Okay, sorry for the delay in posts. We know we have some catching up to do and will hopefully get our JMT and Tuolumne photos up soon. For those of you who were wondering, we did indeed complete the JMT. After hitching from Mammoth Lakes to Tuolumne, we walked into the wilderness permit office at 4pm to see what they had available for the next day. While they were sold out for the following day, they did have an opening if we left then and there. Not expecting to leave so soon we did a quick gear and food sort in the parking lot and without skipping a beat were on our way to finish the last 20 or so miles into Yosemite Valley. Before reaching the valley however, we camped near Half Dome so that we could get up at 3:00 to catch the sunrise on Rosie's birthday. This experience, along with sleeping on top of Mt. Whitney, was definitely a highlight of the trail.
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| On Half Dome for sunrise on Rosie's birthday. |
From the valley we then shuttled back to Tuolumne where we met up with friends and Mazamas for a week of trail stewardship and climbing. After the first two days of trail building, eight of us took off for an overnight adventure climbing a four pitch route on Dozier Dome the first day, camping at Lower Cathedral Lake and getting an early start to climb Cathedral Peak the following day. Having to shift from backpacking mode to climbing mode, this 800' climb took a good portion of the day. However, it was a great time and it is easy to see why the route is one of the 50 classic climbs of North America.
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| Cathedral Peak from the base of the route at sunrise. |
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| Danny hard at work. |
So after four weeks of very little external stresses and demands, we returned to Portland with a week and a half to prepare to shift gears yet again. After a visit from Heather and Felipe and saying some goodbyes, our last days were mostly filled with running errands around town, (often to what felt like the same places multiple times) and taking care of the last things we needed to deal with at the house. Finding ourselves again packing for a trip we weren't quite sure how to pack for, we hoped to pack up a few days early to give time to adjust what we plan to take with us. Of course it wasn't until the night before that we finally had it all laid out. We both were still able to fit it all in one large and one small pack each. Perhaps in a separate post we can describe with more detail what we brought with us but we were both able to keep it between 40-45 lbs each.
Just as we did with the chickens back in June, the last thing we did before we left for the airport was take our car to live on a farm outside Portland (saving a bunch in insurance by getting it off the road). Seven hours later we arrived in Guatemala City where we were picked up by our hostel. Now as we cruise through the Guatemalan countryside on our way to Xela (Quetzaltenango), we finally have a chance to relax a bit and do some processing. Well, Shane processing and Rosie catching up on some precious sleep.
