Mt Si

Who: Mom, Dad, me
Where: Mt. Si
When: Sept 3rd or 4th (it wasn't a weekend, that's all I know).

My Mom wanted to climb Mt Si since she'd heard so much about it (I even own a hiking book titled "Beyond Mt Si"). Since it's a nice hike, just rather crowded, I relented.

The weather was near perfect, a little cool, some sun, but nothing devestating since most the hike is in the trees (both Mom and I don't fair that well in heat).

On the way up my parents questioned me as to why I enjoy climbing/hiking when sometimes it's scary/painful. (Earlier we had a conversation about crack climbing killing your feet and how it can also hurt your hands). Sure there may be some amount of 'pain' involved, sleeping in freezing tempatures without a proper sleeping bag or just being cold on a route, or whatever. But the thing is, after its done, you don't remember that part. You just remember the solitude or epic views or other more pleasureable moments. You don't remember (at least, not as much) how scared you were or how impossible the climb seemed. They didn't really understand.

We got to the top making pretty good time--Dad kept asking me 'how's the pace?' I think he had upped it a notch from his normal hiking pace. It's really hard to compare when you're behind somebody; I don't notice if it's slower than I would go.

After getting to the top, I decided to attempt to bring my parents up the haystack (a steep rocky scramble) on Mt Si. When we got to the base they looked at it slightly skeptical but kept positive tones and we made our way up; they were following wherever I led.

Soon we passed some girls coming down who claimed it was "too scary" and they had given up. This didn't instill confidence.

We went a bit farther up when we came upon the crux of the route. Suddenly it was a bit steaper than what we had been climbing before. This killed all confidence and the 'rents decided to turn back.

The problem was they didn't know how to get down. Mom was scared to move an inch. I demonstrated ways of downclimbing and how one should 'trust' their handholds and such, but Mom wasn't having any of that. She'd attempt to move her feet down, not trust her hands, and then freeze or go back up to her original position.

Fortunately, since it wasn't a weekend, the trail wasn't too crowded. At this point there was nobody else on the final haystack scramble.

After a lot of demonstations, encouragement, and directing, we got to the bottom of the scramble. I'll give them (my parents) credit, they did improve as we got lower and started downclimbing much faster.

By the time we reached the bottom my Mom claimed "see, if I had practice, I could have done it" and "if we went up again right now, I'd totally do it." Dad seemed skeptical and tried to remind Mom about the fear not 15 minutes ago, and vetoed any second chance on the haystack. Mom refused to remember any fear and claimed the scramble was now, totally do-able.

To the top or not, it was fun (everybody thought so). At this point I reminded my parents that this scramble to them was the equivalent of some rock climbing/alpine hiking that I do. Sometimes it's scary, and you have to weigh the calculated risk. But once you get down, you completely forget how scary it was moments ago, and are either excited for a second chance or make it a mission to come back and conquor [it] perhaps coming more prepared (training or equipment wise) the seoncd time.

Dad took some pictures of the view, black squirrels (we don't have those in VT) and slugs, but I don't have any of them.

A few days later I took my parents rock climbing at Stone Gardens (indoor rock gym). They had fun as Andreas and I belayed them. Mom once again claimed that if she had this practice she would have been able to 'fly' up Si. Once again Dad had a slight look of skeptisism. I had a big smile.