Whirlwind Trip to Michigan

And the blog is back! We've done a decent amount of traveling over the last week or two, so I'm finally sitting down to blog about it. With any luck, I'll have two posts coming your way today.

Last weekend, Paul and I took a last-minute, very short trip back to the mitten to visit friends and family. It's kind of a blur, but we had a great time! My Dad was kind enough to let me borrow his camera for the last couple weeks, due to the untimely death of mine. Thanks Dad!

We took the redeye into town, and shortly after touching down, the whirlwind began. We stopped by my cousin Katelyn's graduation party first. I can't believe she's graduating high school... I used to dress her up in my old ballet costumes when she was only a year old!

Me and Katelyn

We then headed to Detroit for the Tigers vs. White Sox game. Paul's mom and sister (Joyce and Lauren) met up with us there as well. The Tigers ended up winning in the 10th inning, by the way. :)

Lauren, Paul, me, Mom and Joyce at Comerica Park

After the game we headed to Santino's for some drinks and food.


Sunday brunch at Kruse and Muir was in order after several drinks the night before!

In front of Kruse and Muir

On Sunday, my cousins were kind enough to throw a little BBQ at Steve and Mandy's house so we could all hang out. I had been looking forward to this forever... I really missed my cousins!!!

A warm welcome

The candy that would make its way into the pinata... yes, the pinata. What's a party without one?

Hanging out in the backyard

Steve working the grill

Mandy and N icole putting dinner together

Our family BBQ staples... pasta salad, cheesy potatoes, and oriental coleslaw. Mmm.

This pinata looks frightened... I think it knows what's coming.

Bernie dog!

Backyard baseball

The girls... Kristy, me, Mandy, Nicole and Taylor

The cousins! Taylor, me, Kristy, Nicole, Steve and Robbie

Love this one! Robbie, Nicole, Me, Steve, Kristy and Taylor

Winding down with some Grand Theft Auto

Can you tell I was missing Buckley? I coulnd't stop taking pictures of Bernie.

We headed out to Lansing on Monday to meet up with old friends and coworkers, visit campus, and of course have a Crunchy burger. I know this is totally unlike me, but I didn't get any photos. :( I think I was having too much fun.

My dad did get this one shot before we headed out

To conclude our trip, we met up with BFF Stacie and her husband Scott for lunch.


And what would a reunion with Stacie be without a shot in front of Taco Bell? This is Stacie's church. Believe it.


And of course, we had to have one Bell's Oberon while in Michigan. We did so at Tin Fish with my parents.


We headed back to Portland that night. It was great to see everyone, even though it was such a short trip. Now we need to work on getting everyone out here!! :)

Love,
Jenny

R.I.P. DSC-N2

A sad day for Jenny Mayo.

My beloved camera, Sony DSC-N2, has taken itself from this life far too early. Tragic. I feel as though my right arm has been taken from me. I'm sure it had its own reasons that I will never understand.

Oh the things you will miss, dear DSC-N2... a climb up South Sister mountain, a trip home to Michigan, and many hikes and bikes in between and long after. Now the memories will only exist in my head. Sadly, Blogger does not yet have a way for me to upload from brain to blog.

I'm afraid that at least for some time, this is certain to affect the quality of this blog. Writing without pictures??? Um... yeah, I'll have to work on that.

Please keep me in your thoughts during this difficult time.

Love,
Jenny

Defying Mt. Defiance

"The mother of all day hikes in the Columbia River Gorge."

I think that sums it up for the hike we tackled on Tuesday (and those aren't even my words, read all about it here). Paul and I, along with our new pal Ania, conquered the monster that is Mt. Defiance.

This hike took us up the Defiance trail, and then back down on the Starvation Ridge trail. It is named for an incident that occurred in 1884 when a passenger train got stuck there due to heavy snow and drifts. There was little food aboard, so passengers were paid $3 per day to dig the train out of the snow while waiting for skiers from Mt. Hood to bring food. Sounds fun eh? The trail is a 12.1 mile loop that climbs to the summit at 4,960 feet; although with all the little ups and downs in between, we climbed a total of around 5,700 hundred feet - over a vertical mile! This is roughly the same distance and elevation gain as South Sister (which we are climbing on August 1), but South Sister will be at twice the altitude. From what we hear, if we can do Defiance, we can do South Sister. So I guess we're ready!

