101 Things

Not a Thing: Climb Ancient Art

Hey! It’s climbing season! Well, it’s almost climbing season in Washington, which means we get excited and buy plane tickets to climb in areas of the country with more reliable weather this time of year. Like, for instance: Moab, Utah.

We had our sights set on what we have come to call Credit Card Mountain. Perhaps you’ve seen it? Incidentally I am amazed how many people believe that commercial is somehow “faked”. My mother has proposed it’s because the commercial features a woman being a badass and people cannot deal. Love you so much, Mom!

Well, it’s actually named Ancient Art, and it turns out it’s a pretty easy route. It’s also only twenty minutes from the parking lot. Let’s do it.

As we got close to the start of the route, we could see people on the summit and stopped to gawk at our future amazing selves.

THEN SOMETHING VERY SURPRISING HAPPENED.

Well, here are a bunch of pictures of me and Eric looking way less impressive. First we climbed up a non-photogenic chimney, then we got to the money pitch. Here is Eric looking particularly unimpressive, demonstrating the “jump and hump” move to start the fun. It looks clumsy but it is terrifying.

Good job, Eric! Then it was my turn. I have never met a log crossing I didn’t want to scoot across on my butt, so I was really in my element here.

It turns out there are a couple of very awkward, somewhat muscular moves to get up this pitch, and standing on the very top was the least stressful part. Here’s my view of Eric hanging out at the belay ledge with some Canadians we befriended on the way up.

And, of course, my summit shot:

And then there was a looooooong rappel back to the ground, and then a short hike back to cold beers at the car.

We stopped to wash our hands in the silty Colorado River on the drive out of the canyon. Southern Utah is an exceptionally lovely place.

We only had a day in Moab before meeting up with friends further south, so we thought we’d better visit Arches National Park, it being RIGHT THERE and all. We didn’t have a ton of time, so we decided to go see the iconic Delicate Arch. It turns out you have to hike a mile and a half to see Delicate Arch. A mile and a half! That’s three miles total! But it’s hot out and I’m tired and where’s my dinner. And that is why Delicate Arch is so small in this picture.

More Utah climbing to come!

1 month ago-

Thing #47: Sew ten new dresses

The Pacific Northwest had a brief glimpse of summer last weekend, so Emily and I went to Portland to visit friends and enjoy the seventy-eight degree daytime temperatures. Summer will be here in a mere three or four months or so! I gotta get going on this one. Here is Dress #1.

THING #47: IN PROGRESS. (1/10)

2 months ago

Thing #94: Get a physical

After hearing about how I’d run a marathon and climbed a bunch of mountains with exercise-induced asthma, my doctor said, “It’s amazing that you did all of that!” And I sort of shyly admitted that yes, I am pretty amazing, I guess. “No, no,” she said, “I mean, it’s amazing that you did all of that and thought hey, wouldn’t it be fun to keep doing it.”

It is slightly more fun now that I am armed with albuterol and corticosteroids, though.

Also I shyly admitted to my randomly assigned doctor that I don’t have a primary care physician and I think maybe that is a thing that successful adults have? And how do I go about achieving that success for myself? And she said (and I quote), “BAM. Now you’ve got one. It’s ME.” So basically I have a primary care physician and I love her.

Also my cholesterol is amazing, thank you and good night.

THING #94: DONE. (41/101)

2 months ago-

Not a Thing: Ski Silver Peak

Eric knows a lot about backcountry skiing, and I don’t really know anything about backcountry skiing, having just started skiing and all. I was pretty happy to let him take the driver’s seat when we went out, not knowing anything myself, and I wondered if that might have been part of how much I previously did not enjoy backcountry skiing. So I picked a peak I wanted to ski, and put together some maps and a plan, and told Eric he’d better be in a FUN mood.

Our route started with a ride up a chairlift. Eric got to ride it twice when we realized we’d both left our maps in the car. And then… Miles of cross-country ski trails. I tried to make them more exciting.

Get serious, we’re going uphill now.

As soon as we crossed over a ridge crest and ditched our skis to get to the summit, we found ourselves navigating a disconcertingly icy, steep slope with no crampons. In ski boots. (Eric kept reassuring me that if I fell, conditions were excellent for arresting my slide with an ice axe. I did not find this reassuring.) Anyway, I still find walking on flat sidewalks in ski boots to be an awkward affair, so we made it about a hundred feet before I decided I did not really need to summit Silver Peak after all. Let’s ski this thing! Before I get too scared to do it!

