December 30, 2007

Sunday, December 30, 2007 6:26:06 AM

Yesterday was an interesting day. I was able to start the day getting a lot of planning done with respect to my future schedule. I was pretty happy with what I came up with. Like a set of cloths that looks good on the rack I will need to try it on to know if it is as comfortable and nice as it looks. The schedule allocates a default of 38 hours of work a week which I think will be plenty if I am working on the right things. I tried to use what I had learned from uncle Erik about using a 3 day cycle of 1 day administrative, 1 day execution and 1 day recharge. 

It is amazing to me how much does not fit into a week. It is pretty obvious to me looking at the schedule why I am not currently getting to my journal on a regular basis or exercising on a regular basis. I am not sure I will really need an hour nap every day especially after I get exercising on a regular basis but I want to leave the nap in there because it is the kind of thing that will give me a nice buffer to prevent burn out and keep my efficiency up. It may also easily turn into my journaling time although I may also push journaling into morning prep.

Mike Owens came over yesterday to show me the tool blender. It is used for creating 3D images. Blender also has a game engine. I was very impressed with the tool. It left me quite confused because it made it seem tempting to believe that I would be able to develop a 3D game with a lot less effort than I had originally anticipated. It also looked like a nice way to develop graphics. I will admit that I am a little worried about relying on a freeware tool because it seems that a lot of times the freeware tools do not have their seams covered as well as commercial products. I was disappointed to learn that After Effects was not a commercial version of Blender. I was very overwhelmed as I tried to figure out how to do things in After Effects. I also started to wonder about the wisdom of paying $2500 for software when I may be able to get software for free that would do the same thing. The truth is that it doesn’t do the same thing it is just that After Effects is a lot more video focused than 3D object focused. I think Photo Shop has some 3D modeling capability as does illustrator but I don’t think they offer what I saw in blender. With that said there isn’t a reason I can’t use blender in parallel to what I do in other programs. What has me overwhelmed right now is that I feel like I need to have mastery of several programs which I do not. I just need to slow down and accept that it will take me time to learn the software and acquire some new skills that I do not currently have.

Acquiring new skills is a large part of my objective in changing my endeavor however I don’t want to get caught in the trap of always learning and never doing. I think my project schedule will help keep me balanced in this point. I am going to make a learning project which will allow me several hours to get familiar with each program and each concept as well as a couple of learning projects.

Lexie and I have been yelling at the kids way too much lately. I think it is because we are feeling more and more stress as the day to leave gets closer and closer but it doesn’t seem like the work needing to be done before we leave doesn’t seem to be diminishing at the same rate time is disappearing. It seems like it takes most of our available energy lately just to keep up with the messes that the kids make. Yesterday it seemed like they just went from one activity that generated work for us to another. We need to figure out a way to teach them to pull weight at least to the point that we don’t lose our day just chasing their messes. I am hoping our trailer life helps in this respect in that there should be fewer things to do and we should have better visibility of what the kids are doing at a given time. One of their favorite tricks lately is to go to the floor we are not on and make a mess there. Actually they just make a mess where ever they are it is just that the messes get a chance to get a lot worse when the kids are out of sight.

I am finally getting to what I wanted to put in my journal this morning and that is a lecture for the kids. I want to come up with something simple enough for them to understand but comprehensive enough to cover enough that we can operate with a clear understanding. I’ll give it a try now …

Children, sometimes small people are asked to do big things. Now is one of those times. The things in the world that some people think are the most important are not the most important things after all. Money and power are not the most important things in the world. Having everybody accept and understand you is not the most important thing in the world. Being true to God is the most important thing in the world.

We are going on a great adventure. We are going to have a lot of fun. Mommy and Daddy believe that the trip we are going on is something God wants us to do. The trip is not going to be easy all of the time. Things are not supposed to be easy all the time. We get the strongest when we work the hardest. We want to be strong. We want to be smart. We cannot be strong or smart if we are not willing to do the things it takes to become strong and smart.

