Rainier: Northern Loop

Beth & I set out last week to do the "northern loop" trail at Mt.Rainier. While we were planning an adventure, it turned into much more than we expected! We "ramped up" the previous week by hiking Granite Mountain Outlook near Denny Creek in the rain. We figured if we could handle that we could handle anything...

We started off at Sunrise with the plan to head west on the Wonderland trail then loop back across the northern loop. Day one we set off from Sunrise late morning. We would of been earlier, but we had to stop for a donut and cookies for lunch at the Black Diamond Bakery. Cookies talk. We stopped at the intersection with the Burroughs Trail to adjust Beth's boots (this should of been an early warning!). Some other folks were there who were on their way to Sunrise after being on the Wonderland trail for a full week. Can't say I envy their start: the previous week had a pretty heavy downfall of rain early on. They said it took two days to get everything dry! yikes. I don't mind a bit of rain, it makes a journey memorable like it or not, but a wet sleeping bag is about the worst thing in the world.

Back on the trail, we made it to Skyscrape Pass for lunch. Enjoyed some sandwiches I made in the morning along with the previously mentioned cookies. The view from up there was fantastic but eventually we had to get going again. We passed the Granite Creek camp just as I thought it would make a nice place to settle for the evening. Our reservation was for Mystic Lake, another 5.5 miles down the trail. It wasn't too bad passing around the Winthrop Glacier, but we were running low on energy on the hike up to Mystic Lake. Finally made it up there as we were both getting pretty pooped and Beth's ankle was getting bad.

Setup camp and made a little hike up to Mystic Lake just as the sun was about to disappear over the hills. Back down to camp for dinner and a checkup from Paul the ranger who gave us a heads up on our next day's hike after checking our permit. Being Beth's first backpacking hike we went a bit gourmet for dinner. Thai noodles with peanut sauce and chicken from a can. I unloaded two PBR tall boys from the pack that were a bit warm, glad I wouldn't have to carry those any further. Cleanup and it was getting pretty late, time for bed.

The next morning was some hiking through amazing meadows and down the hill following the Carbon Glacier. The original plan was for lunch at the bottom of the hill to recharge us for the trek up 3000 ft to camp at Yellowstone Cliffs. Beth's ankle was getting bad and while she wanted to go on, it wouldn't be very fun. Halfway down Ranger Paul passed us on the trail. We took the opportunity to talk with him and change our itinerary to Ipsut Creek Camp. It was further in distance but flat hiking and we could exit at the Carbon River entrance the next day to get Beth's ankle a look at.

We took it real easy the rest of the day and enjoyed the view of the glacier and river that stemmed from it. As we hiked down the hill we ran into Keri, who was also hiking to Ipsut Creek. Keri was kind enough to loan Beth his treking poles making the rest of her day a bit easier. The itinerary change was a good thing as we didn't make it to the trail intersection til late afternoon. We had a late lunch there before saying goodbye to our view of Rainier and heading into the forest.

Late afternoon dragged along til we made it to the camp. Beth returned the poles to Keri and thanked him for their use while I made some dinner. Chinese noodles in an Indian sauce with a tin of smoked mussels and another of tuna. The stuff you cook up while camping...

Got an early start the next morning and hiked out to the Carbon River entrance. Only problem at this point was the car was at Sunrise. doh! The funny thing about Carbon River is you can't see Rainier at all from there, which most people don't expect. So some people show up, figure that out, then head to a different part of the park.

With this knowledge in hand we started practicing our hitchhiking thumbs. With the thumbs along it wasn't going to happen. On to option 2: have Beth talk to drivers heading out and tell them her bad ankle situation. Fortune must of been smiling upon us as we found a mom with three kids and a big SUV. She more than kindly drove us to Sunrise. Big thanks for that!

Back at Sunrise we got a few more pictures as we had some gorp for lunch and headed back home a day early. Really beautiful trail and I'm determined to go back for more at Rainier. I'd never been to the Carbon River Entrance before but it seems like it'd make a good base camp for some hiking. You can bike the road up to Ipsut Creek camp, lockup bikes there while heading out to other camps. I'd also like to do the entire Wonderland Trail sometime next year. It'd take a lot more planning and the meals won't be quite as gourmet but it'd be a good challenge.

