Day One

Today is the first day of my thru-hike.

I've never been so excited, or so anxious, about any other undertaking.  I've been actively planning and training for a year, but I've been preparing, in some ways, since I was five and Mom and my aunts started taking me on volksmarches.  They were little organized hikes, usually in some local nature preserve, and I remember getting really excited when we did one that was five miles long, because in my mind that was a REALLY long walk.  When a dear friend in Oregon said in an offhand manner (still sounding a little impressed) that I was "a very good hiker," I gave credit to the volksmarches.  That was somewhere around mile eight of a twelve mile excursion over Glass Butte.

It had never occurred to me that I was "a good hiker."  I just knew I liked to do it, but I did notice when other people were not good hikers.

Now I'm starting a 2,185.3 mile hike through fourteen states.  Someone gasped when I told them the total length, but I reminded them, "You don't look at it like a 2,000 mile hike.  You look at tomorrow's hike of fifteen or twenty miles.  Fifteen miles is easy.  Then, the next day, you do that again."

When I started this blog, one of my earliest ideas was to somehow use it as a fundraiser for the things that matter to me.  And every time I go hiking, especially on the Appalachian Trail, I think about Mom.  I've started a Mosaic page for her with the American Cancer Society.  Donations made there are in her memory, but they all go into the same big ACS bucket.  Maybe, by the time I reach Katahdin, the page will raise a dollar for every mile I've hiked.

In January, when I was helping my brother with some home-improvement projects, I told him something that had been on my mind for a few months.  "It's not my hike," I began.  "It's not about me.  It's for Mom, who never got the chance to do it, and you and Dad, who want to but can't get out there yourselves.  It's not my hike.  I'm just the one doing all the walking."

I'm never as eloquent as I intend, but hopefully you get the idea.

Posts will continue here over the summer, with both trail updates when I get the opportunity to write them, and adventures past whose stories I've been saving for this occasion of limited internet access.  I hope you enjoy them.  I hope they inspire you to have adventures of your own, big or small, because that's the real point of this blog--I want you to get out there and have as much fun as I do.

Well... as much fun as you can stand, anyway.

Happy trails,
Reynstorm

Take the Plunge

As mentioned earlier, I planned to join the Polar Plunge as part of my Last Hurrah tour of central Oregon.  In the four years I've been here, I've swam in lots of really cold water, including Crater Lake (water and air were both around 50 degrees that day), the pool below Punchbowl Falls on Eagle Creek (where I realized that I could feel the difference between when I told my arm to move and when it actually responded), and Tamolitch Pool (on three different occasions; on the last two, I jumped from a 40 foot cliff to enter the water.  The last time was the coldest water I can remember swimming.  I'd estimate it was about forty degrees), so I figured a quick dip in the Deschutes wouldn't be a big deal, but I still felt a little nervous about it.  I give credit for that to everyone who reminded me how colossally stupid it was to seek out cold water and jump into it.

The thing is, I was right.  The Plunge was pretty simple, and even a little disappointing in its ease.  I would have happily spent more time swimming out there, but it was just a case of run in, trip and fall under water, get up, run out.  The worst part was standing in line in 28 degree weather with strong winds at our backs waiting to plunge.  Even afterward, soaking wet and looking for the friends who had my towel and dry clothes, I was more comfortable than I had been before, hopping in place to stay warm as a muscle in front of my right hip slowly tightened against the cold.

I was right for another reason, too: it's a great time, however brief it is.  I saw two Alices (of Wonderland fame), one accompanied by a Cheshire cat, Queen of Hearts, playing card person, Mad Hatter, White Rabbit, and what I assume was the Dormouse.  A family of large flowers included three generations of one family; two of those people were in their eighties.  Two women had decorated transparent umbrellas with glittering streamers, making them jellyfish (they won a costume award, and richly deserved it), and three others had transformed themselves into wine bottles (labeled Que Syrah Syrah, Chardonnay-Nay, and a third name which eludes me now, but is just as deserving of a real bottle as the others.  Seriously, winemakers: I appreciate a good sense of humor.  Just ask the nice folks at Maragas.).  Everyone waiting in line was cold, and we were all excited to be there.  I like how a community feeling can arise from such a small cluster of people who only gather for a very short amount of time.

A friend and coworker brought his son and father-in-law to watch the crazy people, and got several pictures.  Some of my favorites are below.

The Law Enforcement Team

Woody, Dora the Explorer, and one of the Alices.  I think this was the Fred Meyer Team.

Flower power!

My group was a bunch of individuals--no team affiliation, just a bunch of crazy people.

I love that when people hit the water, they laughed.  No screaming, no complaining--just lots of people having fun.  Even when we popped up out of the water, we were laughing.

The mouse on fire was one of the lifeguards.  Earlier, I saw one of them throwing rocks out of the plunge area so we wouldn't trip and smash our faces.  Thanks, guys!

Wet tech-shirt contest entrant.

Polar Plunge

As my departure date nears, I've been thinking about things I'd like to do before leaving Oregon.  Among them were annual events that I had done in the past (I will leave too early to participate in this year's Smith Rock Spring Thing, but I hope to break my own records at next month's Hope on the Slopes), hikes I still haven't taken (I'd like to summit the small, cratered butte just behind Bachelor), and rocks I still haven't scaled (my boss is convinced that we can still take a swing--unfortunate pun unintended--at climbing Monkey's Face).  There is also at least one even that, in the past, I heard of too late to take part at the time.

During the summer and fall, when I run along the Deschutes, I take advantage of its melted-snow composition to ice my shins when I finish.  It's always effective, though sometimes I have wait until the tears clear from my eyes before I can stagger back out of the water.  On February 18, I will join many other Bend residents in the Polar Plunge, jumping into the frigid mountain river in the middle of winter to raise money for Special Olympics of Central Oregon.  Since I plan to take part in another fundraiser closer to my heart next month, I won't ask anyone to contribute to both.  Instead, I will pay the full registration for each myself, and suggest the following method for your choice of donation.

If you would like to support the American Cancer Society, or reward my habit of skiing as much as possible every weekend, donate to my Hope on the Slopes campaign in March.  However, if you want to support Special Olympics, or would like to punish me for any past, current, or future transgressions, click here and make your donation.  I plan to use this site in the future to raise funds for various causes I support; consider this a beta test.