I love you children and your mother more than anything else in this world. I am very glad that I get to share my life with you. I am very excited that we are going to get to spend more time together when we go into the trailer.

What mommy and daddy are doing is very scary for grown ups. After daddy leaves on the trip we won’t be getting paid from a company anymore. It is not certain when we will be able to have money. Many people decide not to do what we are doing because they are too scared of the thought of not having money. We think that living a good life and having love in the family is more important than money. Things are going to be hard for mommy and daddy. Mommy and daddy need help from the kids. We are a team. What we are doing is so hard that mommy and daddy can not do everything that needs to be done. Mommy and daddy need the children to help to accomplish the goals of the family. The bigger you are the more you are going to be able to do. The things we need the kids to do are:

Love one another avoiding fighting. We live in a world where there are many bad and ugly things. We want our family to be a good and beautiful thing. The people in our family are our best friends and the best part of ourselves. A fight with someone in the family is a fight against ourselves. Let’s think of lots of nice things to say to each other and lots of nice things to do for each other.

Clean up messes. There is a lot of work that needs to be done every day so that we can have food, cloths and shelter. It even takes work to play. As a team we need to share the work. We all need to do some work that helps everybody and we need to be sure that we do not cause extra work for anybody. If we make a mess it is our responsibility to clean it up. It is not fair that someone else needs to clean up a mess that we make.

Work hard in school. It is everybody’s individual responsibility to learn. We can not learn things for you. The trip we are taking is going to cost a lot of money. The reason we are going to spend so much money is that we believe that you will be able to learn more things if you are able to see more things. It would be very sad if you saw things but didn’t learn because you were not working hard. Of course you will not be able to learn everything all at once and you will not be able to remember everything that you see however if you always work hard to learn things you will be able to learn many things.

Obey mom and dad. What we are doing is not as safe as living in the house. We are going to go to many strange places. At the house you have learned what places are safe and what places are not safe. In the places we are going you do not know these things. Mom and dad are going to work hard to be able to keep you safe. We cannot keep you safe if you do not obey us. Important things for example are when we tell you to come we need you to come. When we tell you to stay in an area you MUST stay in that area.

 

Children we love you so much. We want you to be happy. We work hard to do things that will make you happy. When you are our age we expect that you will be very, very happy that you were able to go on such a neat trip. We think that you are going to be able to have more fun than you have ever had in your whole lives. We are going to go to lots of museums, we are going to go camping, we are going to go rock climbing, we are going to the beach, we are going to Disney Land, we are going to go to the Grand Canyon and we are going to do many more things. We are very, very happy that we can do those things with you. We love you.

--End of Lecture. I think that covered most of what is on my mind but doesn’t quite meet my brevity requirement yet. I might go back and refine it and possibly even video tape it. Sometimes it seems that the kids pay more attention to the TV than me anyway… Something nice about a video tape is that it can control its emotion a bit better and isn’t threatening.

***As an after the fact note I did video tape this leture and it was very effective. The kids would watch the video up to 5 times in a row to delay bed time. They also refer to it often.

December 26, 2007

Wednesday, December 26, 2007 1:52:56 PM

Today has been an off day.  I am not feeling extremely depressed but I am feeling so overwhelmed I can’t seem to get anything done.  I woke up at about 3:30AM and could not get back to sleep.  I think it was from stress of pending work.  I am sure I am overwhelmed with what I feel like I need to get done in the time I feel like I need to get it done.  With that I am also probably feeling sick from all of the chocolate I have been eating.  This morning I was certain I was going to throw up.  By afternoon it has been going away but I still have a bunch of “pukey” burps.  I am feeling very down on myself about how fat I am getting but I haven’t been doing anything about it.  I think I am caught in the “tomorrow” syndrome.   I am at a very frustrating stage with my hernia recovery in as much as that I do not have the capacity to be fully functional but I do have the energy and anxiety of not getting much done.  As we are trying to get the final stages of moving prep done I am feeling especially trapped in my condition.  I am certain that a lot of physical activity would be a big help to my state of mind.