Boring Training Data

While I don't want to turn this blog into a boring training blog, an occasional excursion ain't all that painful. This is the third season I've used a power meter for training on the bike. I'm pretty good about putting all my data into TrainingPeaks software. Given all the workouts are there, the "CTL" it tracks is fairly accurate. Being a numbers geek, it's kind of interesting to analyze the chart and compare how the years have played out.

BARR ?

Not sure how many BARR points I've got, or if it really matters. One site lists me in fifth, another lists me in sixth. Not a big deal either way, I'm just shootin' for top 10. Of course coach wants me to get 4th or better. Sunday is Blackberry Crit, last race of the season and a final chance to get a fistful of BARR points. Gotta go for it!

The Grumpy Old Lady

Having filled out my deposit form a priori, I walked into the bank and proceeded straight to the back of the line of five customers. Early afternoon, five people in line was rather unusual. But that's fine, it's just more time away from the office.

With all the teller positions in-use, another bank employee started to walk the queue and check if everyone had their forms filled out to expedite the wait. That was when I noticed the the old lady standing in front of me.

The bank employee working the line asked if she needed a deposit or withdrawl slip. No comment from the old lady. Upon accepting rejection, the bank employee asked me the same question, this time with a puzzled look on her face. The rejection from the previous query animated the question. Both bank employee and myself made curious eye movements to the old lady in front of me as I replied "no thank you, I have my deposit slip filled out."

Another minute slowly passed as I waited for my turn in line. As I step towards the first position in line, I start to hear the conversation, no, rather, query and silence between a teller and the old lady. The old lady had presented her transaction and drivers license to the teller. The teller asked the old lady to remove her sunglasses for identification. The request went unfulfilled.

At this point another teller was free to help me with my transaction. Before helping me, I noted he had a couple words with the teller helping the old lady. As I handed him the deposit slip, he leaned forward and mentioned the old lady shows up on occasion and never talks. In fact, if tellers attempt to converse with her she starts a yelling rampage. Not a nice old lady. His words to the old lady's teller were to not talk unless the teller wants to get yelled at. Sounded like sage advice to me.

I look forward to my golden years when I can blame old age for ill behavior. Until that time I'll be continuing to scheme my madness.

Track Racing

Went to Marymoor for my first track race. Concerns about going back to cat5 racing were offset with the upshot of some victories. The chance to work on my sprint is great; but Thursday night Marymoor comes at the cost of missing Thursday night Seward Park. The latter is a much better workout given the right opportunity. Hopefully I won't miss too many more Seward races.

Within the cat5 group, we get seeded into five more groups based on a one lap time trial effort. Despite having one of the faster times I get seeded in the middle: group 3. That didn't last too long.

First race: a 6(?) lap points race with 8 riders starting. I hang near the front for the first two laps to warmup. Get in position and pop points at the line for the next couple laps and take the final lap for 3 points. A pretty hard effort, but another 10 laps would of made it more interesting. Phil, the ref, has a word with me about getting out of the saddle for sprinting. Doh!


Second race was a scratch race, 7 laps. Movin' up in the world with group two now. I sit in for the first 5 laps, sit second or third wheel and manage only get in the wind briefly. Marc from Byrne jumps, nobody follow, and he's looking pretty good. With a lap left another rider jumps hard, I'm on his wheel. I jump past him before the speed drops and nearly catch Marc. Another couple meters and I would of had him.

But that's all she wrote. Heavy wind and storm clouds were looking pretty menacing. The third race was canceled so I didn't get another chance. Yup, Seward would of been a better workout!

Back to Reality

The morning started out pretty easy but became a frantic dash as the day wore on. While packing up in the morning we received on a knock on the door from Pero, the condo owner who was staying upstairs at the Sand Castle. He informed us he was also leaving that day and, when he found out we were driving to the airport, asked for a ride. Not much of a problem but it created another thing to pay attention to. We figured out a meeting place and had about 3 hours get our last bit out of Playa.

