughing all over ourselves.  I actually cried I was laughing so hard. 

So, Day 7 was another stretch of beautiful blacktop on my life's road trip.  I had the honor,  no the high honor, of sharing it with Josue, who taught me so much about what it might look like to be a dad, Yulia, who encouraged me and showed me what it looks like to just live the Christian life in a state of quiet expectant joy, Tina, who challenged me on my endemic self-deprecation in a gently mocking way, Nick, who helps me to see every situation in a new light and whose sarcasm jarred me to laughter again and again, and Mirella, who excellently modeled motherhood and kindly encouraged this childe Roland on his lofty quest to ride this life until the wheels fall off and reach the end to see Jesus.

Alaska Day 5

Miles: 2,715.7
Average MPG: 19.3
Gallons: 140.71
Bears and Wolves: 5
Alaska Beards: 5
Miles Hiked: 6.4


On Sunday we awoke with a plan, we wanted to see the sled dog kennels and the Visitor Center.  We had oatmeal and struck out with some snacks and water bottles.  We walked the 1.1 miles to the Visitor Center. Along the way we had some fun:

I even got to share my affection for rose hips with everyone.  The Visitor center was amazing complete with $100,000 in solar panels that will pay for themselves in about 95 years. What's a national park without massive government waste? Sorry for my economic analysis, Nick (who is intimately aware of solar technology) and I just had to laugh at the idiocy of the expenditure.

This last photo is of my friend Alicia posted at the entrance to the Visitor center and her old bass Joleen. Inside, Josue and Mirella enjoyed a movie about predators in the park.  Later, we gathered in the cafe to eat a light meal before heading out to the dog kennels.  We took a longer trail out just to stretch out legs and some kind stranger took this picture:

We enjoyed the first of Denali's famed blueberries. They were awesome, but not a good as the ones out in the wild, I'll tell you about them later.  Oh and I loved this picture:

Yulia is doing her Russian Spy thing, Mirella is doing the hood thing, and Tina doing the Uma Thurmon from Kill Bill thing.

We made it out to the kennels later and I got to meet Alicia's old friend Chulitna. She is seven years old, which means in another year she gets to retire from her faithful sled dog service. In the winters, only sled dogs are used for park ranger patrols.  They work hard and pull together as a team as show in this video:

She was the oldest dog on the team.  It was funny she was biting a 9 month old new dog team member like a drill instructor who beats on a new recruit to make him into a good soldier.  The Alaskan Sled Dog breed is actually a mutt breed with very little genetic homogeneity.  Each dog there had their own look, some were long and lanky, while others had more square frames.  The only commonalities were in their large paw size, their long side fur, and in their high energy.

It was so much fun to enjoy the demonstration and just spend a few moments with Chulitna.  I whispered in her ear, "Alicia sends her love from Seattle."

After the dogs, we walked back to the Visitor Center area and back to our campsite. I had a totally mental idea to bread our chicken and deep fry it.  Mirella worked her magic and made my idea a reality.  We first cooked up a lot of bacon and kept the grease. They using crushed Cheddar Ruffles, Bisquick, eggs, and spices Tina breaded the chicken.  Nick then deep friend each piece in the lack of molten bacon fat.  It was truly amazing. The chicken was done to perfection and with a little corn it made the best meal of the whole trip.  We were all a little goofy and our little six person family laughed and laughed. Then we made Bacon marsh mellows  Nick's WiFi router is called "baconmarshmellows" so he wanted to make them. And it took little persuasions for me to jump on board.  After all, we had a whole bunch of recently cooked warm bacon and whole bag of jumbo camp fire marsh mellows.  So I broke out the bamboo sticks and we wrapped bacon around our marsh mellows.  We made s'mores with bacon and chocolate.  It was like a sweetly bacon-aded trip to a land of honey gram cracker men who laugh and dance all day and sing all night about how amazing glorious bacon is while doing back flips and sipping bacon grease cocktails!!

Totally 'Mazing.

I know here we are cooking hot dogs but imagine they were bacon marsh mellows.

As a was looking forward to a blessed night of dead sleep, Tina came back from the bathroom. We were the last folks awake. She shared her struggles with faith. So for the second time in as many days I shared the story of my shameful past of sin and idiocy.  I shared details when she protested that I really was a good guy. I laid it all out for her to see.  Again I felt naked and heard the echoes of shame haunting my mind.  She was silent as I shared. I concluded with my meeting Jesus and how hard that was and all the sweet pain afterwards as he dropped bomb after bomb on my idols and my foul religion. She shared her story and again I got pissed my fists clenched and un-clenched (I hate it when women experience suffering), and I cried for her.  I told her that my heart broke for her. I asked for her permission and then prayed against the enemy, his servants their lies, their works, and their effects. I prayed for her family. We must have spoke from 11:45PM until 3:30PM. I was happy to trade away another night's sleep for the privilege to talk about the Good News.