With that said I have been thinking about how difficult it will be to have days like today in the trailer.  The kids have extra energy, I am feeling sick.  Lexie is working to an agenda that isn’t lined up exactly with me or the kids.  I appreciate what Lexie is doing it is just frustrating that I can’t participate in lock step.  We will need strategies to deal with days like this from the trailer.  Letting the kids go out to play in traffic or out in the woods with bears is not an acceptable solution.  One thing I am counting on improving in our situation is that I am hoping that the reduction in overhead will result in fewer days like this where everyone (or at least me) is overwhelmed.  It used to be on Sundays Lexie and I would manage to trade naps and get through the day pretty well that way.  I am hoping we can find something similar to do in the trailer where we get the quiet bunch and the noisy bunch separated for intervals sufficient to get each the reset that they need.

One of the things I have not done yet which I really really want to get done is to get a definition of what the perfect trailer day would be like so that we can start to work toward it.  I still don’t know but these are some ideas to get started on:

• Exercise every day. Everyday because every day is easier to keep track of.  While I am getting started I think I will use rest days for stretching.  I think the exercise needs to be on the order of 45-90 minutes.
• 5-10 hours of work depending on the days agenda
• Simple healthy meals that are cleaned up right after they are eaten.  Meals will be planned such that they stay healthy, economic and interesting to eat.
• Time interacting with the children and helping them develop toward their goals.
• Trailer cleaned at 9AM, 1PM, and 7PM every day.
• Journal and blog entries done every day.  At least one picture per blog entry to improve the photo coverage of our activities.
• Skill development of some kind.  In my case mostly related to meeting goals of attaining skills needed for my development.
• A family activity (size will vary by school schedule)
• Spiritual time for reflection, meditation and prayer

I think those are a pretty good start.  Some weekly items include:

• Planning, meals, activities, lodging, school goals, work goals
• Laundry
• Shopping
• Church
• Big blog update.

December 22, 2007

Saturday, December 22, 2007 4:45:53 AM

I have been putting off my journal more than I have intended.  I guess that shows the difficulty of it or at least the lack of habit on my part.  As I am struggling to gain control of my life and put my greatest efforts toward my greatest desires journaling is an area that is still out of order.  Writing is something that I know can survive my own mortality.  It is also a way I can sort things out and understand and even shape the experience I am having.

I think the happiest lives are the most connected lives, the lives of people who live making a positive impact on other people.  I also think they are the lives of the most empowered people.  I also believe they are the loves of people who do what they love and love what they do.

As I am making this major change in my employment these are the things I am thinking of.  It is very difficult to put money down on the list because I know there is a comfort and a power that comes with money.  There is also of course a powerlessness and an enslavement that comes with its lust.  Right now what I am hoping is that I will be able to rid myself of my stuff and stop spending a greater part of  my life energy in its maintenance but rather free up my time so that I can truly get things in order and gain a greater understanding of life and the things in it.

We watched an incredible documentary last night.  I don’t exactly remember the title off the top of my head but it was something to the effect of “God must have forgotten us”.  I was a little nervous about it at first but I am so glad I watched it.  The documentary told the story of a group of Sudanese boys who were orphaned or separated during the civil war in the late 80’s.  There was a decree from the north to kill of castrate all boys.  If I remember correctly there were 27000 who started on the exodus out of Sudan but only about 12000 who arrived.  I am not sure if the entire difference was casualties but I understood a great number starved to death.  There was an 11 year old who was in charge of taking care of 3 younger than himself.   A program from either the US or UN allowed a certain number of them to come to the United States.  The documentary tracked their progress here.  It was interesting to find that their complaint of the US after having suffered the horrific conditions I described was that the people were too closed and too cold.  Also the life style was too sterile in that one would barely be able to make contact with their best friends in need to meet the demands of the work place.  The documentary also tracked the way that when they first arrived in the US they would send almost every penny home and have money left over but after a while, car payments and phone payments started taking away their ability to have left over money.  By the end however you could see that they were indeed able to keep their reach to their home.

