Geoff Climbs (on) Mt. Rainier

Yeah, okay, so we haven't updated the blog in six months. We have 4 children and about 4 minutes of spare time each week. But now we're finally catching you up on the last six months, mostly in photos, which is usually the best part anyway. Geoff's supposed to be finishing his big paper right now, so Melody is stepping in to blog. (This is my first blog, so be kind.)

So at last update, we were in the middle of June.

At the end of June, Geoff's father Garry celebrated his 60th birthday by climbing Mt. Rainier. He brought Geoff, two friends from L.A. who flew up for the event, and a newbie climber from Geoff's office. Turns out, no one from the team made the summit--too much new snow made the final assent impossible to all but one ambitious team that weekend. Both Garry and Geoff have summited Mt. Rainier in summers long past (see Geoff's previous blog on Rainier). Another summit would have been icing on the cake, but the views were awesome, and there were only minor injuries requiring just a few stitches. So, all in all, a successful event.

Garry celebrates his 60th birthday by climbing Mt. Rainier.

Allen and Dave, friends from L.A. flew up for the climb.

It's all up hill from here.

Newbie climber, Michael leads the rope team up the slope.

Here, I'll digress. While a marathon runner and thrill seeker, Michael had never been mountaineering. And since he was in Washington on an internship with the JAG office, he didn't have all his equipment with him. So Geoff and I loaned him what we had, my backpack, my harness, my carabiners, my sleeping bag, etc., etc. Geoff pulled all these things out of our basement and Michael stuffed them into my pack for the trip. The first night they camped at Glacier Basin. Garry, Michael and Geoff shared a tent, and while they were setting up, Geoff pulled out his sleeping bag only to find Dustin's orange bag with blue stars and moons. "Um, Michael. Pull out your sleeping bag for me," said Geoff. Michael dutifully pulled out his bag to find Megan's purple bag with hearts and flowers. Now, Geoff's a bit vertically challenged, so he was able to squirm down into the 3/4 length bag (which at least was rated to 20 degrees), but Michael is 6'2" tall and a barrel chested youth. The bag came up to his rib cage. Michael had to sleep in his coat all night, and since the bag was so narrow, he couldn't bend in the bag and had to be zipped in for the night by Geoff and Garry.

Geoff's snowman at Camp Sherman. He and Garry decided to forgo a punishing attempt at the summit in deep new snow and let Dave, Allen and Michael kick steps all day. It was a gorgeous day.

During the descent, the team was met at Glacier Basin by a bear (brown smudge across the lake).

Garry took a nasty fall on the way down and had a large gash over his right eye. Dave is a mountain rescue type, and had the uber first aid kit and the know-how to patch him up for the remaining descent. Michael and Allen ferried Garry's pack down the rest of the mountain, and Geoff stayed with Garry to make sure all was well. Dave had a nasty limp most of the way down--knee pain from kicking steps into new snow for what seemed like hours and hours. So Geoff took all the heavy climbing equipment from Dave's pack to help ease the weight on his knee. Once they got back, Garry's cut needed stitches. Our neighbor, Michael, is a family practice doctor who opened his office on a Sunday to get Garry stitched up.

Everyone else escaped only with sore backs and chaped lips.

Six months old and counting. Real Food. Promotions and Summer!

Great things are going on around here!

On 30 May the babies turned 6 months. To celebrate we gave them their first solid foods. Rice cereal mixed with formula. We've also since then tried homemade applesauce and they seem to like eating real foods, but they still prefer Mom. William's "baby talk" is getting very impressive and has passed up his sister's. He actually has something that he says that sounds so like "I want my mommy" that it is creepy. I'm sure he isn't saying that, but it fits with the context and it really does sound like it! I'm not crazy! The are both getting bigger and bigger and developing more personality. Neither is crawling yet, but it can't be much longer, especially for William who is still bigger by about two pounds. We still can't sleep through the night, but we get by and it is still so very worth it.