On to town, first stop Java Joe's for some coffee. I was really craving the spicy hot chocolate of Ah Cacao but willing to try a different coffee shop. The coffee was pretty good, the bagel sandwiches were also nice.

Upon leaving the coffee shop the rest of the day's activities were a rather stressful blur of forgetfulness. It took a full search of Playa's side streets to find where we parked the car. After finding the car, we couldn't find Pero to drive him to the airport. I knew deciding to drive him to the airport was good intentioned but a bad idea. Finally, on getting close to the airport, we couldn't find where to dropoff the rental car. Visions of my credit card being charged for Fernando's personal car being lost or stolen stormed through my head. A couple phone calls later we solved the rental car problem and headed in to the airport.

The whole swine flu thing brought Mexico to a mass exodus of travelers. Really long lines and the stress of waiting in line weren't helping. But in the end we all made our flights and got to our destinations. Sitting back home now, I think there's a Mayan hot chocolate waiting for me somewhere back in Playa del Carmen that I'd like to return to.

A Fun Day Around Town

April 28th, our last full day in Mexico. The previous day we were thinking about what to do: drive to some other Mayan ruins, visit a different beach, or see what Sergio is up to... Overall we decided that we hadn't spent enough time in Playa del Carmen and decided to have a fun day in town.

Morning was a bit hectic. With Beth's conference canceled, she needed to cancel her hotel in Cancun and book a flight back home. A number of phone calls, phone cards, and headaches later we got her on a flight out for the following day. Save one lucky girl from the perils of swine flu (not!).

We hit town and for some reason our first stop wasn't coffee. We hit up Karma Bagels for a little snack and beverage while we better worked out the day's activities.

Now amped and ready for the day, we did a little shopping in the tourist area. Haggled a bit on some cowboy style hats, which we ended up getting at a good price. The vendor wanted to trade me for my Garage Racing baseball hat which I just couldn't give up. The majority of our shopping pesos were spent at one of the tequila stores on super smooth El Conquistador tequila, mezcal, and gift bottles for people back home, and basically more tequila than US Customs probably allows.

For the first time in our stay we actually visited the beach at Playa del Carmen. It's a really nice beach that runs a long way (for those "enjoy nice walks on the beach" moments). The beach restaurants serve an arm and a leg for a beer though, so was our experience at least at the Blue Parrot. 'nuff of that joint, we journeyed off the beach to Bar Ranito for better drinks, better atmosphere, and better prices.

Did a bit more exploring around town where I tried some pickup lines on a local outside a clothing shop. Apparently my espanol is weak, she didn't even respond. At least I didn't get slapped.

Had a good dinner at the La Cueva del Chango, or "cave of the monkey". This was probably the best dinner we'd had, really good food. Excepting the dinner we cooked ourselves, of course! Having read through our guide books we were determined to have a gastronomical highpoint for dessert at a difference restaurant. On to Yaxche for crepes. And no ordinary crepes either: "Mezcal Flambee Crepe". Prepared in front of us, the waiter proceeded to carmelize sugar, flame up some mezcal, add in Kahlua, bananas, mangos, top it off with some Baileys and cream. Crepes brought to a new high.

Puerto Moreles: Mondo Excellente

Woke up Monday morning to the Mayan god of rain saying hello. Chac's storm ended shortly mid-morning as we hit Ah Cacoa for beverage. Ah Cacoa has the best hot chocolate-- Mayan spiced version with a good kick. The beverage was further heightened with the addition of a shot of espresso. Meanwhile the lady enjoyed a hot vanilla concoction which did not involve caffeine. Not sure how Beth made it through the day.

Drove north to Puerto Moreles after the beverage injection. I was starting to get more used to the driving in Mexico, a rather elite skill which I'm sure will only get me in trouble back in the states. Moreles was a short drive to the quaint little town. If I were to revisit the area I'd without question put home base in this area. A couple restaurants, cafe, nice beach, and small town were pretty nice amongst the other areas we'd been. Moreles seemed to strike the correct balance between the large touristy area of Playa and desolate nature of Paamul.