Seeing the documentary steeled some of my thoughts regarding immigration policy.  I am very much in favor of having more open borders even if it means a reduction in my own “quality’ of living.  It is an atrocity of humanity to live in a world where people on one side of a border are killing themselves by eating too much overly abundant food while people on another side of a border are dying for lack of the same food that is glutting the others.

I was a bit both comforted and overwhelmed when I saw how confused and powerless the refugees who came to the US felt when it came to doing something to have a positive impact with respect to the people from their home.  Even with intimate knowledge of the people and the situation they were struggling for answers.  The comfort came from the idea that I am not the only one who doesn’t know.  The overwhelmed feeling came from the idea that I do not understand how to have an impact or even how much of my own resource to apply toward the problem.  It was easy in the documentary to cheer for the people as they struggled to get a college education and build themselves up so that they would be powerful enough to help yet of course it begs the question of “What should I do”.  I have been to college and I do have an education.  I have money that exceeds my needs for survival.  I was happy that I had supported the one laptop for every child program.  I know that even an underpowered computer is plenty to light an eager mind.  I believe that education and empowerment are the ways out of poverty.  I think that places like Sudan lack education and places like the United States lack empowerment.

Even with enough “guts” to do what I am doing as I face my fears I am beginning to understand how great a barrier it is that separates the comfortable life from the mission driven and enabled life.  Even though a great part of what we spend our money on is not for core necessities the thought of parting with some of the comforts is a scary one.  With that another scary thought is the one of actually coming up short in the necessities especially medical necessities.   That is one way education really can make an impact.  A major part of what makes medical things so expensive is the amazing amount of education it requires to treat medical conditions.  As medical education expands the availability of quality medical services should also expand.

December 15, 2007

My hernia operation went well.  I am a bit concerned at how poor I have been about writing in my Journal.  Tomorrow it will be my top priority.

November 17, 2007

Today was the Turkey Bowl. I am really glad that Jerimiah came. It was a lot of fun in total we had 21 people playing at one time. The field was a little small for that many people but it was still very enjoyable and actually made it possible to stay with some of the faster guys because it was easier to set back off them a ways and then pinch them out of bounds or into other defenders. The game wound up being mostly a defensive game with a winning score of 14-7 after about 2 hours of play. My favorite part of my play was that I was able to get in front of brother Tuia an ex defensive tackle for ISU and swat away what would have been the other teams winning touch down. I think I am going to miss brother Tuia more than anyone else in the ward. He is a really neat guy.

Jerimiah got a couple of really nice stops and a sack. He played line through the whole game. The blitzing part of the game I think made it really fun because it forced the quarterback to make quick and often errant decisions. Jerimiah was glad to go the time without an overwhelming desire to smoke and I was glad to go the distance with out an injury. We did wind up wrapping one guy’s knee but it wasn’t due to anything other than running. People played a generally injury conscious game.

We had our first garage sale possibly ever today. I found my emotions interesting. I am not sure if it Lexie or myself that is driving the “get rid of everything” idea, probably Lexie but I am very much bought into the idea. I believe material possessions are like the monkey trap in which a monkey sticks their hand into a hole just big enough for their hand and then grabs a nut or other object. The monkey gets caught because they won’t let go of the object behind the hole. Our things I believe are like the objects behind the hole. We spend so much time and effort acquiring things only to spend more time and effort storing and maintaining things. With that high mindedness I was shocked to find that Lexie had sold the helmet, goggles and face mask part of my snow board package for $10. Even though I probably would have only asked $30 for them I was amazed at how much charge I got off it. I wasn’t mad at Lexie because she was doing just what I asked her to do and what we agreed that we should do. It is just that we do have emotions tied to “stuff” and I know I was feeling some of those emotions. I am not certain that this trip will be a cure for the “stuff” disease in as much as I find myself obsessed with “gearing up” for the trip. I think about how nice it would be to have bikes for everyone including the adults and that would of course necessitate a bike trailer and the list goes on and on. I think one of the things I really need to learn is to do with out. Just like the snow board thing. I was upset because I realized that I would either miss snow boarding this year or wind up renting a helmet for the same price that I just had my perfectly good helmet sold for. The reality is that while I may miss these things I will be spending February time rock climbing in Joshua Tree which I prefer 2 to 1 over snowboarding anyway.