William trying out solid foods for his first time. Not bad he thinks...

Mom thinks feeding her babies from a spoon is pretty fun also!

Dad and Eleanor enjoying a meal together

Going for a walk (and a nap) in the chariot - the throw is a DeWeese family tradition

Melody is putting on Geoff's new rank insignia - this used to be called "pinning" on rank, but now the rank is attached with velcro on the chest. But don't expect Soldiers to start talking about "velcroing" in the future! We did the ceremony in the courtroom as seemed appropriate given what I do and love.

My boss, Lietuenat Colonel Kraus, helps out with the ceremony. He's been a great supporter and leader for the past year. Leaders like him, and my past two bosses, LTC Wells and LTC Corn are part of why I'm still in uniform today.

As I gave my promotion speech William wanted to be held and I thought it was pretty fitting to hold one of my babies as I talked about my promotion. I've been blessed with an amazing family and I could not have made it over 11 years in the Army without the support of an amazing wife like Melody. It is hard to believe I've been in this long. I've gone from private DeWeese to Major DeWeese!

Melody putting some of the final touches on a great promotion bar-b-que party we had. She is amazing and the party was a lot of fun in no small part to her hard work.

Now this is the strangest thing. The morning after our party I was up and went to throw a bag of garbage into the can outside our backdoor. There is a small porch there and the cans are next to it, so you can see into the cans from the porch as you are above them. As I began to toss the bag in something caught my eye. I looked closer and at first throught there was a dead cat or dog in our garbage, but then on closer look I realized it was something else. I gave the can a slight kick and the thing moved. It turns out it was a opossum and it had given birth (and maybe was still givnig birth). At first it actually had its head in an old garbage bag in the can wich is why it looked so strange. We ended up just leaving it there all day and by the afternoon we counted seven babies. A little after midnight I heard it outside and indeed it had moved all its babies somewhere else. Very fun and very strange!

Megan and her little Brother and Sister!

Dustin the pirate, wearing his light saber!

Mom and her youngest daughter hang out....

and William and mommy nap together!

As we move into Summer, it seemed a good time to get a new and improved swimming pool. The kids love this one! Here Megan is sliding on in as Dustin stays out of the way.

It sure looks like a huge danger, doesn't it! But no, they are fine and have great fun doing crazy slides into the pool!

Dustin checks things out on top of the slide before going in as Megan heads back for a huge running start on her next dip in the pool!

Megan on her way down...

and making a big splash as she lands!

Dustin just enjoying life

We'll that is it for now. I have one more week of work (including a trial) and next friday is my last day here. I start leave on Monday the 25th. After a little climb up Mt. Rainier, we'll have a lot of activity as the movers come and then we'll start the drive to Virginia. Hard to believe this latest chapter in our life is nearly at an end...

College Rainier Days

Back in college at Seattle Pacific University I did a lot of mountaineering. Sadly, I haven't done too much since then. And then was in the early 90s!

Now my Dad is going to turn 60 in just two weeks. He also did a lot of mountaineering, but it was more like the late 60s for him!

To celebrate his birthday we've organized a group to climb Mount Rainier, AKA "The Mountain", again. We'll be going up the Emmons/Winthrop route on the eastern side. It starts at the White River Campground to Glacier Basin where we'll stay the first night, then up to Camp Schurman at about 9000 feet the second night. We'll get a very early start and then up to the top (14,410) and back to Camp Schurman. Instead of pushing it all the way down, we'll give ourselves another night at Camp Schurman and then back down the rest of the way the next morning.