Our trail via our GPS (full map with data here)

The trail starts out nice and easy with plenty of pretty waterfalls in the first quarter mile or so.

Cabin Creek Falls

Warren Falls, behind a giant boulder that fell from the cliffs long ago

The trail begins in earnest shortly afterward.

Hole-in-the-wall Falls

Right off the bat the trail launches you up, up, up, gaining about 3,000 feet in elevation over three miles. This might not seem like much, but trust me, it is.

Water break! One of many.

Relentless switchbacks pushed us up further and further. At each hairpin turn I secretly wished that... surprise!... we'd all of a sudden be at the summit. But it just... kept... going...

This was actually a lot steeper than the photo captured. It's true!

At about 3,000 feet or so the trail opened up for the first time and really showed us how far up we had already climbed. Holy crap we were high up.

I think this must have been around 4,000 feet or so, but in the blink of an eye the vegetation and landscape changed dramatically - much more alpine.

From dense vegetation to rocky alpine

Photo op! Thank goodness Ania takes as many photos as I do.

The gorge looking west

A wonderland of rocks and beargrass flowers

The adorable Ania. Almost to the summit and still smiling... a good sign!

When we got to the summit, I was kind of surprised to see several radio/cell towers, and a few fenced-in little buildings (I'm guessing just maintenance buildings or something) with "Danger! High Voltage" signs all over. BUT, once you walk past that, the view is breathtaking. I didn't take any photos of the towers, because well, they aren't pretty.

Mighty man the summit

Once we found a good spot to hang out at the summit, we unloaded our packs and feasted on sandwiches, bars, trail mix, bananas... and CAKE. To thank us for bringing her on the hike, Ania was kind enough to bring a homemade treat - yogurt cake with strawberries. Uh, yum. Never had yogurt cake before, but it was delicious, and the perfect summit treat.

Cake! NOM NOM NOM!

And now the obligatory series of summit shots...

Astounding view of Mt. Hood

Dirty boots

The perfect boulder for a break

Mt. Hood

More wildflowers... I think these are the Showy Penstemon again. These were swarming with bees, and I braved the bees just to take this photo. For you. Enjoy it.

Looking east... you can see Hood River down in the gorge

I am in love with this photo

You know it... you love it... it's Jenny in front of a Cascade range mountain

The girls

Here we are attempting to set our camera's self timers and jump back onto that boulder for a group shot...

Didn't quite make it on this one

Made it! But no Mt. Hood in the background. Oh well.

After a solid hour hanging out at the summit (believe me, I could have spent all day just staring), we began our descent. For a while there it was rocky. But that part was fun. :)

Coming down the mountain

A little Red Indian Paintbrush for ya

On the trail back, we passed right by Warren Lake, a gorgeous little lake set into the gorge. We stopped just to admire, but you can also camp next to the lake if you are backpacking, and even swim in it if you like.

Warren Lake

It appears to be this shallow most of the way across

I'm not sure how far down we had gone at this point (not very far I can assure you), but we caught a glimpse of the summit from which we came.

Looking back at the summit

While we have seen our fair share of bugs and slugs on the trails, we actually saw some real wildlife this time! We were trudging along when all of a sudden, a deer jumped onto the path in front of us! Not the most exciting animal of them all, but it was still beautiful. I barely got my camera out in time before she scampered off, but you can see her toward the center of this photo, just to the left of the trail.

Another gorgeous view from the trail, still very rocky at this point.

Mt. Adams

We finally made it back to a point where we could see the highway... always a welcome sight at the end of a long hike. At this point, there was roughly .6 miles left on the trail but more than 600 feet to descend. Needless to say, it got steep. Of course the hardest part of the trail had to come at the very end!

We all made it back to the car, in one piece, and in decent shape! I feel much better about South Sister now, knowing that I can go the distance. For the record, it is now Thursday and my knees, quads and joints are still not very happy with me. :)

In other news... the Mayos are coming to Michigan! It looks like we'll be visiting July 25th-28th (sans Buckley, sadly). Who wants a piece of us?? :)

Love,

Jenny