I oscillate between terror and excitement when I think about our trip. I am sure my largest stressor is not having our house under contract while at the same time I have a semi firm “end of paycheck” day of January 31, 2008. I worry about how fast the money is going to go if I am carrying a mortgage while I am traveling. Even though I have confidence that I will be able to sell my house by May or June it will be a long time until May or June if that time goes by with out it sold and I have spent $20,000 dollars I was planning to get from proceeds of the house sale. Something I hadn’t thought of until now as a way to offset the money would be to take a 401K dispersement and take a little bit of the credit line to clear the primary mortgage such that I would only have tiny payments until I got the house sold. The thing I hate about the idea of breaking the 401K piggy bank is that I know how quickly money can be spent when I am under stress and once the bottom of the money is hit it is the true bottom if the 401K is liquidated. Another thought that just came to me is that “I wonder how far we could go on the income of renting the 310 Henry house.”. If we rent the house and were able to clear $800/month that would be enough to pay for health insurance and food. If I were able to work just a little bit I may be able to come up with the balance for gas, parking spots, vehicle maintenance and other expenses. The upside of that is we could keep our investment in the house working for us. The downside is that we would still be land lords or at the mercy of the quality of service provided by the management company we chose. An upside is that we would have a way to return to Pocatello but the downside is that when I think of what my parents went through with the Layton house I don’t want to repeat that. I also find myself attracted to the idea of breaking ties with the past and moving forward. The less the reminds us of our old life the more flexibility we will have in moving toward an improved life. Back to the “what if”s … if we used 401K money to clear the house and I worked 20 hours a week for about $2K a month I think we could live a sustainable life style on the road. That might meet my retirement goals on its own. Especially getting started I think I could get some very good work done if I only had to devote 20 hours a week to a traditional job. I don’t think I am going to get that offer from CAD but I might explore around AMIS a bit to see if it isn’t available somewhere. Then again maybe I would be better off getting away from AMIS all together. The issue is that AMIS provides one of the most efficient outlets for my training right now.

November 11, 2007

We did some announcing of our plans at church today. It seems most people are excited for us. I am getting nervous about the prospect of trying something so unknown in that it may not make any money at all. However I do believe that even if it didn't the "vision quest" part of the experience would be worth it by itself. Also it is the kind of thing that even if it doesn't make a lot of money right away it might make a little money for a long time.

I have been drafting my resignation letter over and over in my head. I find it an enjoyable thing to think about. My biggest concern is that I will lose my job before I get the house sold. I don't know what houses are selling for nor how fast they are selling in town. I have an idea in that there are a couple of houses on our street that have been for sale for a while but I think they are over priced. 

Natalyn came by and wanted to write her testimony. This is what I got from her:

My testimony is I am happy my family and I’m helping my persons get better. When my mother puts me to bed. Its started. 1

Back to my journal … I intend to price the house so that it will sell not be for sale. I remember what a stress case I was having apartments for sale. I can’t think our own house wouldn’t be a lot worse. It seems logical that we should have money from the house sufficient to last a year and maybe even two however I haven’t priced things out and I know we are discussing things the Disney Land and the Atlanta aquarium. I know our concept is really good by it is going to be really difficult not to live an entire year every day for the first couple of weeks of the trip. I don’t need to finish a book or the a computer program every time I sit down to work however I do need to finish things in order to make money. The ability to finish a started project really is the thrust of what we are doing. I have never had my own prime time to pursue a project.