We hit the beach and changed in appropriate attire. Our skills at haggling reached a new high as we negotiated for a beach umbrella and snorkeling in the reef off of Moreles. Yup, snorkelling! We were assured that our captain, Raul, would be along shortly so we relaxed along the beach with a beverage. A mexican hour later Raul showed up to take us out on the water after fitting us up with fins and snorkel. Having not snorkeled before it was quite the salty experience. Lots of sea life, and that wasn't even the other tourists that were with us. We got about 90 minutes in the water and came out like prunes after the experience. Somehow we seemed to forget towels which probably didn't help the cold body temperature. Anyway, back to solid land of sandy beach to warm up.

Having done our share of exercise for the day we were off to reload on carbs. The tour books we had mentioned a restaurant that, upon in-depth inspection, was out of business. So it appeared. A later tour of the town showed it moved up the street. Doh! In the meanwhile we hit a taqueria that had ok heuvos rancheros and pescados tacos. Sanitary conditions were superb for an outskirt taqueria-- meaning it had a cup full of water to wash your hands with after using the banos. I don't recall if the toilet actually had a toilet seat, but I'm sure Beth can comment to that. This was about the time that news of swine flu was actually reaching us. I was of the opinion swine/wine, so it didn't really bug me in the scheme of things. I was more in shock that had I booked the vacation later we probably could of traveled dirt cheap. :)

After lunch we drove back to Playa for some grocery shopping and crashed pretty early in the evening. The evening brought on a home cooked meal of pescado and carne tacos with mole sauce and many good veggies. Beth is convert to the goodness of mole sauce after that dinner. Chilled at our place while watcing the Daily Show which reinforced our mocking of swine flu paranoia.

Mayan Ruins, Cenotes, and Sergio

Sunday, April 26th. We (both!) got an early start this morning for a drive out to the Mayan ruins at Coba. We considered Tuumul, but decided we wanted something less touristy. I would of really liked to see Chichen Itza, but the drive was too far. Coba it was. To make things even more interesting, Beth drove. Mexico didn't know what it had coming.

The drive out to Coba was pretty nice. South along the riviera, then inland along a two lane highway passing many small villages along the way. We also passed a number of cenote parks, but more on that later...

Coba is a pretty big Mayan site. In fact, they rent bicycles if you don't want to walk the distance from site to site. Bicycles?! We had to get in on this, Huffy wars commence! The ruins were amazing, we saw Mayan ballcourts, climbed the pyramid Nohuch Mul (139 feet tall!), and eavesdropped on guided tours. If only the guided tours were in english, we would of actually understood them.

The drive back home found us stopping for a bite at a taqueria for a lunch of tortas and tacos. It was here that we decided the weather was warm enough to warrant a refreshing swim in one of the local cenotes. The guide book we had mentioned a cenote park that was featured in National Geographic. It was kind of spendy at $25 apiece; travelling on a budget we decided to go off the beaten path and try one of the other cenote parks we passed on the way in to Coba. And it was only $8 each, what a deal!

The lack of any other tourists at the park should of been a clue that we were stumbling upon a hidden gem. After taking our money, we were appointed a guide, Sergio, that knew less english than I knew spanish. That's pretty rare. Still, Sergio was a competent guide. Bathing suits in our hands, he led us to...not a cenote. First stop was the re-creation of a mayan hut. Supposedly. Inside the hut were many tools used by the ancient mayans. Sergio proceeded to point at tools and say the spanish word for each one. And by tools I mean a rusty wrench, pick axe, sewing machine... these were definitely ancient mayan tools. A rusty wrench?! Beth, with her mucho excellente spanish, asked how old the tools were. "Muchos muchos ano". Thanks Sergio.