Dad climbed this way once, and via the Paradise/Camp Muir to Emmons route the first time. I climbed twice, with one summit, both times via the Paradise route. I'm really looking forward to seeing a different part of the peak. This route starts at Paradise, then up to Camp Muir via the Muir snowfields. Most parties camp there, but both times I went we continued on across the Cowlitz glacier to the Ingraham flats on the Ingraham glacier. This put us ahead of the guided groups and over 3/4 of the parties on the peak wich makes for a much nicer day two. The first time we moved out up the rocks of the Disappointment Cleaver to the Emmons glacier and the summit, the second time was earlier in the summer and we were able to go straight up the Ingraham glacier and curve right to the Emmons above the Cleaver. Much nicer. Sadly the weather turned on us and we found ourselves in white out conditions despite it being a beautiful day and one of our guys had numb hands so we turned back. The weather of course cleared and was beautiful on the way down!

Below are pictures I scanned in from those trips. It will be fun to compare to the pictures I hope to have of the attempt at the end of June!

Just above Paradise, ready to go all the way!

The trail up to Muir is very interesting and beautiful.

Mount Adams off in the distance from the Muir snowfields.

At Camp Muir with the Snowfields below. Days not done yet!

The Ingraham Flats - a great place to camp.

One of the more interesting aspects of camping on the Flats - don't stray too far at night! This cravase could eat a house and it was only a litte ways from our camp. In fact, you can see its end just over my friend's heads in the picture above.

This was looking over the way to the right, you can see a bit of the path there...

Why bother with a tent when you can get a great night's rest under the stars! I'm reading the classic guide by Fred Becky that my then girlfriend (a beauty named Melody!) had given me. She said maybe it would end up on "our" bookcase some day and it did!

Dawn and we've already climbed up the Cleaver by the light of our headlamps. A brutal and tedious climb. The coming of the dawn was a welcome sight.

On the way up!

The Summit! I got sick at about 13500 or so, didn't drink enough water either. I didn't have much energy up top, but started to feel better as we started down. Still, the summit is the summit and I made it!!

I'm pretty sure this was on the way down when I started feeling much better.

At the top of the cleaver, a long way to go down still!

Looking down through Cadaver Gap. Somewhere way down there is Paradise and the end of the trip...

My team (Scott, Jim and Trevor) for climb two. Does it look like it would turn into a white out on top the next day?!

Roping up on the Cowlitz glacier on the way to Cathedral Gap and the Ingraham glacier

Familar digs on the Flats. Amazing sunny weather.

Looking south to Little Tahoma Peak.

Looking up the mountain from just below camp. You can see the faint path on the right of the shadow as it zig-zags directly up the Ingraham glacier. Compare to the picture above as I came down the mountain and you can see how it was possible to avoid the cleaver this time and stay on the glacier. The difference between about a month of climbing season - earlier means less cravasses. You can see some slight plums of snow kicking off the top from the wind we'd run into the next day.

After dawn we took a break at a big bergschrund. We had to kick steps up through this to keep going. It was the most technical part of this climb, and it was about an hour latter that we had to turn back due to the white out and a team members numb-cold hands. It is always smarter to turn back than to go to far...

Taking a break after we got down a ways and out of the wind and white out. Disappointed not to summit again, but still having a great climb. Note the old school wood ice axe I used in those days. It was my Moms! I finally retired it a few years ago and now have a more modern one for this next climb. It is displayed on the wall proudly. Hanging from it just over my elbow you can see my old school helmet that I used - it was Dads. I just replaced that a month ago for the new trip.

Looking through Cadaver Gap, this time with much less cravasses than the picutre from the first climb.

Heading down the Ingraham glacier. No sign of the winds above...

Camp far below on the flats, the path is a practical highway coming up the glacier.

Taking a break. Sunburn on Trevor was pretty bad and is a reminder that the sun off the snow can be killer.

Back at camp. Trevor wearing a scarf to protect his face from further burns...

So, no pictures of cute kids or any recent updates. Quite the opposite as the pictures are all from over 15 years ago! But it is fun to remember those climbs and to look forward to the climb at the end of June. Also, Dustin is such a climber already that it is fun for him to see pictures of his Dad climbing mountains. He is looking forward to doing these climbs himself (maybe even with me and William someday?).