As I am thinking about this it is not all the way insane to think about writing CAD scripts or utilities as projects in as much as they are something I know and have some specialized expertise in. The trouble with them is that it is hard to have something general enough and still useful.

The theme that has been coming to me lately as I am thinking about our venture is that life wasn’t intended to be easy and that just because everything doesn’t come together perfectly it does not mean that you are not following your calling correctly. Even though it is very scary I do feel guided in my decision and I feel like it is right. I just need to have the strength and the courage to follow the calling.

Grand Teton Climb

After many years of "someday I am going to climb that mountain ..." I learned the someday would come to be August 25, 2007. Lexie and I made an unsuccessful attempt two weeks earlier. We were able to make it to the lower saddle and learn the approach that far. We also learned that our current level of conditioning didn't lend itself to a single day summit.

Robert got really excited about the idea of climbing the Grand and agreed to go on an over night attempt where the first night would be spend at the lower saddle (10,700 ft.) and the summit day would happen the next day.

The scenery on the approach was fantastic. There is a 4.1 mile switch back trail to the mouth of Garnet canyon. On the way up it seems like you are very high when you get there, on the way down it seems like you are very low when you get there.

At the mouth of the canyon it becomes neccessary to traverse a bolder field to get onto the meadow trail. The traverse isn't very difficult but it is necessary to pay attention because there are a few places where the large bolders can leave 10-15 feet of exposure.

After the boulder field I started having trouble with my right knee which had caused me considerable pain on the down climb two weeks earlier. The knee pain made climbing extremly painful but I decided to go slowly and monitor the pain to make sure it didn't get any worse. Robert found a stick that made a reasonable walking stick and it helped quite a bit. I expect a set of trekking poles is going to find its way onto Santa's list in the near future...

I was originally annoyed with Rob for taking this photo but I decided that it had documentary value.

After the meadows there is a very steep set of switch backs which gains about1500 feet of elevation up to the Moraine Camp. We stopped in the Moraine Camp for lunch. I think it was about 2:00 PM so although we were not making fantastic time by any measure we were doing fine with respect to when we needed to get to the Lower Saddle camp another 1200 feet higher.

When I first saw the approach to the Lower Saddle my initial thought was "NO WAY!". It looks like a large scree slope divided in the center by a large cliff. The reason for this is that it is a large scree slope divided in the center by a large cliff. It turns out that the rock is relatively stable and there is a trail through it with a fixed rope which accends an easy chimney break in the cliff. The fixed rope remains my least favorite part of the climb but it is just easy enough to not quite justify a formal belay. The next time I climb the Grand however I am planning on camping at the Moraine Camp to avoid needed to accend the fixed rope with a full pack on (I had over 50 lbs. on for this part of the trip).

Finally getting to camp that evening was great. I was very disappointed to find my knee still very much in pain even as I walk around without a pack on.

Pumping water, setting up the tent and making dinner seemed to take up most of the evening. Rob and I were both anxious to get into the tent and get some rest for what would be an early start the next day. There were some guides in camp and talking with them we were advised that 5AM would be an optimal departure time in as much as it would afford us day light in the part of the upper saddle approach which required route finding. This turned out to be good advice.

Our camp site was next to a large boulder with a "fence" of smaller rocks around it which helped break what seemed to be a 40 mph wind. I didn't have anything to measure the wind speed with other than to know it was strong enough to knock me around a bit.

Everything above the Moraine works on a pack it in pack it out policy including fecal waste.

Sleeping on the lower saddle did not prove to be very restful. I hadn't expected it to, all the same I was very happy to see when the clock had finally crawled its way to 4:40AM. I was also very pleased to find that my knee was not giving me anywhere near as much trouble as it had the day before. We had our summit packs arranged the night before and were able to start hiking by head lamp almost immediately.

