Saturday, February 16, 2008

An epic of Odysseun proportions

The Odyssey is a long trip by Ulysses, full of peril. I tried to invent a word (it wasn't in spellcheck) in my last newspaper article, but they wouldn't let me. The editors changed it to Odysseus. So my "Odysseun feel to the event" (which is what I wrote the Xterra Winter World Championships is going to be) ended up the "Odysseus feel" or something like that. Perhaps competitors will get to touch Odysseus during their events. How annoying. Don't you think Odysseun is a good word?

So today Mike and I took on our own Odysseun epic. We climbed Malan's peak with our snowshoes. I was testing out my new Mountain Hardwear Ascent Ventigaiters, and they ended up being pretty awesome, not clumping up with snow, like my old ones did, and venting nicely when it got too hot. I like to wear shoes, instead of boots, because boots rub me wrong, and the tight elastic in the back did slip up the last half hour and let a little bit of snow in the back of my shoe. I think I just need a bigger size so they will sit a little lower on my shoe.

We forgot our camera, so we have no pictures of the awesome view and the beautiful bowl where they want to build a tram and resort and stuff. It would be so sad to turn it into a resort. But it seems inevitable. Maybe not though. They've been proposing a tram up there for 100 years now.

We were inspired to climb Malan's by this retired guy who has climbed Malan's peak every day for almost 500 days in a row. It's about 7,000 feet high, and has a gain of about 3,000 feet from trailhead to summit. We were tired of going on hikes where we never reached a destination. Although these were exciting and fun to do as a family, this was a leave-the-girls at home hike, so that way we could hike for more than 40 minutes without hearing, "I want to go home." (By leave the girls at home, I mean leave them with my mom)

When we got to the top Mike was obssesed with rolling snowballs off and walking on the cornice to see if he could fall to his death. What is it with men and rolling rocks/snowballs/danger? Maybe it is just Mike. On the way down, Mike short-cut the switchbacks (which is probably a huge no-no in the summer, but didn't seem to be bad in the snow), and I followed because it looked really fun. It was almost like skiing in some parts. We made it down in half the time it took to get up. It took us about three hours to do the whole hike.

Next time we win the lottery we want to buy randonnee ski equipment and become true backcountry folks. We figure with the exorbitant cost of ski passes, this will be the only way we can afford to daytime ski.

It was a fun hike, but we think the guy who hiked it 500 times in a row is kind of crazy. A fun kind of crazy, but still.

1 comment:

Czechers said...

I like your odysseun word. How can they expect to have an interesting newspaper without cutting edge diction?? Would we like Shakespeare or Doctor Suess so much without their tendency to make up a needed word now and then?
Your hike sounded really fun! I would have loved to join Mike in rolling snowballs off the edge! It was great seeing you all, while we were in town. The hardest part of our trip was that it was so short. -Dan