Backpacking and hiking thread

[markem]

When I lived in Seattle and worked for Boeing (BoeAlps), I was crazing in to mountaineering. Owned all of the "Becky's Bible" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Beckey) climbing guides and even did some free climbing with him in about 87 over by Leavenworth. Did a winter ascent of Rainier that we got turned back on and via the descent manage to break several bones in my left hand and wrist after being blown off the mountain to literally the end of my rope. Quick ice ax arrest by my climbing partner kept us from tumbling about 800 feet downslope in to Camp Muir. We later found out that the wind speed recorded at Paradise was the highest to date and that up on Disappointment Cleaver it was estimated to be close to 135 MPH when I got airborne.

Climbed most of Squamish and plenty in the Bugaboos in BC and when I moved to Oregon became a Smith Rocks rat. After I got a bone chip lodged in the ligament of a finger in 1992, I more or less hung it up. Miss those days. Miss being skinny too.