The accent to the upper saddle also looks much more difficult than it is in reality although as big as it looks it feels even bigger as you climb it. As mentioned previously the guides advice to wait a bit "later" (many groups leave a 2 and 3 AM) proved to be good advice. Even with day light we had a route finding difficulty which cost us about an hour and a half.

There was one part of the approach to the the Upper Saddle which I decided to do on belay (the chockstone chimney) but other than that it was a combination of hiking and scrambling. I didn't see anyone else belay the portion I did but I will most likely run a belay there when I do it again in as much as I am not a fan of getting too much air under me with out a rope.

We finally gained the Upper Saddle at about 9 AM. I was very glad I had brought my rock climbing shoes as much as anything to get a break from my heavy mountaineering boots. The boots had started to seriously agrivate my ankles and it was very refreshing to have the lighter foot wear on.

The rock climbing part of the teton climb really starts at the Upper Saddle. We selected the Owen Spalding route because it is the easiest route up. Robert and I both had a flash where we questioned our sanity as we looked at the route. The combination of the exposure (I believe it is about 2000 feet at the start of the route) and the wind made it quite formidable. I was able to convice us both that we would get a solid belay in, see what things looked like and if we didn't like them turn around. Unfortunaley we do not have any pictures of the climbing part in as much as we found ourselves occupied climbing.

I had expected the "belly roll" to be the most difficult mental move of the route. This is the move which actually puts you out on the cliff. I found however that I got by the move without much trouble at all. The next pitch however "the crawl" did get to me a bit. In my reading and conversations with people I had learned it was easier to do this portion by again as done in the "belly role" climbing on the outside of the cliff. When I got there however I was distressed to not find anywhere to get a good protection placement so I decided to crawl the portion much as the early accent parties had done. Crawl really is an exageration in as much as a low roof makes it only possible to kind of millipede along. The up side is that it puts the climber in a position from which it would be all but impossible to fall. Speaking of position that was the part that got to me the "crawl" put my face pointing directly to the valley floor a very very long way below me.

After getting out of the crawl I didn't notice the exposure again on the climb. The west side has a lot of very large ledges in it so there are some great spots to rest. We went up the double chimney and then proceded into the Owen chimney. The Owen chimney was my favorite part of the climb. The rock climbing was easy and there were lots of places to put protection. The view was absolutely outstanding. The Owen chimney turned out to be the most technical part of the climb. We did a pseudo running belay up and around Sargents chimney. Then after a few hundred feet more of scrambling we did what had not seemed possible. We ran out of places to go up!

Looking around from the summit was a glorious experience probably less for everything I was able to see and more for the awestruck feeling I had of where I was.

Getting off the summit was surprisingly simple. There was a reasonable trail to follow most of the way down through the ledge system. We set up a rappel at Sargents chimney because there was a good anchor there, it really streched what I would want to down climb and it offered Rob a chance to try some rappelling before he needed to do the free rappel.

I had been told by multiple sources that a 60M rope thrown left from the old rappel anchor would touch the Upper Saddle. I had fully indended on decending this way however when we got to the rappel anchor someone had a 70M rope they offered to let us use with them my practicality of seeing a touching rope soon won over my curiousity.

The rappel was a lot of fun. Backing off the view goes all the way to the valley floor and the last 60 feet of the rappel are done in open air.

Getting to the Upper Saddle was a great accomplishment in that it ended the most technical part of the climb. We didn't use a rope on the decent. Coming from the top I was more comfortable navigating the chock stone chimney.

Fortunately on the decent my knee didn't bother me nearly the way it had the day before my ankles got worse and worse again forcing a very slow pace. We did a good part of the decent by head lamp and toward the end I was all but collapsing into break stops I was so exhausted. There were a couple of times we saw eyes in the night but we didn't have a way to know if they were deer eyes or bear eyes. I was fairly certain they were bear eyes and was at one point guilty of thinking "if the bear eats me at least I won't need to finish the hike out!". At 1:45AM we finally reached the true destination of any mountain climb the PARKING LOT!.