I expressed some concern about kicking off the downhill portion of our day with a steep section seeing how a) I was tired from the slog up, b) I wasn’t warmed up for skiing at all, and c) I am not good at this. Eric hopped off the ridge top, did two jump turns (i.e. things I cannot do), and yelled back, “It’s fine!” HA.Then he yelled, “You’ll be fine! You have a beard!”

Hell yeah, I have a beard.

Well. I am new at this.

Eric mentioned that he feels backcountry skiing sets you back about two years in terms of skiing ability. Seeing how two years ago I’d never so much as had skis on my feet, I guess I am doing okay.

Later there was some mild shredding.

Summitting Silver Peak is on my list of Things (part of Thing #1), but let us not remember this day for a failure to do a Thing. Silver Peak was my first time having FUN backcountry skiing, so let us remember it as a TOTAL VICTORY. Even though my boots don’t fit me very well and the last few miles out were murderous on my feet and I almost cried and we both wished aloud for whiskey. VICTORY.

3 months ago-

Not a thing: Backcountry Skiing

I started backcountry skiing at the very end of last season. I went all of once before climbing season began and promptly got out of hand.

Here was the first day of skiing this year. Do you see how close the road is? That’s how far we made it up the hill before deciding the snow conditions were so horrible we’d better sit down and drink some whiskey before “skiing” back down. (Can we even call this skiing? Eric says yes, we wore skis and were therefore skiing. Standards were pretty low in November.)

I’m not having any fun in this picture:

We spent Christmas Eve in the backcountry. I am pretty much livid in this picture:

Don’t let the sunshine fool you, I am just okay in this picture from Mt. Baker in January:

Aaaaand livid again, later in the day:

Did you know there are places where you can just SIT THERE while a CHAIR takes you UP THE MOUNTAIN? And the skiing (in my experience thus far, which is minimal) is always much better there, too? I told Eric that if our next backcountry trip didn’t go well, I was going to sell all my gear on Craigslist and be done with it. Update to come!

3 months ago-

Not a Thing: Teach Eric to knit

You know why teaching Eric to knit is not a Thing? Because I didn’t do it.

ERIC TAUGHT HIMSELF TO KNIT.

Every winter, Eric grows a beard. Every winter, I whine about the beard. Once, Eric and I were sitting on a chairlift and I whined about how cold I was. Eric said if only I had a beard to keep my face warm, I’d understand and stop giving him grief about his beard.

And then he straight up KNIT ME A BEARD.

Some or all of the following statements are possibly true:

Eric loves me so much he learned to knit to make me laugh.
Eric knows how to follow through on a joke.
Eric wishes I would shut up about his beard already.
For such funny animals, chickens sure have no sense of humor.

4 months ago

Thing #58: Can pickles

I used a fairly liberal definition of “pickles”, but I would argue — after peeling and slicing TEN POUNDS OF CARROTS — that this project was more involved than stuffing cucumbers into jars anyway. This project results in better Bloody Marys, too. Those are some serrano peppers you see in there, yessir.

THING #58: DONE. (40/101)

5 months ago-

Thing #63: Make jam from scratch

Last summer, I moved to a house with a big garden and a chicken coop and a beehive in the backyard. If ever I have pretended I was not fully aboard the hipster homesteading trendy train, I sure can’t deny it now. For I have conquered my fears of possibly poisoning my friends and family with botulin, and I am drunk on my food preservation powers.

Wine Jelly is pretty much the easiest jelly recipe I could imagine, and it tastes like a grown-up grape jelly when you put it on crackers with cream cheese. Also it is made of wine! Amazing.

Spicy Tomato Jam is only very slightly harder, and very slightly weirder. Choosing to teach myself how to make jam in December sort of limited my options in terms of available fruits, but tomato jam (from winter plum tomatoes) turned out to be weird in a delightful way, very tasty on anything you might be tempted to put ketchup on instead.

If you are into this kind of thing, you will probably want this book. (Admittedly, most of the recipes are freely available on the America’s Test Kitchen website, but the book is really beautifully put together and not very expensive at all.) Eric and I made the gravlax recipe last year, Emily and I made ginger beer, and my Christmas gift to Eric last winter was a kit I put together so he could make his own cocktail bitters. For Christmas this year, my brother gave me a kit to make my own red wine vinegar, a recipe that is in the book but not on the website, so there you go. Highly recommended.

