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.

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.

Sickness = Reading

Miles Run:122.9

Miles Biked:85.99
Total Miles:208.89
Stadium Stairs Run*:2244
Steep Steps Run*:1340
Days to Rainier:108
Summit Team:8
Aspirin Tablets:42

Woke feeling like crap today, called in sick to work. So I read all of Steinbeck's The Pearl and 1/3 of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America while trying not to think of throwing up. After recovering, I ran 7.07 miles.

Blog Outline:

I. Preparing to Build

II. Wedding

III. Night Hike

IV. Steven's Pass

V. The Pearl

VI. Democracy in America

VII. Super Awesome Good News

I. Week before last I was assigned the fun task of reading a book and summarizing it as part of my internship. The title was Preparing to Build. So I got to learn about how a church can first perform a successful feasibility study, set specific building goals, identify a specific vision, communicate this vision to the church body, raise funds, and then search for the land, designer, and builder for the new building. The non-disclosure forms I happily signed before beginning my internship deny me the pride-inducing revelation of why this book needed to be "cliff-noted" for the elders, but it's pretty sweet. I really appreciated learning and being honored to prepare this doc.

II. Two of my friends got married week before last, so I shaved off my beard and threw on my tux and shades. When I showed up to the wedding, only those who have spent a lot of time with me knew me (mainly just my community group). The rest who had just seen me around or briefly conversed with me didn't recognize me. I introduced myself to everyone as "Tony." I was amazed how many people bought the jesting false identity.

III. Two weeks ago I held my first group hike of 2011. I took 10 people up to the top of Tiger Mountain #2 and then on to #3. We gained and lost 2272 feet on our 4.56 mile round-trip. One of our hikers had some problems with her calf cramping up. But other than that we has great weather and even enjoyed 6 inches of wet snow on top of Tiger #2. The night started in dense fog, but we hiked above the clouds and saw out to a 25 mile horizon across the Kent valley to Federal Way from Tiger #2 and across Issaquah to Bellevue from Tiger #3. Check out the elevation profile:

(Kinda looks like a face...)

IV. Ronda in my community group invited the entire group up to her ex-husband's cabin in the mountains off highway 2. I got to meet him. You know how when you hear someone's story about how much a jerk someone else is, you think, "yeah, yeah everyone seems right until the other side is heard." We'll Ronda's side of the story was right. The cabin was amazing with a sweet pool table and being placed right on a river was blessed with a smooth continuous stream of conscious interrogatives from acqua pura punctuated rarely by the roar and whistle of a passing Northern Pacific train. I even got to ski! I really enjoy skiing; it is my favorite winter activity. The top of Steven's Pass Ski Resort is 5584ft. By weak-minded, stubborn, milquetoast blindness, I followed Lisa, Mackenzie, and David up to the peak which has only diamond and double diamond ski-runs to allow escape from such an alpine penitentiary. I crashed, slipped, and careened all morning until lunch with the CG, after which I gained more confidence and started cutting a decent rug on the snow-laced dance runs. A great weekend.

V. The Pearl by John Steinbeck is a masterpiece of a parable with apparent subtle hints of Marxian economics. However when you look deeper, Steinbeck's heart is dreadfully wounded by the plight of the poor in all times and in all places. He spent months in Baja California and made numerous friends with the poor locals of Mexico whose families had lived under subjugation for generations. For those who have read The Jungle, a fictional narrative starring Jurgis Rudkus, (blatantly false yet powerfully moving) written by Upton Sinclair, we all resonate with the passion to rise up and defend those who are taken advantage of and oppressed economically. I would argue that this sense of objective justice come from Jesus, God, who set THE knowledge of righteousness in every man's heart (though many intentionally pervert it). The Story of Kino, his wife Juana, and their infant Coyotito revolves around a poor family stricken by circumstance who are blessed with the gift of a singularly amazing pearl. They dream of all the innocent improvements that the money from the sale of the pearl will bring, little Coyotito can be the first one in the family to be educated; he can find out what is really in those books that the wealthy men speak of. They are plagued by thieves and cruel men intent on cheating them of this gift. Kino kills four men and looses his son all due to the greed the pearl inspires, the ending is very anti-climactic and left me facing my own greedy, wanton, fleshly desires to yearn for the precious. During the same time, J.R.R. Tolkien was writing his Lord of the Rings saga. These two stories show the all-too-twisted human nature that will go to any length to acquire the promise of a changed life...changed not on God's terms but rather on the self's terms. I guess I am confessing that I am a bit like the pearl dealers, Smeagol, and even Kino. Buy what is my great Pearl? Maybe it's my self-sufficiency or my desire for control over my life or my pursuit of comfort.

VI. I just brushed the surface of A. de Tocquville's political treatise on America in the 1830s, so I can't really comment on it, but I like his pursuit of objectivity in addressing the topic of what makes America tick.

VII. Oh what is the Great Super Awesome News? Well I am finally a master!!!!

No, I can't move objects using the mythical Force, shoot blue lightening from my fingertips, and fight impossible enemies with a light sabre, but I can crunch numbers faster than an African Swallow can carry a coconut to England so Monty Python can make weird little jokes about it.

In short I have just graduated from the University of Washington with a Master's Degree in Economics.

yeah!