Many thanks to Fugazi and Ratatat for their Musical contribution to this blog post...but Fugazi your economic theory is freakin' dumb. k thx by

Mount Adams We meet Again...For the First Time

Miles: 598.6
Miles Hiked: 13.1
Miles Glissaded: 3.5
Group Size: 10

I apologize for interrupting the Alaska account, but I just got back from Mount Adams (the same one I summitted twice in a week last summer) and it was a whale of a time! Well, it was more of a large volcano covered in loose ash, pumice, basalt, and ice; kinda less like a blubbery mammal.
So with 5 days notice on Facebook and The City, I got 9 other folks to join me on a summit attempt. I just got back from Alaska, so I didn't promote very well.
Matt and I left Seattle at 10:30AM on Friday after packing up. We pounded a Monster and Code Red and plunged into Eastern Washington, stopping only to marvel at a Super Wal-Mart. We arrived at the Ranger Station for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest at 4:30PM and got our fancy Human Waste Bags (you must pack out all your "contributions" from the national forest) and paid the $15 fee for all 10 folks.
On the access road out to the trail head, we pulled over and performed conflict resolution tests on an unsuspecting tree. My ears rang until after we got back from the hike.

After getting turned around, we finally got to Cold Springs Camp Ground and setup the tents. We spent an hour-and-a-half gathering wood and had a massive pile ready for when the 2nd and 3rd wave of hikers arrived. We then wandered off and decided that we had better use the axe we brought. So we tried to fell a dead tree. We tried 4 different trees and failed four times. This forest is not a tall forest, but rather a tough forest that is buried under snow 9 months out of the year. Conditions like this ensure that only trees with superior toughness survive, thus the cellulose fiber composition is particularly dense...At least that is what I told myself when I failed to fell the fourth tree. I am kind of like a Corgi, my torso is average size (except not), but I have itty-bitty legs; not unlike Ray William Johnson. Those proportions don't lend themselves to logging.

 So after failing, Matt and I lit the fire with a little "cheating juice". We then laid on the ground and watched 4 satellites sail across the sky and 3 meteorites burn their way across the moonless night. Once I knew the 2nd wave and 3rd wave folks were close I started the bacon...We cooked 8 pounds of bacon (1/2 a pound was lost in a friendly-fire event) and enjoyed every severely or moderately scorched piece. Mad props to Michael Frank, he totally rocked his bacon. The grease fire raged, but his came out perfect.

We retired with a little wine, and I starred at the tent's ceiling for 5 hours until it was time to wake up, but the insomnia gave me a nice opportunity to pray through some stuff.
Saturday morning we hit the trail at 7:37AM (after pictures and my little overview of the route). We made great time up to Echo Bowl (with the non-existent wind the echos were particularly good) and shouted "Echo!, Are you ready to Rumble?!, 'Merica, A British Tar!" for a while.
Nick set his own pace and nine of us jumped ahead to rest at Lunch Counter (9025ft). Joel found a Tungsten wedding ring sitting in the wind shelter. Either some recently divorced dude chucked it or a raven snagged the shiny "Ring of Power" off a rock while someone was applying sunscreen.
Once we broke the break, I was the first one on the slog-slope. Now let me tell you about this slope. It is nasty. It is cruel and it is mean. In about 1.5 miles of travel, you gain about 1,950 feet on slippery compacted snow and ice. You are completely exposed to the wind and the glare off the pure china-white combined with the noon-day radiance usually come together to fry, freeze, and exhaust even the most avid hikers. For a sub-par hiking pretender like myself this slope destroyed me. Now let me brag on God, he totally hooked all nine of us up, there was NO WIND!. Seriously none, I cannot emphasize how rare that is especially at 11,000ft (3,352m for my British cousins).
So even though I left first, I arrived 3rd to last. I was wrecked by that slope. Greg and Melissa decided to enjoy a lovely nap at Piker's Peak instead of summitting, I can't blame them, the windless false summit at 11,657ft might be the most romantic place in North America to spend an hour-and-a-half visiting with your beloved.