THING #63: DONE. (39/101)

5 months ago

Thing #7: Walk to the lighthouse on Dungeness Spit

I have been to Dungeness Spit several times, because Dungeness Spit is located in the fabled “rain shadow” of the Olympic Mountains, and therefore it is a place you can get outside to shake off cabin fever during the winter when it is raining everywhere else. The downside is that every single time I have been there, it has looked a little bleak, because not raining does not mean the same as sunny and warm.

At the end of the spit, five and a half miles from the parking lot, there is a lighthouse. Every time I have been to Dungeness Spit, I have had good intentions of walking to the lighthouse. I am pretty sure I never even made it to the first half-mile marker, because you know what? Walking along a beach with unbroken scenery for four hours is not actually my idea of a good time. But last weekend I was determined and also we had alcohol and I can make my own fun, thank you.

Eric was even less enthused, perhaps because walking eleven miles on a canted surface really screws a body up. (At least only my left hip hurt the whole way out and only my right hip hurt the whole way back.) Or maybe Eric was less enthused because he knows what the sea breeze does to his hair.

Well, here we are! Add this to the list of things I have done and am glad that I did because it means I never have to do them again.

Also there was no way I was going to talk Eric into getting up and catching the early ferry for a miserable slog in the windy gloom on a winter weekend without promising some skiing. I’d found out earlier this year that Olympic National Park has a tiny ski area on Hurricane Ridge — another place I’ve been many times, though never in winter. I was charmed by the idea of rope tows, right up until it was my turn to grab on to a rope tow. But the rope tow spits you out on top of a ridge, and then things look like this:

For reasons that remain unclear, most people seemed pretty happy riding up a rope tow a couple hundred feet to ride the one sad little blue run over and over. We hopped up to the other side of the ridge and realized we could hike five minutes to a local summit to put in some turns on untracked snow, then ski all the way down to the road to hitchhike back to the rope tow. I’m not sure Eric was sold on Hurricane Ridge Ski Area, but those runs were the most fun I’ve had yet this winter.

Much more fun than hiking to that lighthouse.

THING #7: DONE. (38/101)

5 months ago

Thing #68: Learn to make the five mother sauces

So the five “mother sauces” are apparently the underpinnings of French cuisine. I’d never heard of them until Eric mentioned them, but there are five of them? Sounds like a list to me. Let’s check some things off.

Sauce Béchamel: Did you know all good mac-n-cheese recipes begin with a béchamel sauce? You can’t buy that in a box, it turns out. Bam, béchamel sauce is so easy.
Sauce Velouté: It’s basically the same as a béchamel sauce, except it uses stock instead of milk. We used it as the base for a chicken pot pie from scratch. We are killing it! These sauces are so easy!
~~Hollandaise sauce:~~ Okay, so maybe I got a little cocky jumping to the end of the list. I made my attempt in Eric’s somewhat limited kitchen, and I finally learned why recipes tell you to use a non-reactive pan. It’s because a reactive pan will turn your Hollandaise sauce green. That said, I did make a pretty good sauce! But then it finished before the rest of dinner and got cold, and when I heated it up again, I broke the emulsification. Dammit. Also we can’t count this as a success because it’s green.
Sauce Espagnole: Most of the time when these sauces are made in French cooking, there are two possible end games: a) You are making the sauce to dump on some kind of meat, or b) You are making the sauce to make it into a different sauce, which you will then dump on some kind of meat. We took the latter route, and made espagnole sauce, which we then turned into a demi-glace, which we then turned into a sauce bourguignonne. This sauce took FOUR HOURS to make, and then we dumped it on some fifteen-dollar seared lamb chops and oh god it was so good but I am never making this again.
Sauce Tomat: I know what you’re thinking. You know how to make a tomato sauce already. Of course you do. Come back and talk to me when your recipe says: STEP ONE: RENDER PORK FAT. I used sauce tomat as the base for some killer shrimp Creole.
Hollandaise sauce:

New Year’s Day brunch!
It broke when I put it on the eggs; I don’t care.

THING #68: DONE. (37/101)

5 months ago-