Ok, so how about that refreshing swim? Not yet. Next stop: the zoo. The park had quite a farm of animals: rooster, chicken, peacock, monkey, boar. Yes, those were singular. This ain't no Noah's Ark; here they only had one of each animal. Sergio would point to each animal and say it in spanish. That was about the extent of it.

Quite a bit of walking later, we were on to the cenotes. Stairs led us down a big hole in the ground to a cool underworld of, ready for this? About three feet of murky, standing water with bats flying around. What a pleasant place to swim! Sergio seemed surprised we lost our excitement for a swim. Not sure why that would be. We then saw another couple cenotes after this one, all in similar condition. One without water that had dried up. On our way out we got a very unnecessary tour of the horse stable. The $8 was very well spent for the, uh, astonishment of the whole experience. We quickly drove back to Playa.

Paamul: Mexican trailer parks rock

First morning on vacation, woke up early and made a nice cooked breakfast with oats, mango, and milk. mmmm.... Once the rest of the Mayan Riviera was up and moving, we drove south 15 minutes to Paamul for some sun on an empty beach.

Paamul is pretty small. A cool looking trailer park, restaurant, and a beautiful beach. Not sure what else one would need..? Sitting on the beach near the restaurant I enjoyed a cerveza while Beth worked on a mondo strong margarita. The drinks and made it pretty easy to distract us while we were getting pretty good sun. Oh yeah, I'm from the pacific northwest. I seemed to forget that.

Drove back to "Playa" as it's called in the afternoon. Lunch at a taqueria; the restauranter said the dog tacos were pretty good so I couldn't pass him up on that. Somewhere along the way Beth missed her sunglasses, so after lunch we made our way to Walmart. Yes, Walmart. While I can't really compare to US Walmarts, the Mexican one seemed pretty well stocked. Actually, I think the Playa Walmart was even better equipped: a parking lot attendant was there to put cardboard on windshields of cars in the parking lot to protect from the sun. Ok, I'm not sure if he was a full time employee...but that's something you don't see to often.

Back home to crash for awhile. Then off to get some dinner; we decided to walk to town. First stop: Cafe Sasta for caffeine. And whatdya know, but they had blueberry muffins. Before the trip, when I didn't think we'd see blueberry anything in Mexico, I said I'd do a tequila shot if we found blueberries while on vacation. So after being hopped up on caffeine we went out for some tequila. Beth wasn't familiar with the various types of tequila so we had to get a blanco, reposado, and anejo. Fair enough. Now we were doing pretty good.

So yeah, about that dinner. Walked over to a grocery store to pickup some goods: tortillas, peppers, chicken, tomato, beans, avocado, salsa. Maybe it's my misplaced tex-mex taste buds, but the home cooked food was better than most of the restaurant food we had all vacation. Then again, it could be due to the taquerias serving dog.

Mexico Arrival

Beth & myself left from Seattle to Cancun on the morning of April 24th. Arrived to find our rental car waiting for us. The rental car hand off was slightly odd. The rental agency was not at the airport, so Fernando picked us up in the car itself. It could very well of been Fernando's personal car. Any thoughts of problems were put aside as Fernando handed us the keys to the car along with a Corona each. Let's see that type service from Avis. Welcome to Mexico!

It was about an hour drive from the airport to Playa del Carmen where we'd be staying. First stop though was the local grocery store for some basic staples. Cerveza, breakfast food, fruits, snacks. After numerous speed bumps we found the Sand Castle. Took way to much time to get into our place since the directions led us to the correct house but gave no clue as to how to actually get in.

Somehow entering the place sapped mondo energy. A culmination of the day's journey was catching up with us, it was getting late and starting to get dark out. Determination to not just crash on our first night in Mexico somehow kept us going. Oh yeah, lack of food in the stomach was another major factor; the mangos we got at the store weren't going to do justice.

Drove into town and decided to hit John Gray's. The reviews in the books I'd read made it sound really good. And, well, it wasn't bad. Overpriced and more of a metropolitan atmosphere than we expected. I would of been satisfied with a taqueria and cerveza. Made up for the dinner with a Mayan hot chocolate at Ah Cacoa for dessert.