The story with the name for the false summit is kinda like those demotivational posters you might have seen.  Nick's favorite is this one:

7 of use tried for the summit and we all made it. Matt gave me some kind encouragement as he passed, and I really needed it. On the last 900ft from the valley between the false summit and the true summit I became enraged. Some freakin' joke of a man was cussing out his wife (or girl friend, or sister).  He started swearing at here after they had passed me and were 300ft below and descending. Man I get so angry when a man rages at a woman. He was blatantly violating 1 Peter 3:7 (a verse I have been meditating for a few weeks), he showed no honor and was not understanding. I'm not gonna lie, I prayed that 1 Peter 3:7b come true for that piece of...  Imprecatory prayers, wow. Man, nothing gets my back up like violence (physical or verbal) directed at a woman.
Anyways, I was dead last up to the summit (and nearly dead). I was at least 10 minutes behind every onle else (my concept of time was skewed because I was totally focused on making the next step and trying to slow my heart-rate down). I prayed for God to give me the grace of reaching the summit, but more importantly for His will to be done.  But God came through and totally hooked me up (Oh, the Gatorage "GU" gell is a crock, it didn't have any noticeable effect on me). At the 12,281ft top there was a infinitesimal amount of wind, maybe 2 mph.  That is unheard of!  Both of my previous summit here were greeted with bone-chilling 20-35mph wind gusts with a minimum of 15mph sustained. Again it was an unparalleled day to summit.  There were NO clouds only haze on the horizon allowing an unrestricted 360 degree view of Rainier, St.Helens, Hood, and Jefferson peaks.
At the top, the other guys were crazy gracious waiting for me before taking THE summit pics.  Apparently, their tradition is the "Skin Shot" at the top of whatever they climb. It's not a bad tradition to start for Volcano Summits.

As soon as it was time to partake of the summit toast (1oz of Mango Rum, 1oz of Coconut Rum, 2oz of Courvoisier VSOP Cognac (my favorite was the cognac, mmm mmm)), Matt Behr led us in a rousing manly rendition of Doxology:

Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow!
Praise Him All Creatures Here Below,
Praise Him Above All Heavenly Hosts!
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

The tradition of the summit toast is longstanding for Nick and I. Man, I missed him up there. His knee was just not willing to let him summit. There is just something right about a little alcohol to celebrate the assent to a peak.
All 9 of us sledded down in record time.  I went from 11,657ft to 9,754ft traveling 1.2 miles in 8 minutes!!! All sliding down a 28% grade. It was a blast!

And here is my destroyed Sled:

We hustled down the mountain and we saw this beautiful sunset near the base.

I was feeling like crap from the False Summit all the way down.  I had vertigo, nausea (but I held it in), blurred vision, very little lung capacity (I was coughing like a chain smoker if I took too deep of a breath), and a plaguing cramp on the inside of my left quad.  I kept praying the formal and pietistic supplication "Dad Fix it!" Yeah, if you guys heard how I pray you'd totally roll your eyes and shake your heads. We got to the campsite after dark and quickly packed up for the return trip to Seattle. We all shook hands and agreed the hike totally kicked tail.
Matt, Nick, and I all hit up a truck stop for some food and Nick had to drive back to Seattle, I was in no condition to drive. For the second night in a row I didn't sleep only shut my eyes and lost myself in the morass of my mind and semi-stochastic musings of what God's will may be. Some kind words kept returning to mind, "Love God and do whatever you please" -Augustine. Yeah but you don't understand, if I actually trust that whatever God's will is will be accomplished when I delight in him first, then I don't have any control over the course of events....*wink... sarcasm and conviction go hand in hand*
So the three of us hit Seattle around 4:35AM, and I was showered and in bed by 6:20AM...only to get up at 7:35AM to get to church.  Right now it is 12:45AM the next day And I have slept 1.75 hours out of the last 66.25 hours.  I may be considered "sleep deprived". Pftt! That's nothing, my personal best was 87.5 hours of continuous consciousness, and the last 8 hours of that I drove from Oregon to Seattle along the Coast. Um bragging about not sleeping, now it should be obvious why the Bible has nothing positive to say about young men. Not one thing. But you say what about 1 John 2:14?!  Well young men are strong (well most of them are, the pictures above rule me out of this category). So the young men can be terrorists...that's not necessarily a complement.
Ooh one more thing to crowd this already sesquipedalian mess of a blog post.  In church the Holy Spirit totally used my fatigue by opening my mind/gut to this amazing little song my Kelsey Bernheisel. I don't even know the name of the song but here are some quotes excerpted: "We are broken, shipwrecked in the storm" "Father you set us free" "Father you are our hope" "Jesus you are all we have" "Father come and fill us up take our idols".  I know without the lyric sheet these seem pretty generic, but it meant something to me and broke me up inside.
Um I think that's all I want to type. Typos are all intentional. Yes even that one that's still bothering you.
Random Pictures Without Explanation:

 This spastic writer thanks Rodrigo Y Gabriel for their invaluable riffs and harmonies which contributed to the overall tempo of key strokes.