Monday, September 29, 2008

gobblers knob

Here we are 14 days out and no repeat episodes of Passing Out with no Breathing. That is lucky 7's. (7+7 = 14). If a pair of dice could have set of 7's then that is what I rolled. Thank goodness all is well on the Hopkins home front.

Speaking of 7, in the world out side my home, the number 7 is not so auspicious in its associations today. Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 777 points today. Thats a 7 % drop. Largest ever. And it was due to news on Wall Street that the party is over. Congress rejected the Bail-out Plan at 700 billion dollars (read: Shameless charity gift to an already pathetically rich set of Americans). But alas, no quick-fix hang-over drug for them. Party is over. Got pay your dues from your times in excess. ....Hey, we all must pay the piper in someway, someday. Hopefully the next "get-even-richer" scheme to come out of Washington will at least make some attempt to directly address those of us who are struggling to meet our mortgages.

OK, no more digressing into the current state of economic peril. It will fix itself. Lets get back to my personal peril, now long gone and fixed itself, I hope. Alexi has been great. All seems to be well and that Febrile Seizure thing (or whatever it was) is a thing of the past.

Feeling confident and going for the luck of the 7's, I ventured to take Alexi on a long hike yesterday. We started of the hike at the Alexander basin trail head at about 7,000 feet. Shouldering the boy in the backpack, I felt pretty strong for the first 2,000 ft. But the last 1,000 to make the summit of Gobblers Knob was steep and hard. Especially since I had 35 lbs on my back. (Alexi at 25 ish lbs and another 10 or so in water, food, and gear. Hey, double 35 and you get a lucky 70 lbs!!?).

We summited to glorious weather. Beautiful clouds accentuating the sky to earth view. The picture taking was stunning. Here we have a labmate of mine, Christian, taking a pic of his visiting beauty from Denmark, named Ea. In the background was the peak bagger extraordinare, Angella, the S.O. of my other labmate, Michael (not shown). Michael, who is a rabbid outdoor hiker, has infected Angella with peak grabbing addiction. Since she started hiking a month and a half ago, she has 16 summits underfoot. And this one was no exception, because she is standing on the tippy top, where the summit marker embeds in stone.
Allas, Alexi was less than enamored of the view. He fell asleep as we neared the summit and slept at the peak for 5-10 min while we had a snack break.
He was missing out on a great 360 view, But this was a fortunate bliss blessing for me. As we started contemplating to go, Booger woke up and became enthralled with the cliff edges around us. He could not keep himself away from my favorite winter pastime -- that of launching my meat from the lips of the cliffs, into ephemeral ease of hang-time space. It became a bit of a chore has he squirmed in my hands to be let down, only to charge right off towards the precipices surroundng us.

Wrestling him back into the backpack, we headed down towards the pass between Mt Raymond and Gobblers. Then a long traverse back to the car, with brilliant yellow aspens and ruby-orange oaks greeting us on the decent.

All in all it was a long one. 3000 ft up, and down (regrettably, no easy sliding down on skis). It took us over 5 hrs. Or in Alexi terms, 3 sets of diapers, two "ba-ba" (bottle), and half a PB&J to make the full trip. .....So me legs is a bit sore today.

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